City of Austin v. Reagan National Advertising of Austin, LLC

Summary

The distinction between on-premises signs and off-premises signs in the City of Austin’s sign code is facially content neutral under the First Amendment.

Text

PRELIMINARY PRINT 
Volume 596 U. S. Part 1 
Pages 61–106 
OFFICIAL REPORTS 
OF 
THE SUPREME COURT 
April 21, 2022 
REBECCA A. WOMELDORF 
reporter of decisions 
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NOTICE: This preliminary print is subject to formal revision before 
the bound volume is published. Users are requested to notify the Reporter 
of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D.C. 20543, 
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OCTOBER TERM, 2021 61 
Syllabus 
CITY OF AUSTIN, TEXAS v. REAGAN NATIONAL 
ADVERTISING OF AUSTIN, LLC, et al. 
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for 
the fth circuit 
No. 20–1029. Argued November 10, 2021—Decided April 21, 2022 
Like a great many jurisdictions around the country, the City of Austin, 
Texas (City), specially regulates signs that advertise things that are not 
located on the same premises as the sign, as well as signs that direct 
people to offsite locations. See City Code § 25–10–102(1). These are 
known as off-premises signs. The City's sign code at the time of 
this dispute prohibited construction of new off-premises signs. Ibid. 
Grandfathered off-premises signs could remain in their existing loca-
tions as “nonconforming signs,” but could not be altered in ways that 
increased their nonconformity. §§ 25–10–3(10), 25–10–152(A)–(B). On-
premises signs were not similarly restricted. § 25–10–102(6). 
Respondents, Reagan National Advertising of Austin, LLC, and 
Lamar Advantage Outdoor Company, L. P., own billboards in Austin. 
When Reagan sought permits to digitize some of its billboards, the City 
denied its applications. Reagan fled suit in state court, alleging that 
the City's prohibition against digitizing off-premises signs, but not on-
premises signs, violated the First Amendment's Free Speech Clause. 
The City removed the case to federal court, and Lamar intervened. 
The District Court held that the challenged sign code provisions were 
content neutral under Reed v. Town of Gilbert, 576 U. S. 155, reviewed 
the City's on-/off-premises distinction under intermediate scrutiny, and 
found that the distinction satisfed that standard. The Court of Ap-
peals reversed. It found the on-/off-premises distinction to be facially 
content based because a government offcial had to read a sign's message 
to determine whether the sign was off-premises. The court then re-
viewed the City's on-/off-premises distinction under strict scrutiny, and 
it held that the City failed to satisfy that onerous standard. 
Held: The City's on-/off-premises distinction is facially content neutral 
under the First Amendment. Pp. 69–77. 
(a) Reed held that a regulation of speech is content based under the 
First Amendment if it “target[s] speech based on its communicative con-
tent,” i. e., if it “applies to particular speech because of the topic discussed 
or the idea or message expressed.” 576 U. S., at 163. The Court of 
Appeals' interpretation of Reed—to mean that a regulation cannot be 
content neutral if its application requires reading the sign at issue—is 
too extreme an interpretation of this Court's precedent. Pp. 69–75.

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62 CITY OF AUSTIN v. REAGAN NAT. 
ADVERTISING OF AUSTIN, LLC 
Syllabus 
(1) In Reed, the town of Gilbert, Arizona, adopted a comprehensive 
sign code that applied distinct size, placement, and time restrictions to 
23 different categories of signs, giving more favorable treatment to 
some categories (such as ideological signs or political signs) and less 
favorable treatment to others (such as temporary directional signs re-
lating to religious events, educational events, or other similar events). 
The Court rejected the contention that the restrictions were content 
neutral because they did not discriminate on the basis of particular 
viewpoints, reasoning that “a speech regulation targeted at specifc sub-
ject matter is content based even if it does not discriminate among view-
points within that subject matter.” 576 U. S., at 169. Unlike the sign 
code in Reed, the City's sign ordinances here do not single out any topic 
or subject matter for differential treatment. A sign's message matters 
only to the extent that it informs the sign's relative location. Thus, the 
City's on-/off-premises distinction is more like ordinary time, place, or 
manner restrictions, which do not require the application of strict scru-
tiny. Cf. Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U. S. 474, 482. Pp. 69–72. 
(2) This Court's precedents and doctrines have consistently recog-
nized that restrictions on speech may require some evaluation of the 
speech and nonetheless remain content neutral. Most relevant here, 
the First Amendment allows for regulations of solicitation, and speech 
must be read or heard to determine whether it entails solicitation. See 
Heffron v. International Soc. for Krishna Consciousness, Inc., 452 U. S. 
640. Moreover, the Court has previously understood distinctions be-
tween on-premises and off-premises signs to be content neutral. See 
Suffolk Outdoor Advertising Co. v. Hulse, 439 U. S. 808 (order dismiss-
ing appeal); Members of City Council of Los Angeles v. Taxpayers for 
Vincent, 466 U. S. 789. Underlying these cases and others is a rejection 
of the view that any examination of speech or expression inherently 
triggers heightened First Amendment concern. Rather, content-based 
regulations are those that discriminate based on “the topic discussed or 
the idea or message expressed.” Reed, 576 U. S., at 171. Pp. 72–74. 
(3) Reagan's counterargument relies primarily on a sentence in 
Reed recognizing that “[s]ome facial distinctions based on a message 
are obvious, defning regulated speech by particular subject matter, and 
others are more subtle, defning regulated speech by its function or pur-
pose.” 576 U. S., at 163. Reagan contends that the City's sign code 
defnes off-premises signs on the basis of function or purpose and is 
therefore content based and subject to strict scrutiny. This stretches 
Reed's “function or purpose” language too far. Reed held that subtler 
forms of content discrimination cannot escape classifcation as content 
based simply because they swap an obvious subject-matter distinction 
for a function or purpose proxy. That does not mean that any classif-
cation that considers function or purpose is always content based.

Cite as: 596 U. S. 61 (2022) 63 
Syllabus 
Reagan's reading of Reed would contravene numerous precedents and 
cast doubt on the Nation's history of regulating off-premises signs. 
Pp. 74–75. 
(b) This Court's determination that the City's on-/off-premises dis-
tinction is facially content neutral does not end the First Amendment 
inquiry. Evidence that an impermissible purpose or justifcation under-
pins a facially content-neutral restriction may mean that the restriction 
is nevertheless content based. Moreover, to survive intermediate scru-
tiny, a restriction on speech or expression must be “ `narrowly tailored 
to serve a signifcant governmental interest.' ” Ward v. Rock Against 
Racism, 491 U. S. 781, 791. Because the Court of Appeals did not ad-
dress these issues, the Court leaves them for remand and expresses no 
view on the matters. Pp. 76–77. 
972 F. 3d 696, reversed and remanded. 
Sotomayor, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, 
C. J., and Breyer, Kagan, and Kavanaugh, JJ., joined. Breyer, J., fled 
a concurring opinion, post, p. 77. Alito, J., fled an opinion concurring in 
the judgment in part and dissenting in part, post, p. 83. Thomas, J., fled 
a dissenting opinion, in which Gorsuch and Barrett, JJ., joined, post, 
p. 86. 
Michael R. Dreeben argued the cause for petitioner. 
With him on the briefs were Renea Hicks, Jeremy R. Girton, 
Anne L. Morgan, and Meghan L. Riley. 
Benjamin W. Snyder argued the cause for the United 
States as amicus curiae supporting petitioner . With him 
on the brief were Acting Solicitor General Fletcher, Acting 
Assistant Attorney General Boynton, Deputy Solicitor Gen-
eral Feigin, and Michael S. Raab. 
Kannon K. Shanmugam argued the cause for respond-
ents. With him on the brief were William T. Marks and B. 
Russell Horton.* 
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were fled for the State of Flor-
ida et al. by Ashley Moody, Attorney General of Florida, Henry C. Whi-
taker, Solicitor General, Daniel W. Bell, Chief Deputy Solicitor General, 
Kevin A. Golembiewski, Deputy Solicitor General, and David M. Costello, 
Assistant Solicitor General, by Andrew J. Bruck, Acting Attorney General 
of New Jersey, and by the Attorneys General for their respective jurisdic-
tions as follows: Leslie Rutledge of Arkansas, Rob Bonta of California, 
William Tong of Connecticut, Karl A. Racine of the District of Columbia, 
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64 CITY OF AUSTIN v. REAGAN NAT. 
ADVERTISING OF AUSTIN, LLC 
Opinion of the Court 
Justice Sotomayor delivered the opinion of the Court. 
Like thousands of jurisdictions around the country, the 
City of Austin, Texas (City), regulates signs that advertise 
things that are not located on the same premises as the sign, 
as well as signs that direct people to offsite locations. These 
are known as off-premises signs, and they include, most nota-
bly, billboards. The question presented is whether, under 
this Court's precedents interpreting the Free Speech Clause 
of the First Amendment, the City's regulation is subject to 
strict scrutiny. We hold that it is not. 
Kwame Raoul of Illinois, Thomas J. Miller of Iowa, Aaron M. Frey of 
Maine, Brian E. Frosh of Maryland, Maura Healey of Massachusetts, 
Dana Nessel of Michigan, Keith Ellison of Minnesota, Lynn Fitch of Mis-
sissippi, Aaron D. Ford of Nevada, Letitia James of New York, Dave Yost 
of Ohio, Ellen F. Rosenblum of Oregon, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, 
Jason R. Ravnsborg of South Dakota, Thomas J. Donovan, Jr., of Ver-
mont, and Robert W. Ferguson of Washington; for the American Planning 
Association by Brian J. Connolly; for the International Sign Association 
by Joseph S. Hall; for the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia 
University et al. by Scott Wilkens, Alex Abdo, and Jameel Jaffer; for the 
National League of Cities et al. by John J. Korzen and Lisa Soronen; and 
for Outfront Media Inc. by Laura W. Brill. 
Briefs of amici curiae urging affrmance were fled for the Alliance De-
fending Freedom et al. by William L. Esser IV, John J. Bursch, and Chris-
topher P . Schandevel; for the Americans for Prosperity Foundation by 
Cynthia Fleming Crawford and Casey Mattox; for the Cato Institute by 
Eugene Volokh and Ilya Shapiro; for the Institute for Free Speech by Julie 
Smith and Owen Yeates; for the Institute for Justice by Samuel B. Gedge, 
Robert McNamara, and Paul M. Sherman; for the Liberty Justice Center 
by Jeffrey M. Schwab; for the Pacifc Legal Foundation by Deborah J. La 
Fetra; for Summus Outdoor by Bruce E. H. Johnson and Caesar Kalinow-
ski IV; and for the Washington Legal Foundation by Thomas M. Johnson, 
Jr., Krystal B. Swendsboe, Cory L. Andrews, and John M. Masslon II . 
Briefs of amici curiae were fled for Land Developers et al. by Cooke 
Kelsey; for the Out of Home Advertising Association of America, Inc., 
et al. by Gordon D. Todd and Virginia A. Seitz; and for Protect the First 
Foundation by Gene C. Schaerr, Erik S. Jaffe, H. Christopher Bartolo-
mucci, Hannah C. Smith, and Kathryn E. Tarbert.

