Supremes OK "Beef, it's what's for dinner"

In a strongly worded decision, the Supreme Court said the U.S. government could force cattlemen to pay for the “Beef: It's what's for dinner” marketing program, even if individual cattle producers objected to the campaign.

The decision will create some controversy based on the court’s opinion that the marketing campaign is a form of “government speech” immune to the first amendment challenge that ranchers in South Dakota and Montana used to strike down the program in an earlier court case.

The 6-3 decision is a defeat for other cases in agriculture opposing similar mandatory fees for marketing programs including milk, pork and cotton.

“The message set out in the beef promotions is from beginning to end the message established by the federal government, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the majority opinion joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist as well as Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Clarence Thomas and Stephen G. Breyer.

Dissenting Justices David H. Souter, John Paul Stevens and Anthony Kennedy, said the campaign was not government speech. Souter said if the government seeks to “compel specific groups to fund speech with targeted taxes, it must make itself politically accountable for indicating that the content actually is a government message.”

In a mid-day telephone conference, an elated Terry Stokes of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association said the decision was good news for American agriculture and stated it was time for the beef industry to come together to help build demand. “We need to proceed with one plan, one budget, one voice,” he said.