Scrutinizing Commercial Speech

Abstract

Commercial speech continues to be formally distinguished from noncommercial speech under the First Amendment. However, a careful analysis of the development of commercial speech doctrine reveals that formally abandoning the distinction is merely the natural extension of, if not entailed by, commercial speech jurisprudence already in place. I argue that when we carefully examine what appear to be disagreements over levels of scrutiny, we can see that they are really disagreements over what constitutes a compelling state interest in the commercial speech context.

Keywords: Commercial speech, first amendment, free speech, scrutiny