Cite as: 596 U. S. 61 (2022) 65 
Opinion of the Court 
I 
A 
American jurisdictions have regulated outdoor advertise-
ments for well over a century. See C. Taylor & W. Chang, 
The History of Outdoor Advertising Regulation in the 
United States, 15 J. of Macromarketing 47, 48 (1995). By 
some accounts, the proliferation of conspicuous patent-
medicine advertisements on rocks and barns prompted 
States to begin regulating outdoor advertising in the late 
1860s. Ibid.; F. Presbrey, The History and Development of 
Advertising 500–501 (1929). As part of this regulatory tra-
dition, federal, state, and local governments have long distin-
guished between signs (such as billboards) that promote 
ideas, products, or services located elsewhere and those that 
promote or identify things located onsite. For example, this 
Court in 1932 reviewed and approved of a Utah statute that 
prohibited signs advertising cigarettes and related products, 
but allowed businesses selling such products to post onsite 
signs identifying themselves as dealers. Packer Corp. v. 
Utah, 285 U. S. 105, 107, 110. 
On-/off-premises distinctions, like the one at issue here, 
proliferated following the enactment of the Highway Beauti-
fcation Act of 1965 (Act), 23 U. S. C. § 131. In the Act, Con-
gress directed States receiving federal highway funding to 
regulate outdoor signs in proximity to federal highways, in 
part by limiting off-premises signs. See §§ 131(b)–(c) (allow-
ing exceptions for “signs, displays, and devices advertising 
the sale or lease of property upon which they are located” 
and “signs, displays, and devices . . . advertising activities 
conducted on the property on which they are located”). 
Under the Act, approximately two-thirds of States have im-
plemented similar on-/off-premises distinctions. See App. A 
to Reply to Brief in Opposition (collecting statutes); Brief 
for State of Florida et al. as Amici Curiae 7, n. 3 (same). 
The City represents, and respondents have not disputed, 
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66 CITY OF AUSTIN v. REAGAN NAT. 
ADVERTISING OF AUSTIN, LLC 
Opinion of the Court 
that “tens of thousands of municipalities nationwide” have 
adopted analogous on-/off-premises distinctions in their sign 
codes. Brief for Petitioner 19; see also App. B to Reply to 
Brief in Opposition (collecting examples of ordinances); Brief 
for State of Florida et al. as Amici Curiae 8, n. 4 (same). 
The City of Austin is one such municipality. The City dis-
tinguishes between on-premises and off-premises signs in its 
sign code, and specially regulates the latter, in order to “pro-
tect the aesthetic value of the city and to protect public 
safety.” App. 39. 
During the time period relevant to this dispute, the City's 
sign code defned the term “off-premise sign” to mean “a sign 
advertising a business, person, activity, goods, products, or 
services not located on the site where the sign is installed, 
or that directs persons to any location not on that site.” 
Austin, Tex., City Code § 25–10–3(11) (2016). This defnition 
was materially analogous to the one used in the federal High-
way Beautifcation Act and many other state and local codes 
referenced above. The code prohibited the construction of 
any new off-premises signs, § 25–10–102(1), but allowed ex-
isting off-premises signs to remain as grandfathered “non-
conforming signs,” § 25–10–3(10). An owner of a grandfath-
ered off-premises sign could “continue or maintain [it] at its 
existing location” and could change the “face of the sign,” 
but could not “increase the degree of the existing nonconfor-
mity,” “change the method or technology used to convey a 
message,” or “increase the illumination of the sign.” §§ 25– 
10–152(A)–(B). By contrast, the code permitted the digiti-
zation of on-premises signs. § 25–10–102(6) (permitting 
“electronically controlled changeable-copy sign[s]”).
1 
B 
Respondents, Reagan National Advertising of Austin, 
LLC (Reagan), and Lamar Advantage Outdoor Company, 
1 The City subsequently amended its sign code. The parties agree that 
the amendments do not affect this dispute. Reply to Brief in Opposition 
11–12; Brief for Respondent Reagan 9.

