"The government's stand in this matter is important," says Wilde, "because federal communication about nutrition is supposed to be consistent with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans."
"The federal government enforces the collection of more than $600 million annually in mandatory assessments, approves the advertising and marketing programs, and defends checkoff communication in court as the federal government's own message--in legal jargon, as its own 'government speech,'" writes Wilde.
The 'government speech' issue arose when some farmers objected to the checkoff programs on First Amendment grounds, claiming that the programs forced the farmers to support a particular commercial message. However, in May 2005, the United States Supreme Court declared checkoff advertising "government speech," thereby absolving it of constitutional objection. In the Supreme Court's decision, Justice Antonin Scalia claimed that the checkoff messages are "from beginning to end" the message of the federal government.
"Now that checkoff programs are clearly identified as federal government programs, calls for consistency with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans may get louder," says Wilde. "One solution would be for Congress to pass a resolution simply declaring that the federal government's 'speech' about good guidance and nutrition must in its entirety be consistent with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans," proposes Wilde. "After the Supreme Court's recent endorsement of this government speech doctrine, the current inconsistencies between the government's message in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and in the checkoff pro
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Contact: Siobhan Gallagher
617-636-6586
Tufts University
19-Dec-2006