I guess Justice Alito and I agree on the issue of how you fire government officials. You vote them out of a job. Although wouldn't it be nice if they had yearly performance reviews? Like the reviews I go through? Where they would have to write about their accomplishments and their shortcomings? Then we'd all review that and give them a rating. And tell them how they can improve. In explicit detail. Yes, I think we need a performance review system for the legislative branch.
The first time I mentioned this case was here.
But Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing for the court, said the arguments embraced by Summum were not really the right way to look at the case. The core issue is not private speech in a public forum but, rather, the power of government to express itself, in this case by selecting which monuments to have in a public park, Justice Alito wrote.
“The Free Speech Clause restricts government regulation of private speech,” Justice Alito noted. “It does not regulate government speech.”
While a government entity is quite limited in its ability to regulate or restrict private speech in traditional public forums, like parks, the government entity “is entitled to say what it wishes,” Justice Alito wrote, citing earlier Supreme Court rulings. If the people do not like what their government officials say or stand for, they can vote them out of office, he wrote.
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