Cite as: 596 U. S. 61 (2022) 67 
Opinion of the Court 
L. P. (Lamar), are outdoor-advertising companies that own 
billboards in Austin. In April and June of 2017, Reagan 
sought permits from the City to digitize some of its off-
premises billboards. The City denied the applications. 
Reagan fled suit against the City in state court alleging that 
the code's prohibition against digitizing off-premises signs, 
but not on-premises signs, violated the Free Speech Clause 
of the First Amendment. The City removed the case to fed-
eral court, and Lamar intervened as a plaintiff.
2 
After the parties stipulated to the pertinent facts, the Dis-
trict Court held a bench trial and entered judgment in favor 
of the City. 377 F. Supp. 3d 670, 673, 683 (WD Tex. 2019). 
As relevant, the court held that the challenged sign code 
provisions were content neutral under Reed v. Town of Gil-
bert, 576 U. S. 155 (2015). The court explained that “the on/ 
off premises distinction [did] not impose greater restrictions 
for political messages, religious messages, or any other sub-
ject matter,” and “d[id] not require a viewer to evaluate the 
topic, idea, or viewpoint on the sign”; instead, it required 
the viewer only “to determine whether the subject matter is 
located on the same property as the sign.” 377 F. Supp. 3d, 
at 681. The court therefore held that the distinction was 
a facially content-neutral “regulation based on location.” 
Ibid. The court further found “no evidence in the record” 
that the City had applied the sign code provisions “differ-
ently for different messages or speakers” or that its stated 
concern for esthetics and safety was “pretext for any other 
purpose.” Id., at 681–682. Accordingly, the court reviewed 
the City's on-/off-premises distinction under the standard of 
intermediate scrutiny applicable to content-neutral regula-
tions of speech. Id., at 682. The court found that the dis-
tinction satisfed this standard. Id., at 682–683. 
The Court of Appeals reversed. 972 F. 3d 696, 699 (CA5 
2020). The court opined that because the City's on-/off -
2 Lamar did not participate in the proceedings on the merits before this 
Court. Brief for Respondent Reagan II. 
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68 CITY OF AUSTIN v. REAGAN NAT. 
ADVERTISING OF AUSTIN, LLC 
Opinion of the Court 
premises distinction required a reader to inquire “who is the 
speaker and what is the speaker saying,” “both hallmarks of 
a content-based inquiry,” the distinction was content based. 
Id., at 706. It reasoned that “[t]he fact that a government 
offcial ha[s] to read a sign's message to determine the sign's 
purpose [i]s enough to” render a regulation content based 
and “subject [it] to strict scrutiny.” Ibid. (citing Thomas v. 
Bright, 937 F. 3d 721, 730–731 (CA6 2019)); see also 972 F. 3d, 
at 704 (“To determine whether a sign is on-premises or off-
premises, one must read the sign . . . ”). The court acknowl-
edged that its interpretation of Reed was “broad,” but rea-
soned that the consequences were “not . . . unforeseen,” 
given the concerns raised by Justices who did not join the 
opinion of the Court. 972 F. 3d, at 707. 
Because the Court of Appeals determined that the City's 
on-/off-premises distinction imposed a content-based restric-
tion on speech, it reviewed that distinction under the onerous 
standard of strict scrutiny. Recognizing that strict scrutiny 
“is, understandably, a hard standard to meet” and that it 
“leads to almost certain legal condemnation,” id., at 709, the 
court held that the City's justifcations for the distinction 
could not meet that standard, rendering it unconstitutional, 
id., at 709–710.
3 
3 The Court of Appeals further considered the possibility that the code 
provisions regulated only commercial speech, such that only intermediate 
scrutiny would apply even if the provisions were content based. 972 
F. 3d, at 707–709; see Central Hudson Gas & Elec. Corp. v. Public Serv. 
Comm'n of N. Y ., 447 U. S. 557, 566 (1980). The court rejected this view 
because the provisions “applie[d] with equal force to both commercial and 
noncommercial messages.” 972 F. 3d, at 709. Before this Court, the City 
makes a similar argument, claiming that “[a]s applied to billboards like 
those owned by respondents,” the contested code provisions regulate com-
mercial speech and so are subject to intermediate scrutiny. Brief for Peti-
tioner 49. It is undisputed, however, that Reagan's billboards also display 
noncommercial messages, meaning that the City's denial of Reagan's appli-
cations for digitization implicated Reagan's commercial and noncommercial 
speech alike. See Brief for Respondent Reagan 45–46; App. 130–141. 
More importantly, as the Court of Appeals explained, the contested code 
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Cite as: 596 U. S. 61 (2022) 69 
Opinion of the Court 
This Court granted certiorari. 594 U. S. ––– (2021). 
II 
A regulation of speech is facially content based under the 
First Amendment if it “target[s] speech based on its commu-
nicative content”—that is, if it “applies to particular speech 
because of the topic discussed or the idea or message ex-
pressed.” Reed, 576 U. S., at 163. The Court of Appeals 
interpreted Reed to mean that if “[a] reader must ask: who 
is the speaker and what is the speaker saying” to apply 
a regulation, then the regulation is automatically content 
based. 972 F. 3d, at 706. This rule, which holds that a reg-
ulation cannot be content neutral if it requires reading the 
sign at issue, is too extreme an interpretation of this Court's 
precedent. Unlike the regulations at issue in Reed, the 
City's off-premises distinction requires an examination of 
speech only in service of drawing neutral, location-based 
lines. It is agnostic as to content. Thus, absent a content-
based purpose or justifcation, the City's distinction is con-
tent neutral and does not warrant the application of strict 
scrutiny. 
A 
The Reed Court confronted a very different regulatory 
scheme than the one at issue here: a comprehensive sign code 
that “single[d] out specifc subject matter for differential 
treatment.” 576 U. S., at 169. The town of Gilbert, Ari-
zona, had adopted a code that applied distinct size, place-
ment, and time restrictions to 23 different categories of 
signs. Id., at 159. The Court focused its analysis on three 
categories defned by whether the signs displayed ideologi-
cal, political, or certain temporary directional messages. 
provisions admit of no exception for noncommercial speech. The only way 
in which they differentiate speech is by distinguishing between on-
premises and off-premises signs. The Court thus must determine which 
level of scrutiny applies to the manner in which the provisions actually 
regulate speech. 
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70 CITY OF AUSTIN v. REAGAN NAT. 
ADVERTISING OF AUSTIN, LLC 
Opinion of the Court 
The code gave the most favorable treatment to “ `Ideological 
Sign[s],' ” defned as those “ `communicating a message or 
ideas for noncommercial purposes' ” with certain exceptions. 
Id., at 159–160 (alteration in original). It offered less favor-
able treatment to “ `Political Sign[s],' ” defned as those “ `de-
signed to infuence the outcome of an election.' ” Id., at 160 
(alteration in original). Most restricted of all were “ `Tem-
porary Directional Signs Relating to a Qualifying Event,' ” 
with qualifying events defned as gatherings “ `sponsored, ar-
ranged, or promoted by a religious, charitable, community 
service, educational, or other similar non-proft organiza-
tion.' ” Id., at 160–161. 
The Reed Court determined that these restrictions were 
facially content based. Id., at 164–165. Rejecting the con-
tention that the restrictions were content neutral because 
they did not discriminate on the basis of viewpoint, the Court 
explained: “[I]t is well established that `[t]he First Amend-
ment's hostility to content-based regulation extends not only 
to restrictions on particular viewpoints, but also to prohibi-
tion of public discussion of an entire topic.' ” Id., at 169 
(quoting Consolidated Edison Co. of N. Y . v. Public Serv. 
Comm'n of N. Y ., 447 U. S. 530, 537 (1980)); accord, e. g., Po-
lice Dept. of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U. S. 92, 95 (1972) (ex-
plaining that “[t]he central problem” with a municipality's 
effort to exempt labor picketing from a prohibition on picket-
ing near public schools was “that it describes permissible 
picketing in terms of its subject matter”); Carey v. Brown, 
447 U. S. 455, 460–461 (1980) (subjecting a similar statute 
that “accord[ed] preferential treatment to the expression of 
views on one particular subject” to strict scrutiny).
4 Apply-
4 The concurrence in Reed, which spoke for three of the six Justices in 
the majority, similarly explained that “[c]ontent-based laws merit th[e] 
protection” of strict scrutiny “because they present, albeit sometimes in a 
subtler form, the same dangers as laws that regulate speech based on 
viewpoint. Limiting speech based on its `topic' or `subject' favors those 
who do not want to disturb the status quo. Such regulations may inter-
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Cite as: 596 U. S. 61 (2022) 71 
Opinion of the Court 
ing these principles, the Court reasoned that “a speech regu-
lation targeted at specifc subject matter is content based 
even if it does not discriminate among viewpoints within that 
subject matter. . . . For example, a law banning the use of 
sound trucks for political speech—and only political speech— 
would be a content-based regulation, even if it imposed no 
limits on the political viewpoints that could be expressed.” 
576 U. S., at 169. By treating ideological messages more fa-
vorably than political messages, and both more favorably 
than temporary directional messages, “[t]he Town's Sign 
Code likewise single[d] out specifc subject matter for differ-
ential treatment, even if it [did] not target viewpoints within 
that subject matter.” Ibid. 
In this case, enforcing the City's challenged sign code pro-
visions requires reading a billboard to determine whether it 
directs readers to the property on which it stands or to some 
other, offsite location. Unlike the sign code at issue in Reed, 
however, the City's provisions at issue here do not single out 
any topic or subject matter for differential treatment. A 
sign's substantive message itself is irrelevant to the applica-
tion of the provisions; there are no content-discriminatory 
classifcations for political messages, ideological messages, or 
directional messages concerning specifc events, including 
those sponsored by religious and nonproft organizations. 
Rather, the City's provisions distinguish based on location: 
A given sign is treated differently based solely on whether 
it is located on the same premises as the thing being dis-
cussed or not. The message on the sign matters only to the 
extent that it informs the sign's relative location. The on-/ 
off-premises distinction is therefore similar to ordinary time, 
place, or manner restrictions. Reed does not require the ap-
plication of strict scrutiny to this kind of location-based reg-
ulation. Cf. Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U. S. 474, 482 (1988) (sus-
fere with democratic self-government and the search for truth.” 576 
U. S., at 174 (Alito , J., concurring) (quoting Consolidated Edison Co. of 
N. Y ., 447 U. S., at 537). 
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72 CITY OF AUSTIN v. REAGAN NAT. 
ADVERTISING OF AUSTIN, LLC 
Opinion of the Court 
taining an ordinance that prohibited “only picketing focused 
on, and taking place in front of, a particular residence” as 
content neutral). 
B 
This Court's First Amendment precedents and doctrines 
have consistently recognized that restrictions on speech may 
require some evaluation of the speech and nonetheless re-
main content neutral. 
Most relevant here, the First Amendment allows for regu-
lations of solicitation—that is, speech “requesting or seeking 
to obtain something” or “[a]n attempt or effort to gain busi-
ness.” Black's Law Dictionary 1677 (11th ed. 2019). To 
identify whether speech entails solicitation, one must read or 
hear it frst. Even so, the Court has reasoned that restric-
tions on solicitation are not content based and do not inher-
ently present “the potential for becoming a means of sup-
pressing a particular point of view,” so long as they do not 
discriminate based on topic, subject matter, or viewpoint. 
Heffron v. International Soc. for Krishna Consciousness, 
Inc., 452 U. S. 640, 649 (1981). 
Thus, in 1940, the Court invalidated a statute prohibiting 
solicitation for religious causes but observed that States 
were “free to regulate the time and manner of solicitation 
generally, in the interest of public safety, peace, comfort or 
convenience.” Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 306– 
307. Decades later, the Court reviewed just such a time, 
place, and manner regulation restricting all solicitation at 
the Minnesota State Fair, as well as all sale or distribution 
of merchandise, to a specifc location. Heffron, 452 U. S., at 
643–644. The State had applied the restriction against a re-
ligious practice that included “solicit[ing] donations for the 
support of the Krishna religion.” Id., at 645. As a result, 
members of the religion were free to roam the fairgrounds 
and discuss their beliefs, but they were prohibited from ask-
ing for donations for their cause outside of a designated loca-
tion. Id., at 646, 655. The Court upheld the State's applica-
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Cite as: 596 U. S. 61 (2022) 73 
Opinion of the Court 
tion of this restriction as content neutral, emphasizing that 
it “applie[d] evenhandedly to all who wish[ed] . . . to solicit 
funds,” whether for “commercial or charitable” reasons. Id., 
at 649. 
Consistent with these precedents, the Court has pre-
viously understood distinctions between on-premises and off-
premises signs, like the one at issue in this case, to be con-
tent neutral. In 1978, the Court summarily dismissed an 
appeal “for want of a substantial federal question” where a 
state court had approved of an on-/off-premises distinction 
as a permissible time, place, and manner restriction under 
the Free Speech Clause. Suffolk Outdoor Advertising Co. 
v. Hulse, 439 U. S. 808 (1978). Three years later, the Court 
upheld in relevant part an ordinance that prohibited all off-
premises commercial advertising but allowed on-premises 
commercial advertising. Metromedia, Inc. v. San Diego , 
453 U. S. 490, 503–512 (1981) (plurality opinion).
5 The Met-
romedia Court did not need to decide whether the off-
premises prohibition was content based, as it regulated only 
commercial speech and so was subject to intermediate scru-
tiny in any event. See id., at 507–512 (citing Central Hud-
son Gas & Elec. Corp. v. Public Serv. Comm'n of N. Y ., 447 
U. S. 557 (1980)). Shortly thereafter, however, the Court 
applied the relevant portion of Metromedia and described 
the off-premises prohibition as “a content-neutral prohibi-
tion against the use of billboards.” Members of City Coun-
cil of Los Angeles v. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U. S. 789, 
807 (1984) (emphasis added). 
Underlying these cases and others is a rejection of the 
view that any examination of speech or expression inher-
ently triggers heightened First Amendment concern. 
Rather, it is regulations that discriminate based on “the 
5 Although the opinion in Metromedia was labeled a plurality for four 
Justices, the relevant portion of the opinion was also joined by a ffth. 
See 453 U. S., at 541 (Stevens, J., dissenting in part) (“join[ing] Parts I 
through IV of Justice White's opinion”). 
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Opinion of the Court 
topic discussed or the idea or message expressed” that are 
content based. Reed, 576 U. S., at 171. The sign code pro-
visions challenged here do not discriminate on those bases. 
C 
Reagan does not claim Reed expressly or implicitly over-
turned the precedents discussed above. Its argument relies 
primarily on one sentence in Reed recognizing that “[s]ome 
facial distinctions based on a message are obvious, defning 
regulated speech by particular subject matter, and others 
are more subtle, defning regulated speech by its function or 
purpose.” Id., at 163. Seizing on this reference, Reagan 
asserts that the City's sign code “defnes off-premises signs 
based on their `function or purpose.' ” Brief for Respondent 
Reagan 20 (quoting Reed, 576 U. S., at 163). It asks the 
Court to “reaffrm that, where a regulation `defne[s] regu-
lated speech by its function or purpose,' it is content-based 
on its face and thus subject to strict scrutiny.” Brief for 
Respondent Reagan 34 (quoting Reed, 576 U. S., at 163). 
The argument stretches Reed's “function or purpose” lan-
guage too far. The principle the Reed Court articulated is 
more straightforward. While overt subject-matter discrim-
ination is facially content based (for example, “ `Ideological 
Sign[s],' ” defned as those “ `communicating a message or 
ideas for noncommercial purposes' ”), so, too, are subtler 
forms of discrimination that achieve identical results based 
on function or purpose (for example, “ `Political Sign[s],' ” de-
fned as those “ `designed to infuence the outcome of an elec-
tion' ”). Id., at 159, 160, 163–164 (alterations in original). 
In other words, a regulation of speech cannot escape classif-
cation as facially content based simply by swapping an obvi-
ous subject-matter distinction for a “function or purpose” 
proxy that achieves the same result. That does not mean 
that any classifcation that considers function or purpose is 
always content based. Such a reading of “function or pur-
pose” would contravene numerous precedents, including 
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Opinion of the Court 
many of those discussed above. Reed did not purport to cast 
doubt on these cases. 
Nor did Reed cast doubt on the Nation's history of regulat-
ing off-premises signs. Off-premises billboards of the sort 
that predominate today were not present in the founding era, 
but as large outdoor advertisements proliferated in the 
1800s, regulation followed. As early as 1932, the Court 
had already approved a location-based differential for ad-
vertising signs. See Packer Corp., 285 U. S., at 107, 110. 
Thereafter, for the last 50-plus years, federal, state, and local 
jurisdictions have repeatedly relied upon on-/off-premises 
distinctions to address the distinct safety and esthetic chal-
lenges posed by billboards and other methods of outdoor ad-
vertising. See supra, at 65–66. The unbroken tradition of 
on-/off-premises distinctions counsels against the adoption of 
Reagan's novel rule. See Williams-Yulee v. Florida Bar , 
575 U. S. 433, 446 (2015) (recognizing “history and tradition 
of regulation” as relevant when considering the scope of the 
First Amendment).
6 
D 
Tellingly, even today's dissent appears reluctant to em-
brace the read-the-sign rule adopted by the court below. 
6 The Court of Appeals, for its part, understood Reed to have deemed a 
regulation content based solely because “it `single[d] out signs bearing a 
particular message: the time and location of a specifc event.' ” 972 F. 3d 
696, 706 (CA5 2020) (quoting Reed, 576 U. S., at 171). Reagan does not 
rely as heavily on this language, and for good reason. As a preliminary 
matter, the Reed Court found that the provisions at issue in that case did 
not, in fact, “hinge on `whether and when an event is occurring.' ” Id., 
at 170. More fundamentally, those provisions did not target all events 
generally, regardless of topic; they targeted “a specifc event” (an election) 
“because of the topic discussed or the idea or message expressed” (political 
speech). Id., at 171. The Court of Appeals' contrary reading would ren-
der the majority opinion in Reed irreconcilable with the concurrence, 
which recognized that “[r]ules imposing time restrictions on signs ad-
vertising a one-time event,” which “do not discriminate based on topic 
or subject,” would be content neutral. Id., at 174, 175 (Alito , J., 
concurring). 
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76 CITY OF AUSTIN v. REAGAN NAT. 
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Opinion of the Court 
Instead, the dissent attacks a straw man. Contrary to its 
accusations, we do not “nullif[y]” Reed's protections, “resus-
citat[e]” a decision that we do not cite, or fashion a novel 
“specifcity test” simply by quoting the standard repeatedly 
enunciated in Reed. Post, at 93, 96, 106 (opinion of Thomas, 
J.). Nor do we cast doubt on any of our precedents recogniz-
ing examples of topic or subject-matter discrimination as 
content based. See, e. g., post, at 94–95. We merely apply 
those precedents to reach the “commonsense” result that a 
location-based and content-agnostic on-/off-premises distinc-
tion does not, on its face, “singl[e] out specifc subject matter 
for differential treatment.” Reed, 576 U. S., at 163, 169. 
It is the dissent that would upend settled understandings 
of the law. Where we adhere to the teachings of history, 
experience, and precedent, the dissent would hold that tens 
of thousands of jurisdictions have presumptively violated the 
First Amendment, some for more than half a century, and 
that they have done so by use of an on-/off-premises distinc-
tion this Court has repeatedly reviewed and never pre-
viously questioned. For the reasons we have explained, the 
Constitution does not require that bizarre result. 
III 
This Court's determination that the City's ordinance is fa-
cially content neutral does not end the First Amendment in-
quiry. If there is evidence that an impermissible purpose or 
justifcation underpins a facially content-neutral restriction, 
for instance, that restriction may be content based. See 
Reed, 576 U. S., at 164. Moreover, to survive intermediate 
scrutiny, a restriction on speech or expression must be “ `nar-
rowly tailored to serve a signifcant governmental interest.' ” 
Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U. S. 781, 791 (1989). 
The parties dispute whether the City can satisfy these re-
quirements. This Court, however, is “a court of fnal review 
and not frst view,” and it does not “[o]rdinarily . . . decide in 
the frst instance issues not decided below.” Zivotofsky v. 
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Breyer, J., concurring 
Clinton, 566 U. S. 189, 201 (2012) (internal quotation marks 
omitted). “In particular, when we reverse on a threshold 
question, we typically remand for resolution of any claims 
the lower courts' error prevented them from addressing.” 
Ibid. Because the Court of Appeals did not address these 
issues, the Court leaves them for remand and expresses no 
view on the matters. 
* * * 
For these reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals 
for the Fifth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded 
for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 
It is so ordered. 
Justice Breyer, concurring. 
Reed v. Town of Gilbert, 576 U. S. 155 (2015), is binding 
precedent here. Given that precedent, I join the majority's 
opinion. I write separately because I continue to believe 
that the Court's reasoning in Reed was wrong. The Court 
there struck down a city's sign ordinance under the First 
Amendment. It wrote that the First Amendment requires 
strict scrutiny whenever a regulation “target[s] speech based 
on its communicative content.” Id., at 163. It therefore 
concluded that “[c]ontent-based laws . . . are presumptively 
unconstitutional and may be justifed only if the government 
proves that they are narrowly tailored to serve compelling 
state interests.” Ibid. 
But the First Amendment is not the Tax Code. Its pur-
poses are often better served when judge-made categories 
(like “content discrimination”) are treated, not as bright-line 
rules, but instead as rules of thumb. And, where strict 
scrutiny's harsh presumption of unconstitutionality is at 
issue, it is particularly important to avoid jumping to such 
presumptive conclusions without frst considering “whether 
the regulation at issue works harm to First Amendment in-
terests that is disproportionate in light of the relevant regu-
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Breyer, J., concurring 
latory objectives.” Id., at 179 (Breyer , J., concurring in 
judgment); Barr v. American Assn. of Political Consult-
ants, Inc., 591 U. S. –––, ––– – ––– (2020) (Breyer, J., concur-
ring in judgment and dissenting in part); Sorrell v. IMS 
Health Inc., 564 U. S. 552, 582 (2011) (Breyer, J., dissenting). 
Here, I would conclude that the City of Austin's (City's) regu-
lation of off-premises signs works no such disproportionate 
harm. I therefore agree with the majority's conclusion that 
strict scrutiny and its attendant presumption of unconstitu-
tionality are unwarranted. The majority reaches this con-
clusion by applying Reed's formal framework, as stare decisis 
requires. I would add that Reed's strict formalism can 
sometimes disserve the very First Amendment interests it 
was designed to protect. 
I 
The First Amendment helps to safeguard what Justice 
Holmes described as a marketplace of ideas. Abrams v. 
United States, 250 U. S. 616, 630 (1919) (dissenting opinion). 
A democratic people must be able to freely “generate, de-
bate, and discuss both general and specifc ideas, hopes, and 
experiences.” Barr, 591 U. S., at ––– (opinion of Breyer, 
J.). They “must then be able to transmit their resulting 
views and conclusions to their elected representatives, which 
they may do directly, or indirectly through the shaping of 
public opinion.” Ibid. Those representatives can respond 
by turning the people's ideas into policies. The First 
Amendment, by protecting the “marketplace” and the 
“transmission” of ideas, thereby helps to protect the basic 
workings of democracy itself. See Meyer v. Grant, 486 U. S. 
414, 421 (1988) (“The First Amendment was `fashioned to 
assure unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about 
of political and social changes desired by the people' ”). 
Courts help to protect these democratic values in part by 
strictly scrutinizing certain categories of laws that threaten 
to “ `drive certain ideas or viewpoints from the market-
place.' ” R. A. V. v. St. Paul, 505 U. S. 377, 387 (1992). We 
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Breyer, J., concurring 
have recognized, for example, that First Amendment values 
are in danger when the government imposes restrictions 
upon “ `core political speech,' ” Buckley v. American Consti-
tutional Law Foundation, Inc., 525 U. S. 182, 186–187 (1999); 
when it discriminates against “particular views taken by 
speakers on a subject,” Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors 
of Univ. of Va., 515 U. S. 819, 829–830 (1995); and, in some 
contexts, when it removes “an entire topic” of discussion 
from public debate, Consolidated Edison Co. of N. Y . v. Pub-
lic Serv. Comm'n of N. Y ., 447 U. S. 530, 537–538 (1980). 
But not all laws that distinguish between speech based on 
its content fall into a category of this kind. That is in part 
because many ordinary regulatory programs may well turn 
on the content of speech without posing any “realistic possi-
bility that offcial suppression of ideas is afoot.” R. A. V., 505 
U. S., at 390. Those regulations, rather than hindering the 
ability of the people to transmit their thoughts to their elected 
representatives, may constitute the very product of that 
transmission. Barr, 591 U. S., at ––– (opinion of Breyer, J.). 
The U. S. Code (as well as its state and local equivalents) 
is flled with regulatory laws that turn, often necessarily, on 
the content of speech. Consider laws regulating census re-
porting requirements, e. g., 13 U. S. C. § 224; securities-
related disclosures, e. g., 15 U. S. C. § 78l; copyright infringe-
ment, e. g., 17 U. S. C. § 102; labeling of prescription drugs, 
e. g., 21 U. S. C. § 353(b)(4)(A), or consumer electronics, e. g., 
42 U. S. C. § 6294; highway signs, e. g., 23 U. S. C. § 131(c); tax 
disclosures, e. g., 26 U. S. C. § 6039F; confdential medical rec-
ords, e. g., 38 U. S. C. § 7332; robocalls, e. g., 47 U. S. C. § 227; 
workplace safety warnings, e. g., 29 CFR § 1910.145 (2021); 
panhandling, e. g., Ala. Code § 13A–11–9(a) (2022); solicitation 
on behalf of charities, e. g., N. Y . Exec. Law Ann. § 174–b 
(West 2019); signs at petting zoos, e. g., N. Y . Gen. Bus. Law 
Ann. § 399–ff(3) (West 2015); and many more. 
If Reed is taken as setting forth a formal rule that courts 
must strictly scrutinize regulations simply because they 
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Breyer, J., concurring 
refer to particular content, we have good reason to fear the 
consequences of that decision. One possibility is that courts 
will strike down “ `entirely reasonable' ” regulations that re-
fect the will of the people. Reed, 576 U. S., at 171; e. g., 
Barr, 591 U. S., at ––– (striking down the Telephone Con-
sumer Protection Act's exception allowing robocalls that col-
lect government debt); IMDB.com v. Becerra, 962 F. 3d 1111, 
1125–1127 (CA9 2020) (striking down a California law prohib-
iting certain websites from publishing the birthdates of en-
tertainment professionals). If so, the Court's content-based 
line-drawing will “substitut[e] judicial for democratic deci-
sionmaking” and threaten the ability of the people to trans-
late their ideas into policy. Sorrell, 564 U. S., at 603 
(Breyer, J., dissenting). 
A second possibility is that courts instead will (perhaps 
unconsciously) dilute the stringent strict scrutiny standard 
in an effort to avoid striking down reasonable regulations. 
Doing so would “weaken the First Amendment's protection 
in instances where `strict scrutiny' should apply in full 
force.” Reed, 576 U. S., at 178 (opinion of Breyer, J.). 
A third possibility is that courts will develop a matrix of 
formal subsidiary rules and exceptions that seek to distin-
guish between reasonable and unreasonable content-based 
regulations. Such a patchwork, however, may prove overly 
complex, unwieldy, or unworkable. And it may make it 
more diffcult for ordinary Americans to understand the im-
portance of First Amendment values and to live their lives 
in accord with those values. 
For these reasons, as I have said before, I would reject 
Reed's approach, which too rigidly ties content discrimina-
tion to strict scrutiny (and, consequently, to “almost certain 
legal condemnation”). Id., at 176. Instead, I would treat 
content discrimination as a rule of thumb to be applied with 
what Justice Kagan has called “a dose of common sense.” 
Id., at 183 (opinion concurring in judgment). Where content-
based regulations are at issue, I would ask a more basic First 
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Breyer, J., concurring 
Amendment question: Does “the regulation at issue wor[k] 
harm to First Amendment interests that is disproportionate 
in light of the relevant regulatory objectives”? Id., at 179 
(opinion of Breyer, J.). I believe we should answer that 
question by examining “the seriousness of the harm to 
speech, the importance of the countervailing objectives, the 
extent to which the law will achieve those objectives, and 
whether there are other, less restrictive ways of doing so.” 
Ibid. 
II 
The regulation at issue in this case is the City of Austin's 
sign code, which regulates billboards and other “off-premises” 
signs. The City defnes an “off-premises” sign as “a sign 
advertising a business, person, activity, goods, products, or 
services not located on the site where the sign is installed, 
or that directs persons to any location not on that site.” 
Austin, Tex., City Code § 25–10–3(11) (2016). 
Some years ago, the City forbid construction of new off-
premises signs. § 25–10–102(1). At the same time, it grand-
fathered in existing off-premises signs, allowing them to 
remain but subjecting them to regulation. §§ 25–10–3(10), 
25–10–152(A), (B). Owners of grandfathered off-premises 
signs are allowed to change the face of their signs, but not 
to digitize them. Ibid. In the case before us, owners who 
wanted to digitize their off-premises signs challenged the 
City's regulation on the ground that it violates the First 
Amendment. 
The Court remands for the lower courts to assess the con-
stitutionality of this regulation in the frst instance, so I need 
not answer that question conclusively now. I wish only to 
illustrate why I believe a strong presumption of unlawful-
ness is out of place here. 
Billboards and other roadside signs can generally be cate-
gorized as a form of outdoor advertising. Regulation of out-
door advertising in order to protect the public's interest in 
“avoiding visual clutter,” Members of City Council of Los 
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Breyer, J., concurring 
Angeles v. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U. S. 789, 806 (1984), 
or minimizing traffc risks, Metromedia, Inc. v. San Diego , 
453 U. S. 490, 507–508 (1981) (plurality opinion), is unlikely 
to interfere signifcantly with the “marketplace of ideas.” 
In this case, for example, there is no evidence that the City 
regulated off-premises signs in order to censor a particular 
viewpoint or topic, or that its regulations have had that effect 
in practice. There is consequently little reason to apply a pre-
sumption of unconstitutionality to this kind of regulation. 
Without such a presumption, I would weigh the First 
Amendment harms that a regulation imposes against the 
regulatory objectives that it serves. The City's regulation 
here appears to work at most a limited, niche-like harm to 
First Amendment interests. Respondents own a number of 
grandfathered off-premises signs. They can use those signs 
to communicate whatever messages they choose. They com-
plain only that they cannot digitize the signs, which would 
allow them to display several messages in rapid succession. 
Perhaps digitization would enable them to make more effec-
tive use of their billboard space. But their inability to maxi-
mize the use of their space in this way is unlikely to meaning-
fully interfere with their participation in the “marketplace 
of ideas.” 
At the same time, the City has asserted a legitimate inter-
est in maintaining the regulation. As I have said, the public 
has an interest in ensuring traffc safety and preserving an 
esthetically pleasing environment, supra this page, and the 
City here has reasonably explained how its regulation of off-
premises signs in general, and digitization in particular, 
serves those interests. Amici tell us that billboards, espe-
cially digital ones, can distract drivers and cause accidents. 
See, e. g., Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 21 (citing 
a study of 450 crashes in Alabama and Florida that “revealed 
that the presence of digital billboards increased the overall 
crash rates in areas of billboard infuence”); Brief for Na-
tional League of Cities et al. as Amici Curiae 22 (“ `The Wis-
consin Department of Transport found a 35% increase in col-
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Opinion of Alito, J. 
lisions near a variable message sign' ” (alteration omitted)). 
They add that on-premises signs are less likely to cause acci-
dents. Id., at 23 (“[A] 2014 study found no evidence that on 
premises digital signs led to an increase in crashes”). The 
City further says that billboards cause more visual clutter 
than on-premises signs because the latter are “typically 
`small in size' and integrated into the premises.” Reply 
Brief 19. 
I would leave for the courts below to weigh these harms 
and interests, and any alternatives, in the frst instance, 
without a strong presumption of unconstitutionality. 
Justice Alito , concurring in the judgment in part and 
dissenting in part. 
I agree with the majority that we must reverse the deci-
sion of the Court of Appeals holding that the provisions of 
the Austin City Code regulating on- and off-premises signs 
are facially unconstitutional. Ante, at 69. The Court of Ap-
peals reasoned that those provisions impose content-based 
restrictions and that they cannot satisfy strict scrutiny, but 
the Court of Appeals did not apply the tests that must be 
met before a law is held to be facially unconstitutional. 
“Normally, a plaintiff bringing a facial challenge must `estab-
lish that no set of circumstances exists under which the [law] 
would be valid,' or show that the law lacks `a plainly legiti-
mate sweep.' ” Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. 
Bonta, 594 U. S. –––, ––– (2021) (citation omitted). A some-
what less demanding test applies when a law affects freedom 
of speech. Under our First Amendment “overbreadth” doc-
trine, a law restricting speech is unconstitutional “if a sub-
stantial number of its applications are unconstitutional, 
judged in relation to the statute's plainly legitimate sweep.” 
United States v. Stevens, 559 U. S. 460, 473 (2010) (internal 
quotation marks omitted). 
In this case, the Court of Appeals did not apply either of 
those tests, and it is doubtful that they can be met. Many 
(and possibly the great majority) of the situations in which 
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Opinion of Alito, J. 
the relevant provisions may apply involve commercial 
speech, and under our precedents, regulations of commercial 
speech are analyzed differently. See Sorrell v. IMS Health 
Inc., 564 U. S. 552, 571–572 (2011). 
It is also questionable whether those code provisions are 
unconstitutional as applied to most of respondents' bill-
boards. It appears that most if not all of those billboards 
are located off-premises in both the usual sense of that term,
1 
and in the sense in which the term is used in the Austin code. 
See Austin, Tex., City Code § 25–10–3(11) (2016) (a sign is 
off-premises if it “advertis[es] a business, person, activity, 
goods, products, or services not located on the site where the 
sign is installed” or if it “directs persons to any location not 
on that site”). The record contains photos of some of these 
billboards, see App. 130–147, and all but one appears to be 
located on otherwise vacant land. Thus, they are clearly off-
premises signs, and because they were erected before the 
enactment of the code provisions at issue, the only relevant 
restriction they face is that they cannot be digitized.
2 The 
distinction between a digitized and non-digitized sign is not 
based on content, topic, or subject matter. Even if the mes-
sage on a billboard were written in a secret code, an observer 
would have no trouble determining whether it had been 
digitized. 
Because the Court of Appeals erred in holding that the 
code provisions are facially unconstitutional, I agree that we 
should reverse that decision. On remand, the lower courts 
1 In ordinary usage, a sign that is attached to or located in close proxim-
ity to a building is not described as located “off-premises.” The distinc-
tion between on- and off-premises signs is based solely on location, and 
that is why such a classifcation is not content-based. See Reed v. Town 
of Gilbert, 576 U. S. 155, 175 (2015) (Alito , J., concurring). 
2 A grandfathered sign can be maintained at its existing location, but 
the owner cannot “increase the degree of the existing nonconformity,” 
“change the method or technology used to convey a message,” or “increase 
the illumination of the sign.” Austin, Tex., City Code §§ 25–10–152(A)–(B). 
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Opinion of Alito, J. 
should determine whether those provisions are unconstitu-
tional as applied to each of the billboards at issue. 
Today's decision, however, goes further and holds fatly 
that “[t]he sign code provisions challenged here do not dis-
criminate” on the basis of “ `the topic discussed or the idea 
or message expressed,' ” ante, at 73–74, and that categorical 
statement is incorrect. The provisions defning on- and off-
premises signs clearly discriminate on those grounds, and 
at least as applied in some situations, strict scrutiny should 
be required. 
As the Court notes, under the provisions in effect when 
petitioner's applications were denied, a sign was considered 
to be off-premises if it “advertis[ed],” among other things, a 
“person, activity, . . . or servic[e] not located on the site 
where the sign is installed” or if it “direct[ed] persons to any 
location not on that site.” Austin, Tex., City Code § 25–10– 
3(11). Consider what this defnition would mean as applied 
to signs posted in the front window of a commercial estab-
lishment, say, a little coffee shop. If the owner put up a sign 
advertising a new coffee drink, the sign would be classifed 
as on-premises, but suppose the owner instead mounted a 
sign in the same location saying: “Contribute to X's legal 
defense fund” or “Free COVID tests available at Y phar-
macy” or “Attend City Council meeting to speak up about Z.” 
All those signs would appear to fall within the defnition of 
an off-premises sign and would thus be disallowed. See also 
post, at 88–89 (Thomas, J., dissenting). Providing disparate 
treatment for the sign about a new drink and the signs about 
social and political matters constitutes discrimination on the 
basis of topic or subject matter. The code provisions 
adopted in 2017 are worded differently, but the new wording 
may not rule out similar results.
3 
3 The amended code now defnes “off-premise[s] sign” as “a sign that 
displays any message directing attention to a business, product, service, 
profession, commodity, activity, event, person, institution, or other com-
mercial message which is generally conducted, sold, manufactured, 
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Thomas, J., dissenting 
For these reasons, I would simply hold that the provisions 
at issue are not facially unconstitutional, and I would refrain 
from making any broader pronouncements. 
Justice Thomas, with whom Justice Gorsuch and 
Justice Barrett join, dissenting. 
In Reed v. Town of Gilbert, 576 U. S. 155 (2015), we held 
that a speech regulation is content based—and thus pre-
sumptively invalid—if it “draws distinctions based on the 
message a speaker conveys.” Id., at 163. Here, the city 
of Austin imposes special restrictions on “off-premise[s] 
sign[s],” defned as signs that “advertis[e] a business, person, 
activity, goods, products, or services not located on the site 
where the sign is installed, or that direc[t] persons to any 
location not on that site.” Austin, Tex., City Code § 25–10– 
3(11) (2016). Under Reed, Austin's off-premises restriction 
is content based. It discriminates against certain signs 
based on the message they convey—e. g., whether they pro-
mote an on- or off-site event, activity, or service. 
The Court nevertheless holds that the off-premises restric-
tion is content neutral because it proscribes a suffciently 
broad category of communicative content and, therefore, 
does not target a specifc “topic or subject matter.” Ante, at 
71. This misinterprets Reed's clear rule for content-based 
restrictions and replaces it with an incoherent and malleable 
standard. In so doing, the majority's reasoning is reminis-
cent of this Court's erroneous decision in Hill v. Colorado, 
530 U. S. 703 (2000), which upheld a blatantly content-based 
produced, offered, or occurs elsewhere than on the premises where the 
sign is located,” and defnes an “on-premise[s] sign” as “a sign that is not 
an off-premise[s] sign.” Austin, Tex., City Code §§ 25–10–4(9)–(10) (2021). 
It is not clear that the inclusion of “other commercial message” modifes 
the terms “activity,” “event,” “person,” or “institution” such that the pro-
vision would not draw topic-based distinctions as applied to noncommer-
cial speech. 
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Thomas, J., dissenting 
prohibition on “counseling” near abortion clinics on the 
ground that it discriminated against “an extremely broad 
category of communications.” Id., at 723. Because I would 
adhere to Reed rather than echo Hill's long-discredited ap-
proach, I respectfully dissent. 
I 
A 
The First Amendment, applicable to the States through 
the Fourteenth, prohibits laws “abridging the freedom of 
speech.” U. S. Const., Amdt. 1; see also Stromberg v. Cali-
fornia, 283 U. S. 359, 368 (1931). “When enforcing this pro-
hibition, our precedents distinguish between content-based 
and content-neutral regulations.” National Institute of 
Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra, 585 U. S. –––, ––– 
(2018). A content-based law is “presumptively invalid,” 
United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group, Inc., 529 
U. S. 803, 817 (2000) (internal quotation marks omitted), and 
may generally be upheld only if the government proves that 
the regulation is narrowly tailored to serve compelling state 
interests, R. A. V. v. St. Paul, 505 U. S. 377, 395 (1992).
1 
In Reed v. Town of Gilbert, we held that courts should 
identify content-based restrictions by applying a “common-
sense” test: A speech regulation is content based if it “tar-
1 For several categories of historically unprotected speech, including 
obscenity, defamation, fraud, incitement, and speech integral to criminal 
conduct, the government ordinarily may enact content-based restrictions 
without satisfying strict scrutiny. See United States v. Stevens, 559 U. S. 
460, 468–469 (2010). This Court's precedents have also declined to apply 
strict scrutiny to several other types of content-based restrictions, includ-
ing laws targeting “commercial speech.” Central Hudson Gas & Elec. 
Corp. v. Public Serv. Comm'n of N. Y ., 447 U. S. 557, 561–566 (1980). But 
see Lorillard Tobacco Co. v. Reilly, 533 U. S. 525, 572 (2001) (Thomas, J., 
concurring in part and concurring in judgment). As the Court recog-
nizes, Austin's off-premises sign rule is not limited to any of these catego-
ries of speech. See ante, at 68–69, n. 3. 
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Thomas, J., dissenting 
get[s] speech based on its communicative content.” 576 
U. S., at 163. Put another way, a law is content based “ `on 
its face' [if it] draws distinctions based on the message a 
speaker conveys.” Ibid. While we noted that “[s]ome fa-
cial distinctions based on a message are obvious,” we empha-
sized that others could be “more subtle, defning regulated 
speech by its function or purpose.” Ibid. In all events, 
whether a law is characterized as targeting a “topic,” “idea,” 
“subject matter,” or “communicative content,” the law is con-
tent based if it draws distinctions based in any way “on the 
message a speaker conveys.” Id., at 163–164.
2 
Applying this standard, we held that the town of Gilbert's 
sign code was “a paradigmatic example of content-based dis-
crimination” because it classifed “various categories of signs 
based on the type of information they convey[ed], [and] then 
subject[ed] each category to different restrictions.” Id., at 
169, 159. For instance, Gilbert defned “ `Temporary Direc-
tional Signs' ” as any sign that “convey[ed] the message of di-
recting the public to [a] `qualifying event,' ” and permitted 
their display for no more than 12 hours before and 1 hour after 
the event occurred. Id., at 164, 161. Meanwhile, “ `Ideologi-
cal Sign[s],' ” defned as any sign (not covered by another 
category) that “ `communicat[ed] a message or ideas for non-
commercial purposes,' ” were subject to no temporal limita-
tions. Id., at 159–160. In short, the restrictions on any 
given sign depended “on the communicative content of the 
2 In Reed, we acknowledged that some prior decisions had skipped over 
this facial analysis and applied a justifcation-focused test. See 576 U. S., 
at 165–167. But we explained that the justifcation-focused test impli-
cated a “separate and additional category of laws that, though facially 
content neutral, [are] content-based regulations [because they] cannot be 
` “justifed without reference to the content of the regulated speech,” ' or 
. . . were adopted by the government `because of disagreement with the 
message [the speech] conveys.' ” Id., at 164 (quoting Ward v. Rock 
Against Racism, 491 U. S. 781, 791 (1989)). All agree that this second 
type of content-based regulation is not at issue here.

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Thomas, J., dissenting 
sign.” Id., at 164. Gilbert's sign code was thus facially con-
tent based and presumptively unlawful. See id., at 159. 
In contrast to Reed's “commonsense” test, Gilbert urged 
us to defne “content based” as a “term of art that `should be 
applied fexibly' with the goal of protecting `viewpoints and 
ideas from government censorship or favoritism.' ” Id., at 
168. Such a functionalist test, Gilbert argued, could ferret 
out illicit government motives while obviating the need to 
subject reasonable laws to strict scrutiny. See ibid. We 
rejected Gilbert's attempt to cast the phrase “content based” 
as a “term of art” because “[i]nnocent motives do not elimi-
nate the danger of censorship presented by a facially 
content-based statute.” Id., at 167. We noted that “one 
could easily imagine a Sign Code compliance manager who 
disliked [a] Church's substantive teachings deploying the 
Sign Code to make it more diffcult for the Church to inform 
the public of the location of its services.” Id., at 167–168. 
Thus, we concluded that “a clear and frm rule governing 
content neutrality is an essential means of protecting the 
freedom of speech, even if laws that might seem entirely rea-
sonable will sometimes be struck down because of their 
content-based nature.” Id., at 171 (internal quotation 
marks omitted). 
We also rejected the Ninth Circuit's reasoning that Gil-
bert's sign restrictions were content neutral because they 
depended on “the content-neutral elements of . . . whether 
and when an event is occurring.” Id., at 169 (internal quota-
tion marks omitted). That is, whether a temporary direc-
tional sign was permissible depended, in part, on its tempo-
ral proximity to a “ `qualifying event.' ” Id., at 164. This 
partial dependence on content-neutral elements was immate-
rial, we explained, because the restrictions also depended on 
the signs' communicative content. Gilbert offcials still had 
to examine a sign's message to determine what type of sign 
it was, and this “obvious content-based inquiry d[id] not 
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evade strict scrutiny simply because an event [was] in-
volved.” Id., at 170. 
B 
Under Reed's approach for identifying content-based regu-
lations, Austin's off-premises sign restriction is content 
based. As relevant to this suit, Austin's sign code imposes 
stringent restrictions on a category of “off-premise[s] 
sign[s].” § 25–10–3(11). The code defines “off-premise[s] 
sign[s]” as those “advertising a business, person, activity, 
goods, products, or services not located on the site where 
the sign is installed,” or as signs “direct[ing] persons to any 
location not on that site.” Ibid. This broad defnition 
sweeps in a wide swath of signs, from 14- by 48-foot bill-
boards to 24- by 18-inch yard signs. The sign code prohibits 
new off-premises signs and makes it diffcult (or impossible) 
to change existing off-premises signs, including by digitizing 
them. See ante, at 66. 
Like the town of Gilbert in Reed, Austin has identifed a 
“categor[y] of signs based on the type of information they 
convey, [and] then subject[ed that] category to different re-
strictions.” 576 U. S., at 159. A sign that conveys a mes-
sage about off-premises activities is restricted, while one 
that conveys a message about on-premises activities is not. 
See id., at 171 (regulating signs based on “a particular mes-
sage” about “the time and location of a specifc event” is con-
tent based). And, per Reed, it does not matter that Austin's 
code “defn[es] regulated speech by its function or pur-
pose”—i. e., advertising or directing passersby elsewhere. 
Id., at 163. Again, all that matters is that the regulation 
“draws distinctions based on” a sign's “communicative con-
tent,” which the off-premises restriction plainly does. Ibid. 
This conclusion is not undermined because the off-
premises sign restriction depends in part on a content-
neutral element: the location of the sign. Much like in Reed, 
that an Austin offcial applying the sign code must know 
where the sign is does not negate the fact that he also must 
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know what the sign says. Take, for instance, a sign outside 
a Catholic bookstore. If the sign says, “Visit the Holy 
Land,” it is likely an off-premises sign because it conveys a 
message directing people elsewhere (unless the name of the 
bookstore is “Holy Land Books”). But if the sign instead 
says, “Buy More Books,” it is likely a permissible on-
premises sign (unless the sign also contains the address of 
another bookstore across town). Finally, suppose the sign 
says, “Go to Confession.” After examining the sign's mes-
sage, an offcial would need to inquire whether a priest ever 
hears confessions at that location. If one does, the sign 
could convey a permissible “on-premises” message. If not, 
the sign conveys an impermissible off-premises message. 
Because enforcing the sign code in any of these instances 
“requires [Austin] offcials to determine whether a sign” con-
veys a particular message, the sign code is content based 
under Reed. Id., at 170. 
In sum, the off-premises rule is content based and thus 
invalid unless Austin can satisfy strict scrutiny. See Play-
boy Entertainment Group, 529 U. S., at 813. Because Aus-
tin has offered nothing to make that showing, the Court of 
Appeals did not err in holding that the off-premises rule vio-
lates the First Amendment. 
II 
To reach the opposite result, the majority implicitly re-
writes Reed's bright-line rule for content-based restrictions. 
In the majority's view, the off-premises restriction is not con-
tent based because it does not target a specifc “topic or sub-
ject matter.” Ante, at 71. The upshot of the majority's 
reasoning appears to be that a regulation based on a suff-
ciently general or broad category of communicative content 
is not actually content based. 
Such a rule not only conficts with Reed and many pre-
Reed precedents but is also incoherent and unworkable. 
Tellingly, the only decision that even remotely supports the

92 CITY OF AUSTIN v. REAGAN NAT. 
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Thomas, J., dissenting 
majority's rule is one it does not cite: Hill v. Colorado. 
There, the Court held that an undeniably content-based law 
was nonetheless content neutral because it discriminated 
against “an extremely broad category of communications,” 
supposedly without regard to “subject matter.” 530 U. S., 
at 723. The majority's decision today is erroneous for the 
same reasons that Hill is an aberration in our case law. 
A 
The majority concedes that “[t]he message on the sign 
matters” when applying Austin's sign code. Ante, at 71. 
That concession should end the inquiry under Reed. But the 
majority nonetheless fnds the sign code to be content neu-
tral by recasting facially content-based restrictions as only 
those that target suffciently specifc categories of communi-
cative content and not as those that depend on communica-
tive content simpliciter. 
For example, while Reed defned content-based restric-
tions as those that “dra[w] distinctions based on the message 
a speaker conveys,” 576 U. S., at 163 (emphasis added), the 
majority decides that Austin's sign code is not content based 
because it draws no distinctions based on “[a] sign's substan-
tive message,” ante, at 71 (emphasis added). Elsewhere, the 
majority speaks not of “substantive message[s]” but of “top-
ic[s] or subject matter[s],” which the majority thinks are suf-
fciently specifc categories of communicative content. Ibid. 
As a result, the majority contends that a law targeting direc-
tional messages concerning “events generally, regardless of 
topic,” would not be content based, but one targeting “direc-
tional messages concerning specifc events” (e. g., “religious” 
or “political” events) would be. Ante, at 75, n. 6, 71 (emphasis 
added).
3 Regardless of the label, the majority today excises, 
3 On this point, the majority's analysis tracks the position advanced by 
Austin, which asserted that content neutrality was a “question of general-
ity.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 14; see also id., at 19 (explaining that whether a law 
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Thomas, J., dissenting 
without a word of explanation, a subset of supposedly non-
substantive or unspecifc messages from the First Amend-
ment's protection against content-based restrictions. 
This understanding of content-based restrictions contra-
venes Reed, which held that a law is content based if it 
“target[s] speech based on its communicative content”—not 
“specifc” or “substantive” categories of communicative con-
tent. 576 U. S., at 163; see also, e. g., Norton v. Springfeld, 
806 F. 3d 411, 412 (CA7 2015) (“Reed effectively abolishes 
any distinction between content regulation and subject-
matter regulation. Any law distinguishing one kind of 
speech from another by reference to its meaning now re-
quires a compelling justifcation”). Only by jettisoning 
Reed's “commonsense” defnition of what it means to be con-
tent based can the majority assert that the off-premises rule 
is strictly “location-based” and “agnostic as to content,” ante, 
at 69, even though the law undeniably depends on both loca-
tion and communicative content, supra, at 90–91. 
Moreover, the majority's suggestion that laws targeting 
broad categories of communicative content are not content 
based is hard to square with the sign categories that Reed 
invalidated. For instance, we found Gilbert's expansive 
defnition of “Ideological Sign[s]” to be content based even 
though it broadly covered any “sign communicating a mes-
sage or ideas for noncommercial purposes” that did not al-
ready fall into one of the other categories. 576 U. S., at 159 
(internal quotation marks omitted). Nor did we suggest 
that the outcome in Reed would have been different if the 
sign categories were defned even more generally. 
The majority answers that it is not “fashion[ing] a novel 
`specifcity test,' ” but instead “simply” “quoting the standard 
repeatedly enunciated in Reed.” Ante, at 76. The majority 
fnds this alleged specifcity test in a paragraph near the end 
is content based turns on the “level of specifcity” at which the government 
regulates speech). 
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Thomas, J., dissenting 
of Reed, where we noted that a law “targeted at specifc sub-
ject matter is content based even if it does not discriminate 
among viewpoints within that subject matter,” and then af-
frmed that Gilbert's sign code “single[d] out specifc subject 
matter for differential treatment.” 576 U. S., at 169. 
These statements never purported to endorse a specifcity 
test of the sort now suggested by the majority. Read in 
context, Reed's two references to “specifc subject matter” 
naturally address laws that target a “subject matter,” how-
ever broadly defned, as opposed to some other subject mat-
ter; they did not refer only to laws targeting some suff-
ciently “specifc” category of “subject matter.” Moreover, 
the concept of “specifcity” or “generality” appears nowhere 
in the part of Reed that set forth its “commonsense” test for 
content neutrality. See id., at 163–164. If Reed's content-
neutrality test turned on specifcity, we would have said so 
explicitly when stating the test. Finally, even crediting the 
majority's strained reading of Reed's passing references to 
“specifc subject matter,” the paragraph where they appear 
made clear that it was describing only “a paradigmatic exam-
ple of content-based discrimination.” Id., at 169 (emphasis 
added). That part of Reed never professed to announce a 
comprehensive rule with respect to all laws targeting speech 
based on its communicative content. 
Our pre-Reed precedents likewise foreclose a construction 
of “content based” that applies only to some content. We 
have held many capacious speech regulations to be content 
based, including restrictions on “ `advice or assistance de-
rived from scientifc, technical or other specialized knowl-
edge,' ” Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 561 U. S. 1, 
12–13 (2010); “ `advertising, promotion, or any activity . . . 
used to infuence sales or the market share of a prescription 
drug,' ” Sorrell v. IMS Health Inc., 564 U. S. 552, 559 (2011); 
“editorializing,” FCC v. League of Women Voters of Cal., 468 
U. S. 364, 382–383, and n. 14 (1984); “ `[publication] for phila-
telic, numismatic, educational, historical, or newsworthy pur-
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Thomas, J., dissenting 
poses,' ” Regan v. Time, Inc., 468 U. S. 641, 644 (1984); and 
“anonymous speech,” McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm'n, 
514 U. S. 334, 348, 357 (1995). These speech categories are 
no more “specifc” or “substantive” than messages regarding 
off-premises activities. And some of these examples, like 
“editorializing” or publishing “newsworthy” information, are 
clearly less so. What unites these speech restrictions is that 
their application turns “on the nature of the message being 
conveyed,” Carey v. Brown, 447 U. S. 455, 461 (1980), not 
whether they regulate specifc or general categories of speech, 
or whether they address substantive or non-substantive cat-
egories of speech. 
We have defned content-based restrictions to include all 
content-based distinctions because any other rule would be 
incoherent. After all, off-premises advertising could be con-
sidered a “subject” or a “topic” as those words are ordinarily 
used. See L. D. Management Co. v. Gray, 988 F. 3d 836, 839 
(CA6 2021) (off-premises billboard restriction “turns on the 
`topic discussed' ” (emphasis added)). And, in any event, 
there is no principled way to decide whether a category of 
communicative content is “substantive” or “specifc” enough 
for the majority to deem it a “topic” or “subject” worthy of 
heightened protection. Although off-premises advertising 
is a more general category of speech than some (e. g., off-
premises advertising of religious events), it is a more specifc 
category than others (e. g., advertising generally). The ma-
jority offers only its own ipse dixit to explain why off-
premises advertising is insuffciently specifc to qualify as 
content based under Reed. Worse still, the majority does 
not explain how courts should draw the line between a suff-
ciently substantive or specifc content-based classifcation 
and one that is insuffciently substantive or specifc. 
On this point, Austin suggests there is no need to worry 
because our cases provide “guideposts” from which one can 
divine what “level of generality” renders a speech regulation 
content based. Tr. of Oral Arg. 18, 24. To be sure, that is 
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Thomas, J., dissenting 
the sort of inquiry the majority's opaque test invites. But 
Reed directed us elsewhere—to the text of the law in ques-
tion and whether that law “ `on its face' draws distinctions 
based on the message a speaker conveys.” 576 U. S., at 163. 
The majority's holding that some rules based on content are 
not, as it turns out, content based nullifes Reed's clear test. 
B 
The majority offers several reasons why its approach is 
consistent with Reed and other cases. None of these argu-
ments is persuasive. Instead, they only serve to underscore 
the Court's ill-advised departure from our doctrine. 
1 
The majority frst suggests that deeming Austin's sign 
code content based would require us to adopt an “extreme” 
reinterpretation of Reed. Ante, at 69. Specifcally, the ma-
jority faults the Court of Appeals for concluding that Aus-
tin's regulation was content based because, to enforce the 
off-premises rule, “ `[a] reader must ask: who is the speaker 
and what is the speaker saying' ”? Ibid. (quoting 972 F. 3d 
696, 706 (CA5 2020)). In the majority's view, Reed cannot 
stand for such a simplistic read-the-sign test. 
The majority's skepticism is misplaced. We have often ac-
knowledged that the need to examine the content of a mes-
sage is a strong indicator that a speech regulation is content 
based. One year before Reed, for example, we stated that 
an abortion clinic buffer-zone law “would be content based if 
it required enforcement authorities to examine the content 
of the message that is conveyed to determine whether a vio-
lation has occurred.” McCullen v. Coakley, 573 U. S. 464, 
479 (2014) (internal quotation marks omitted). That state-
ment was not an outlier. See, e. g., Arkansas Writers' Proj-
ect, Inc. v. Ragland, 481 U. S. 221, 230 (1987) (tax exemption 
for periodicals “uniformly devoted to religion or sports” was 
content based because it required state offcials to “examine 
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Thomas, J., dissenting 
the content of the message” (internal quotation marks omit-
ted)); Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement, 505 U. S. 
123, 134 (1992) (regulation requiring parade organizers to 
pay a fee depending on the security costs anticipated for the 
event was content based because “[i]n order to assess accu-
rately the cost of security for parade participants, the admin-
istrator must necessarily examine the content of the message 
that is conveyed” (internal quotation marks omitted)); 
League of Women Voters, 468 U. S., at 366, 383 (law forbid-
ding public broadcasting stations from “engag[ing] in editori-
alizing” was content based because it required “enforcement 
authorities [to] necessarily examine the content of the mes-
sage that is conveyed” (internal quotation marks omitted)). 
Ultimately, the majority's objection to the Court of Ap-
peals' reliance on a read-the-sign test is a red herring; its 
real objection is to Reed's rule that any law that draws dis-
tinctions based on communicative content is content based. 
2 
The majority next argues that Austin's sign code is content 
neutral under our precedents. See ante, at 72–74. But 
none of the cases the majority cites supports its crabbed 
view of what constitutes a content-based restriction. 
First, in Heffron v. International Soc. for Krishna Con-
sciousness, Inc., 452 U. S. 640 (1981), the Court upheld, as 
content neutral, an ordinance providing that the “[s]ale or 
distribution of any merchandise, including printed or written 
material,” could occur only from certain booths at the fair-
grounds. Id., at 643 (internal quotation marks omitted). 
Such a statute is facially content neutral under Reed because 
it does not “ `on its face' dra[w] distinctions based on the mes-
sage a speaker conveys” when selling or distributing mer-
chandise subject to the ordinance. 576 U. S., at 163. True, 
the Court construed the ordinance also to limit “fund solicita-
tion operations,” 452 U. S., at 644, but that was not, as the 
majority claims, a prohibition on “asking for donations,” 
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ante, at 72. Rather, anyone was free to “as[k] for donations” 
wherever he liked, because the ordinance did “not prevent 
respondents from wandering throughout the fairgrounds and 
directing interested donors or purchasers to their booth.” 
452 U. S., at 664, n. 2 (Blackmun, J., concurring in part and 
dissenting in part). Then, once “at the booth,” the donor 
could “make a contribution.” Ibid. 
Second, in Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296 (1940), 
the Court invalidated a licensing system for religious and 
charitable solicitation while acknowledging in dicta that a 
State could regulate the time, place, and manner of solicita-
tion. Id., at 304, 307. But here, we are not faced with a 
true time, place, or manner restriction, as even the majority 
concedes. See ante, at 71.
4 And, in any event, Cantwell 
did not suggest that a content-based restriction could be sus-
tained as a time, place, or manner restriction; its analysis 
focused predominantly on the plaintiff's free exercise claim; 
and the case predated our modern content-neutrality doc-
trine by nearly three decades. Thus, nothing in Heffron or 
Cantwell supports the majority's narrow approach to identi-
fying content-based restrictions. 
Finally, the majority argues that we have “previously un-
derstood distinctions between on-premises and off-premises 
signs . . . to be content neutral.” Ante, at 73. To be sure, 
in both Suffolk Outdoor Adv. Co. v. Hulse, 439 U. S. 808 
(1978), and Metromedia, Inc. v. San Diego , 453 U. S. 490, 
503–512 (1981) (plurality opinion), this Court suggested that 
4 The majority says only that Austin's sign code is “similar” to a time-
place-manner restriction, citing Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U. S. 474 (1988). 
Ante, at 71–72. But Frisby upheld an ordinance that regulated only 
where picketing may take place and not what message the picketers could 
communicate. See 487 U. S., at 477 (ordinance made it “unlawful for any 
person to engage in picketing before or about the residence or dwelling of 
any individual” (internal quotation marks omitted)); cf. Hill v. Colorado, 
530 U. S. 703, 766 (2000) (Kennedy, J., dissenting) (“[n]o examination of 
the content of a speaker's message is required to determine whether an 
individual is picketing”). 
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Thomas, J., dissenting 
some restrictions on off-premises advertising were constitu-
tional. And later, in Members of City Council of Los 
Angeles v. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U. S. 789 (1984), the 
Court described Metromedia as upholding “a content-
neutral prohibition against the use of billboards.” 466 U. S., 
at 807 (emphasis added). But the statement in Vincent was 
dictum, and, as the majority concedes, both our summary 
decision in Suffolk and the plurality opinion in Metromedia 
sanctioned off-premises restrictions only insofar as they ap-
plied to commercial speech. Ante , at 73. That is, the 
“Court did not need to decide”—and did not decide— 
“whether the off-premises prohibition was content based” 
because restrictions on commercial speech are “subject to 
intermediate scrutiny in any event.” Ibid. 
3 
The majority also claims that fnding Austin's sign code 
to be content based “would render the majority opinion in 
Reed irreconcilable with” Justice Alito’s Reed concurrence. 
Ante, at 75, n. 6. In particular, Justice Alito identifed 
nine different types of sign regulations that he believed 
“would not be content based,” including “[r]ules distinguish-
ing between on-premises and off-premises signs” and “[r]ules 
imposing time restrictions on signs advertising a one-time 
event.” 576 U. S., at 174–175. The majority evidently be-
lieves that these two types of sign regulations necessarily 
turn on a sign's communicative content, like the off-premises 
sign restriction at issue here. 
That reading of the Reed concurrence makes little sense. 
First, there is no reason to interpret the concurrence as re-
ferring to off-premises or one-time-event rules that turn on 
a sign's communicative content. Doing so would make those 
two rules categorically different from the other seven, none 
of which would ever turn on message content. See, e. g., id., 
at 174 (“Rules distinguishing between lighted and unlighted 
signs”). And although off-premises and one-time-event 
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Thomas, J., dissenting 
rules could be drafted in terms of a sign's communicative 
content, as is true here, they need not be. “There might be 
many formulations of an on/off-premises distinction that are 
content-neutral.” Thomas v. Bright, 937 F. 3d 721, 733 
(CA6 2019); see also ante, at 84, n. 1 (Alito, J., concurring 
in judgment in part and dissenting in part) (explaining that 
“[i]n ordinary usage” an “off-premises” sign is one that is 
not “attached to or located in close proximity to a building”). 
For instance, a city could defne “ `an o[n]-premise[s] sign as 
any sign within 500 feet of a building,' ” 937 F. 3d, at 732, or 
a sign that is installed by “ `a business . . . licensed to occupy 
. . . the premises where the sign is located,' ” Brief for Sum-
mus Outdoor as Amicus Curiae 10. As for regulations of 
one-time-event signs, Austin itself amended its sign code, at 
the behest of its lawyers, specifcally to make its ordinance 
content neutral. See Austin, Tex., City Code § 25–10–102(D) 
(2021); App. 152. Thus, interpreting Justice Alito's con-
currence as referring to rules that turn on communicative 
content, as opposed to rules that are content neutral, is 
unwarranted. 
Second, it would be strange to interpret the concurrence 
as proclaiming that all off-premises sign restrictions are con-
tent neutral considering the longstanding dispute over that 
question. In fact, 20 years before Reed, then-Judge Alito 
opined that there was “no easy answer to [the] question” 
whether “exceptions for `for sale' signs and signs relating to 
on-site activities” would render a sign code content based. 
Rappa v. New Castle County, 18 F. 3d 1043, 1080 (CA3 1994) 
(concurring opinion); see also, e. g., Ackerly Communica-
tions of Mass., Inc. v. Cambridge, 88 F. 3d 33, 36, n. 7 (CA1 
1996) (“In `commonsense' terms, the distinction surely is 
content-based because determining whether a sign must stay 
up or must come down requires consideration of the message 
it carries”); Norton Outdoor Adv., Inc. v. Arlington Heights, 
69 Ohio St. 2d 539, 541, 433 N. E. 2d 198, 200 (1982) (“In 
prohibiting all forms of offsite billboard advertising, the ordi-
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Cite as: 596 U. S. 61 (2022) 101 
Thomas, J., dissenting 
nance is thus inescapably directed to the content of protected 
speech”). Ultimately, it seems quite unlikely that Justice 
Alito's quick recital of some content-neutral rules pur-
ported to pre-emptively decide an issue that had long per-
plexed federal and state courts. 
4 
Near the end of its analysis, the majority invokes an alleg-
edly “unbroken tradition of on-/off-premises distinctions” 
that it claims “counsels against” faithful application of Reed. 
Ante, at 75. To be sure, history and tradition are relevant 
to identifying and defning those “few limited areas” where, 
“[f]rom 1791 to the present,” “the First Amendment has per-
mitted restrictions upon the content of speech.” Brown v. 
Entertainment Merchants Assn., 564 U. S. 786, 791 (2011) 
(internal quotation marks omitted); see supra, at 87, n. 1. 
But the majority openly admits that off-premises regulations 
“were not present [at] the founding.” Ante, at 75. And 
while it asserts that “large outdoor advertisements prolifer-
ated in the 1800s,” ibid., it offers no evidence of any content-
based restrictions from that period, let alone off-premises 
restrictions on noncommercial speech. The earliest exam-
ple of an off-premises restriction that the majority cites 
arose in Packer Corp. v. Utah, 285 U. S. 105 (1932), but that 
case involved a restriction on commercial advertising and 
did not even feature a First Amendment claim. See id., at 
108–112. 
Ultimately, the majority's only “historical” support is that 
regulations like Austin's “proliferated following the enact-
ment of the Highway Beautifcation Act of 1965.” Ante, at 
65. The majority's suggestion that the First Amendment 
should yield to a speech restriction that “proliferated”— 
under pressure from the Federal Government—some two 
centuries after the founding is both “startling and danger-
ous.” United States v. Stevens, 559 U. S. 460, 470 (2010). 
This Court has never hinted that the government can, with 
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102 CITY OF AUSTIN v. REAGAN NAT. 
ADVERTISING OF AUSTIN, LLC 
Thomas, J., dissenting 
a few decades of regulation, subject “new categories of 
speech” to less exacting First Amendment scrutiny. Id., 
at 472. 
Regardless, even if this allegedly “unbroken tradition” did 
not fall short by a century or two, the majority offers no 
explanation why historical regulation is relevant to the ques-
tion whether the off-premises restriction is content based 
under Reed and our modern content-neutrality jurispru-
dence. If Austin had met its burden of identifying a histori-
cal tradition of analogous regulation—as can be done, say, 
for obscenity or defamation—that would not make the off-
premises rule content neutral. It might simply mean that 
the off-premises rule is a constitutional form of content-
based discrimination. But content neutrality under Reed is 
an empirical question, not a historical one. Thus, the major-
ity's historical argument is not only meritless but misguided. 
C 
Despite asserting that the Court of Appeals' analysis 
under Reed would “contravene numerous precedents,” ante, 
at 74, the majority identifes no decision of this Court sup-
porting the idea that a speech restriction is not content 
based so long as it regulates a suffciently broad or non-
substantive category of communicative content. In fact, 
there is only one case that could possibly validate the majori-
ty's aberrant analysis: Hill v. Colorado. That Hill is the 
majority's only support underscores the danger that today's 
decision poses to the First Amendment. 
Hill involved a law that prohibited persons outside abor-
tion clinics from knowingly approaching within eight feet of 
another person without consent “for the purpose of . . . en-
gaging in oral protest, education, or counseling.” 530 U. S., 
at 707 (internal quotation marks omitted). Hill concluded, 
implausibly, that this regulation was content neutral. 
The majority's reasoning in this case is just as implausible. 
The majority asserts that the off-premises rule is not content 
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Cite as: 596 U. S. 61 (2022) 103 
Thomas, J., dissenting 
based because it does not target a suffciently “specifc” or 
“substantive” category of communications. Ante, at 71. 
Hill correspondingly held that restrictions on “protest, edu-
cation, or counseling” were not content-based classifcations 
because they cover “an extremely broad category of commu-
nications.” 530 U. S., at 723. The majority also tries to 
disguise its redefnition of content neutrality by characteriz-
ing Austin's rule as a “neutral, location-based” restriction. 
Ante, at 69. So too did Hill try to conceal its doctrinal inno-
vation by characterizing the buffer-zone law as a neutral 
“place restriction.” 530 U. S., at 723. Finally, the majority 
fnds it immaterial that Austin's rule can be enforced only by 
“reading a [sign] to determine whether it” contains an off-
premises message. Ante, at 71. Hill likewise found it ir-
relevant that “the content of the oral statements” would 
need to “be examined to determine whether” the prohibition 
applied. 530 U. S., at 720. 
The parallel between the majority's opinion and Hill 
should be discomforting given that Hill represented “an un-
precedented departure” from this Court's First Amendment 
jurisprudence. Id., at 772 (Kennedy, J., dissenting). Its 
content-neutrality analysis was, as Justice Scalia explained, 
“absurd” given that the buffer-zone law was “obviously and 
undeniably content based.” Id., at 742–743 (dissenting opin-
ion). First Amendment scholars from across the ideological 
spectrum agree. See, e. g., M. McConnell, Professor Michael 
W. McConnell's Response, in K. Sullivan, Sex, Money, and 
Groups: Free Speech and Association Decisions in the Octo-
ber 1999 Term, 28 Pepperdine L. Rev. 723, 748 (2001) (“The 
Court said that this statute is content-neutral. I just liter-
ally cannot see how they could possibly come to that con-
clusion”); Colloquium, id., at 750 (Laurence Tribe stating 
Hill “was slam-dunk simple and slam-dunk wrong”); R. Fal-
lon, Strict Judicial Scrutiny, 54 UCLA L. Rev. 1267, 1298, 
and n. 174 (2007) (Hill “unconvincingly . . . maintain[ed] that 
a content-based restriction on speech [was] not really content-
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104 CITY OF AUSTIN v. REAGAN NAT. 
ADVERTISING OF AUSTIN, LLC 
Thomas, J., dissenting 
based”). And, since Hill, this Court has all but interred its 
fawed content-neutrality analysis in both McCullen, see 
supra, at 11, and Reed. See Price v. Chicago, 915 F. 3d 1107, 
1118 (CA7 2019) (“In the wake of McCullen and Reed, it's 
not too strong to say that what Hill explicitly rejected is 
now prevailing law”). 
The majority's refusal to acknowledge Hill simply under-
scores the decision's defunct status. Again, Hill is the only 
case that could support the majority's ill-conceived content-
neutrality analysis, and yet the majority disclaims reliance 
on it. Lower courts should take the majority's disclaimer at 
face value: Hill is “a decision that we do not cite.” Ante, at 
76. And today's decision amounts to little more than an 
ad hoc exemption for the “location-based” and supposedly 
“content-agnostic on-/off-premises distinction.” Ibid. 
Even so, the majority's approach should offer little comfort 
because arbitrary carveouts from Reed undermine the “clear 
and frm rule governing content neutrality” that we under-
stood to be “an essential means of protecting the freedom of 
speech.” 576 U. S., at 171. The majority's deviation from 
that “clear and frm rule” poses two serious threats to the 
First Amendment's protections. 
First, transforming Reed's clear defnition of “content 
based regulation” back into an opaque and malleable “term 
of art” turns the concept of content neutrality into a “vehi-
cl[e] for the implementation of individual judges' policy pref-
erences.” Tennessee v. Lane, 541 U. S. 509, 556 (2004) 
(Scalia, J., dissenting). Hill exemplifes this danger. See 
530 U. S., at 742 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (“I have no doubt that 
this regulation would be deemed content based in an instant 
if the case before us involved antiwar protesters, or union 
members seeking to `educate' the public about the reasons 
for their strike”). The majority's approach in this case is 
cut from the same cloth. As the majority transparently ad-
mits, it seeks to “apply [our] precedents to reach the `com-
monsense' result” and avoid what it perceives as a “bizarre 
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Page Proof Pending Publication
Cite as: 596 U. S. 61 (2022) 105 
Thomas, J., dissenting 
result.” Ante, at 76 (emphasis added). But Reed mandates 
a “commonsense” test for content neutrality even if the re-
sult is that “laws that might seem entirely reasonable will 
sometimes be struck down.” 576 U. S., at 163, 171 (internal 
quotation marks omitted). 
Second, sanctioning certain content-based classifcations 
but not others ignores that even seemingly reasonable 
content-based restrictions are ready tools for those who 
would “suppress disfavored speech.” Id., at 167; see also 
Hill, 530 U. S., at 743 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (“ `The vice of 
content-based legislation . . . is not that it is always used for 
invidious, thought-control purposes, but that it lends itself to 
use for those purposes' ”). This is because “the responsi-
bility for distinguishing between” permissible and impermis-
sible content “carries with it the potential for invidious 
discrimination of disfavored subjects.” Cincinnati v. Dis-
covery Network, Inc., 507 U. S. 410, 423–424, n. 19 (1993). 
That danger only grows when the content-based distinctions 
are “by no means clear,” giving more leeway for government 
offcials to punish disfavored speakers and ideas. Ibid. 
The content-based distinction drawn by Austin's off-
premises speech restriction is “by no means clear,” ibid., and 
plainly lends itself “to suppress[ing] disfavored speech,” 
Reed, 576 U. S., at 167. As the Court of Appeals noted, Aus-
tin's “prepared counsel” “struggled to answer whether” 
signs conveying messages like “ `God Loves You,' ” “ `Vote for 
Kathy,' ” or “ `Sally makes quilts here and sells them at 3200 
Main Street' ” would be regulated as off-premises signs. 
972 F. 3d, at 706. Before us, Austin's counsel had similar 
diffculties, and amici have proposed dozens of religious and 
political messages that would be next to impossible to cate-
gorize under Austin's rule. See, e. g., Brief for Alliance De-
fending Freedom et. al. as Amici Curiae 15–19; Brief for 
Institute for Justice as Amicus Curiae 3–9. These perva-
sive ambiguities offer enforcement offcials ample opportu-
nity to suppress disfavored views. And they underscore

106 CITY OF AUSTIN v. REAGAN NAT. 
ADVERTISING OF AUSTIN, LLC 
Thomas, J., dissenting 
Reed's warning that “[i]nnocent motives do not eliminate the 
danger of censorship presented by a facially content-based 
statute.” 576 U. S., at 167. 
* * * 
Because Reed provided a clear and neutral rule that pro-
tected the freedom of speech from governmental caprice and 
viewpoint discrimination, I would adhere to that precedent 
rather than risk resuscitating Hill. I respectfully dissent. 
Page Proof Pending Publication

Page Proof Pending Publication
Reporter’s Note 
The attached opinion has been revised to refect the usual publication 
and citation style of the United States Reports. The revised pagination 
makes available the offcial United States Reports citation in advance of 
publication. The syllabus has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions 
for the convenience of the reader and constitutes no part of the opinion of 
the Court. A list of counsel who argued or fled briefs in this case, and 
who were members of the bar of this Court at the time this case was 
argued, has been inserted following the syllabus. Other revisions may 
include adjustments to formatting, captions, citation form, and any errant 
punctuation. The following additional edits were made: 
None

Retrieval chunks

• #1

  PRELIMINARY PRINT Volume 596 U. S. Part 1 Pages 61–106 OFFICIAL REPORTS OF THE SUPREME COURT April 21, 2022 REBECCA A. WOMELDORF reporter of decisions Page Proof Pending Publication NOTICE: This preliminary print is subject to formal revision before the bound volume is published. Users are requested to noti…

• #2

  viewed the City's on-/off-premises distinction under strict scrutiny, and it held that the City failed to satisfy that onerous standard. Held: The City's on-/off-premises distinction is facially content neutral under the First Amendment. Pp. 69–77. (a) Reed held that a regulation of speech is content based under t…

• #3

  Heffron v. International Soc. for Krishna Consciousness, Inc., 452 U. S. 640. Moreover, the Court has previously understood distinctions be- tween on-premises and off-premises signs to be content neutral. See Suffolk Outdoor Advertising Co. v. Hulse, 439 U. S. 808 (order dismiss- ing appeal); Members of City Counc…

• #4

  Sotomayor, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Breyer, Kagan, and Kavanaugh, JJ., joined. Breyer, J., fled a concurring opinion, post, p. 77. Alito, J., fled an opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part, post, p. 83. Thomas, J., fled a dissenting opinion, in…

• #5

  sissippi, Aaron D. Ford of Nevada, Letitia James of New York, Dave Yost of Ohio, Ellen F. Rosenblum of Oregon, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Jason R. Ravnsborg of South Dakota, Thomas J. Donovan, Jr., of Ver- mont, and Robert W. Ferguson of Washington; for the American Planning Association by Brian J. Connolly; fo…

• #6

  ideas, products, or services located elsewhere and those that promote or identify things located onsite. For example, this Court in 1932 reviewed and approved of a Utah statute that prohibited signs advertising cigarettes and related products, but allowed businesses selling such products to post onsite signs iden…

• #7

  way Beautifcation Act and many other state and local codes referenced above. The code prohibited the construction of any new off-premises signs, § 25–10–102(1), but allowed ex- isting off-premises signs to remain as grandfathered “non- conforming signs,” § 25–10–3(10). An owner of a grandfath- ered off-premises s…

• #8

  a facially content-neutral “regulation based on location.” Ibid. The court further found “no evidence in the record” that the City had applied the sign code provisions “differ- ently for different messages or speakers” or that its stated concern for esthetics and safety was “pretext for any other purpose.” Id., a…

• #9

  scrutiny would apply even if the provisions were content based. 972 F. 3d, at 707–709; see Central Hudson Gas & Elec. Corp. v. Public Serv. Comm'n of N. Y ., 447 U. S. 557, 566 (1980). The court rejected this view because the provisions “applie[d] with equal force to both commercial and noncommercial messages.” 97…

• #10

  signs. Id., at 159. The Court focused its analysis on three categories defned by whether the signs displayed ideologi- cal, political, or certain temporary directional messages. provisions admit of no exception for noncommercial speech. The only way in which they differentiate speech is by distinguishing between o…

• #11

  the majority, similarly explained that “[c]ontent-based laws merit th[e] protection” of strict scrutiny “because they present, albeit sometimes in a subtler form, the same dangers as laws that regulate speech based on viewpoint. Limiting speech based on its `topic' or `subject' favors those who do not want to dist…

• #12

  fere with democratic self-government and the search for truth.” 576 U. S., at 174 (Alito , J., concurring) (quoting Consolidated Edison Co. of N. Y ., 447 U. S., at 537). Page Proof Pending Publication 72 CITY OF AUSTIN v. REAGAN NAT. ADVERTISING OF AUSTIN, LLC Opinion of the Court taining an ordinance that pro…

• #13

  it “applie[d] evenhandedly to all who wish[ed] . . . to solicit funds,” whether for “commercial or charitable” reasons. Id., at 649. Consistent with these precedents, the Court has pre- viously understood distinctions between on-premises and off- premises signs, like the one at issue in this case, to be con- ten…

• #14

  primarily on one sentence in Reed recognizing that “[s]ome facial distinctions based on a message are obvious, defning regulated speech by particular subject matter, and others are more subtle, defning regulated speech by its function or purpose.” Id., at 163. Seizing on this reference, Reagan asserts that the Ci…

• #15

  distinctions to address the distinct safety and esthetic chal- lenges posed by billboards and other methods of outdoor ad- vertising. See supra, at 65–66. The unbroken tradition of on-/off-premises distinctions counsels against the adoption of Reagan's novel rule. See Williams-Yulee v. Florida Bar , 575 U. S. 433…

• #16

  for differential treatment.” Reed, 576 U. S., at 163, 169. It is the dissent that would upend settled understandings of the law. Where we adhere to the teachings of history, experience, and precedent, the dissent would hold that tens of thousands of jurisdictions have presumptively violated the First Amendment, s…

• #17

  on its communicative content.” Id., at 163. It therefore concluded that “[c]ontent-based laws . . . are presumptively unconstitutional and may be justifed only if the government proves that they are narrowly tailored to serve compelling state interests.” Ibid. But the First Amendment is not the Tax Code. Its pur-…

• #18

  “transmission” of ideas, thereby helps to protect the basic workings of democracy itself. See Meyer v. Grant, 486 U. S. 414, 421 (1988) (“The First Amendment was `fashioned to assure unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about of political and social changes desired by the people' ”). Courts help to pr…

• #19

  workplace safety warnings, e. g., 29 CFR § 1910.145 (2021); panhandling, e. g., Ala. Code § 13A–11–9(a) (2022); solicitation on behalf of charities, e. g., N. Y . Exec. Law Ann. § 174–b (West 2019); signs at petting zoos, e. g., N. Y . Gen. Bus. Law Ann. § 399–ff(3) (West 2015); and many more. If Reed is taken as…

• #20

  what Justice Kagan has called “a dose of common sense.” Id., at 183 (opinion concurring in judgment). Where content- based regulations are at issue, I would ask a more basic First Page Proof Pending Publication Cite as: 596 U. S. 61 (2022) 81 Breyer, J., concurring Amendment question: Does “the regulation at iss…

• #21

  453 U. S. 490, 507–508 (1981) (plurality opinion), is unlikely to interfere signifcantly with the “marketplace of ideas.” In this case, for example, there is no evidence that the City regulated off-premises signs in order to censor a particular viewpoint or topic, or that its regulations have had that effect in p…

• #22

  than on-premises signs because the latter are “typically `small in size' and integrated into the premises.” Reply Brief 19. I would leave for the courts below to weigh these harms and interests, and any alternatives, in the frst instance, without a strong presumption of unconstitutionality. Justice Alito , concu…

• #23

  off-premises if it “advertis[es] a business, person, activity, goods, products, or services not located on the site where the sign is installed” or if it “directs persons to any location not on that site”). The record contains photos of some of these billboards, see App. 130–147, and all but one appears to be loc…

• #24

  “person, activity, . . . or servic[e] not located on the site where the sign is installed” or if it “direct[ed] persons to any location not on that site.” Austin, Tex., City Code § 25–10– 3(11). Consider what this defnition would mean as applied to signs posted in the front window of a commercial estab- lishment,…

• #25

  based on the message they convey—e. g., whether they pro- mote an on- or off-site event, activity, or service. The Court nevertheless holds that the off-premises restric- tion is content neutral because it proscribes a suffciently broad category of communicative content and, therefore, does not target a specifc “…

• #26

  1 For several categories of historically unprotected speech, including obscenity, defamation, fraud, incitement, and speech integral to criminal conduct, the government ordinarily may enact content-based restrictions without satisfying strict scrutiny. See United States v. Stevens, 559 U. S. 460, 468–469 (2010). T…

• #27

  tions. Id., at 159–160. In short, the restrictions on any given sign depended “on the communicative content of the 2 In Reed, we acknowledged that some prior decisions had skipped over this facial analysis and applied a justifcation-focused test. See 576 U. S., at 165–167. But we explained that the justifcation-fo…

• #28

  tion marks omitted). That is, whether a temporary direc- tional sign was permissible depended, in part, on its tempo- ral proximity to a “ `qualifying event.' ” Id., at 164. This partial dependence on content-neutral elements was immate- rial, we explained, because the restrictions also depended on the signs' com…

• #29

  neutral element: the location of the sign. Much like in Reed, that an Austin offcial applying the sign code must know where the sign is does not negate the fact that he also must Page Proof Pending Publication Page Proof Pending Publication Cite as: 596 U. S. 61 (2022) 91 Thomas, J., dissenting know what the si…

• #30

  was nonetheless content neutral because it discriminated against “an extremely broad category of communications,” supposedly without regard to “subject matter.” 530 U. S., at 723. The majority's decision today is erroneous for the same reasons that Hill is an aberration in our case law. A The majority concedes t…

• #31

  806 F. 3d 411, 412 (CA7 2015) (“Reed effectively abolishes any distinction between content regulation and subject- matter regulation. Any law distinguishing one kind of speech from another by reference to its meaning now re- quires a compelling justifcation”). Only by jettisoning Reed's “commonsense” defnition of…

• #32

  in the part of Reed that set forth its “commonsense” test for content neutrality. See id., at 163–164. If Reed's content- neutrality test turned on specifcity, we would have said so explicitly when stating the test. Finally, even crediting the majority's strained reading of Reed's passing references to “specifc s…

• #33

  (CA6 2021) (off-premises billboard restriction “turns on the `topic discussed' ” (emphasis added)). And, in any event, there is no principled way to decide whether a category of communicative content is “substantive” or “specifc” enough for the majority to deem it a “topic” or “subject” worthy of heightened prote…

• #34

  knowledged that the need to examine the content of a mes- sage is a strong indicator that a speech regulation is content based. One year before Reed, for example, we stated that an abortion clinic buffer-zone law “would be content based if it required enforcement authorities to examine the content of the message …

• #35

  Such a statute is facially content neutral under Reed because it does not “ `on its face' dra[w] distinctions based on the mes- sage a speaker conveys” when selling or distributing mer- chandise subject to the ordinance. 576 U. S., at 163. True, the Court construed the ordinance also to limit “fund solicita- tion…

• #36

  communicate. See 487 U. S., at 477 (ordinance made it “unlawful for any person to engage in picketing before or about the residence or dwelling of any individual” (internal quotation marks omitted)); cf. Hill v. Colorado, 530 U. S. 703, 766 (2000) (Kennedy, J., dissenting) (“[n]o examination of the content of a sp…

• #37

  Page Proof Pending Publication 100 CITY OF AUSTIN v. REAGAN NAT. ADVERTISING OF AUSTIN, LLC Thomas, J., dissenting rules could be drafted in terms of a sign's communicative content, as is true here, they need not be. “There might be many formulations of an on/off-premises distinction that are content-neutral.” …

• #38

  Alito's quick recital of some content-neutral rules pur- ported to pre-emptively decide an issue that had long per- plexed federal and state courts. 4 Near the end of its analysis, the majority invokes an alleg- edly “unbroken tradition of on-/off-premises distinctions” that it claims “counsels against” faithful…

• #39

  cal tradition of analogous regulation—as can be done, say, for obscenity or defamation—that would not make the off- premises rule content neutral. It might simply mean that the off-premises rule is a constitutional form of content- based discrimination. But content neutrality under Reed is an empirical question, …

• #40

  need to “be examined to determine whether” the prohibition applied. 530 U. S., at 720. The parallel between the majority's opinion and Hill should be discomforting given that Hill represented “an un- precedented departure” from this Court's First Amendment jurisprudence. Id., at 772 (Kennedy, J., dissenting). Its…

• #41

  speech.” 576 U. S., at 171. The majority's deviation from that “clear and frm rule” poses two serious threats to the First Amendment's protections. First, transforming Reed's clear defnition of “content based regulation” back into an opaque and malleable “term of art” turns the concept of content neutrality into …

• #42

  Reed, 576 U. S., at 167. As the Court of Appeals noted, Aus- tin's “prepared counsel” “struggled to answer whether” signs conveying messages like “ `God Loves You,' ” “ `Vote for Kathy,' ” or “ `Sally makes quilts here and sells them at 3200 Main Street' ” would be regulated as off-premises signs. 972 F. 3d, at 7…