SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
LEGAL SERVICES CORPORATION v. VELAZQUEZ et al.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE
SECOND CIRCUIT
 No. 99-603. Argued October 4, 2000­Decided February 28, 2001
 The Legal Services Corporation Act authorizes petitioner Legal Services Corporation
(LSC) to distribute funds appropriated by Congress to local grantee organizations
providing free legal assistance to indigent clients in, inter alia, welfare benefits claims. In
every annual appropriations Act since 1996, Congress has prohibited LSC funding of any
organization that represented clients in an effort to amend or otherwise challenge existing
welfare law. Grantees cannot continue representation in a welfare matter even where a
constitutional or statutory validity challenge becomes apparent after representation is well
under way. Respondents­lawyers employed by LSC grantees, together with others­filed
suit to declare, inter alia, the restriction invalid. The District Court denied them a
preliminary injunction, but the Second Circuit invalidated the restriction, finding it
impermissible viewpoint discrimination that violated the First Amendment
.
Held: The funding restriction violates the First Amendment
. Pp. 5-15.
(a) LSC and the Government, also a petitioner, claim that Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U.S. 173
, in which this Court
upheld a restriction prohibiting doctors employed by federally funded family planning
clinics from discussing abortion with their patients, supports the restriction here.
However, the Court has since explained that the Rust counseling activities amounted to
governmental speech, sustaining viewpoint-based funding decisions in instances in which
the government is itself the speaker, see Board of Regents of Univ. of Wis. System v.
Southworth, 529 U.S. 217 , 229, 235, or instances, like Rust, in which the government uses
private speakers to transmit information pertaining to its own program, Rosenberger v.
Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819 , 833. Although the government has the latitude to ensure
that its own message is being delivered, neither that latitude nor its rationale applies to
subsidies for private speech in every instance. Like the Rosenberger program, the LSC
program was designed to facilitate private speech, not to promote a governmental
message. An LSC attorney speaks on behalf of a private, indigent client in a welfare
benefits claim, while the Government's message is delivered by the attorney defending
the benefits decision. The attorney's advice to the client and advocacy to the courts
cannot be classified as governmental speech even under a generous understanding of that
concept. In this vital respect this suit is distinguishable from Rust. Pp. 5-8.
(b) The private nature of the instant speech, and the extent of LSC's regulation of private
expression, are indicated further by the circumstance that the Government seeks to
control an existing medium of expression in ways which distort its usual functioning.
Cases involving a limited forum, though not controlling, provide instruction for

Scalia, J., dissenting
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
 Nos. 99-603 and 99-960
 ON WRITS OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
[February 28, 2001]
Justice Scalia, with whom The Chief Justice, Justice O'Connor, and Justice Thomas join,
dissenting.
Section 504(a)(16) of the Omnibus Consolidated Rescissions and Appropriations Act of
1996 (Appropriations Act) defines the scope of a federal spending program. It does not
directly regulate speech, and it neither establishes a public forum nor discriminates on the
basis of viewpoint. The Court agrees with all this, yet applies a novel and unsupportable
interpretation of our public-forum precedents to declare §504(a)(16) facially
unconstitutional. This holding not only has no foundation in our jurisprudence; it is flatly
contradicted by a recent decision that is on all fours with the present case. Having found
the limitation upon the spending program unconstitutional, the Court then declines to
consider the question of severability, allowing a judgment to stand that lets the program
go forward under a version of the statute Congress never enacted. I respectfully dissent
from both aspects of the judgment.
I The Legal Services Corporation Act of 1974 (LSC Act), §42 U.S.C.  2996
 et seq., is a federal subsidy
program, the stated purpose of which is to "provid[e] financial support for legal
assistance in noncriminal proceedings or matters to persons financially unable to afford
legal assistance." §2996b(a). Congress, recognizing that the program could not serve its
purpose unless it was "kept free from the influence of or use by it of political pressures,"
§2996(5), has from the program's inception tightly regulated the use of its funds. See
ante, at 3. No Legal Services Corporation (LSC) funds may be used, for example, for
"encouraging ... labor or antilabor activities," §2996f(b)(6), for "litigation relating to the
desegregation of any elementary or secondary school or school system," §2996f(b)(9), or
for "litigation which seeks to procure a nontherapeutic abortion," §2996f(b)(8). Congress
discovered through experience, however, that these restrictions did not exhaust the
politically controversial uses to which LSC funds could be put.
Accordingly, in 1996 Congress added new restrictions to the LSC Act and strengthened
existing restrictions. Among the new restrictions is the one at issue here. Section
504(a)(16) of the Appropriations Act, 110 Stat. 1321-55 to 1321-56, withholds LSC
funds from every entity that "participates in any ... way ... in litigation, lobbying, or
rulemaking ... involving an effort to reform a Federal or State welfare system." It thus
bans LSC-funded entities from participating on either side of litigation involving such
statutes, from participating in rulemaking relating to the implementation of such
legislation, and from lobbying Congress itself regarding any proposed changes to such
legislation. See §45 CFR  1639.3  (2000).

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
 Nos. 99-603 and 99-960
 ON WRITS OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
[February 28, 2001]
Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the Court.
In 1974, Congress enacted the Legal Services Corporation Act, 88 Stat. 378, §42 U.S.C.
2996  et seq. The Act establishes the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) as a District of
Columbia nonprofit corporation. LSC's mission is to distribute funds appropriated by
Congress to eligible local grantee organizations "for the purpose of providing financial
support for legal assistance in noncriminal proceedings or matters to persons financially
unable to afford legal assistance." §2996b(a).
LSC grantees consist of hundreds of local organizations governed, in the typical case, by
local boards of directors. In many instances the grantees are funded by a combination of
LSC funds and other public or private sources. The grantee organizations hire and
supervise lawyers to provide free legal assistance to indigent clients. Each year LSC
appropriates funds to grantees or recipients that hire and supervise lawyers for various
professional activities, including representation of indigent clients seeking welfare
benefits.
This suit requires us to decide whether one of the conditions imposed by Congress on the
use of LSC funds violates the First Amendment  rights of LSC grantees and their clients.
For purposes of our decision, the restriction, to be quoted in further detail, prohibits legal
representation funded by recipients of LSC moneys if the representation involves an
effort to amend or otherwise challenge existing welfare law. As interpreted by the LSC
and by the Government, the restriction prevents an attorney from arguing to a court that a
state statute conflicts with a federal statute or that either a state or federal statute by its
terms or in its application is violative of the United States Constitution.
Lawyers employed by New York City LSC grantees, together with private LSC
contributors, LSC indigent clients, and various state and local public officials whose
governments contribute to LSC grantees, brought suit in the United States District Court
for the Southern District of New York to declare the restriction, among other provisions
of the Act, invalid. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit approved
an injunction against enforcement of the provision as an impermissible viewpoint-based
discrimination in violation of the First Amendment, 164 F.3d 757 (1999). We granted
certiorari, and the parties who commenced the suit in the District Court are here as
respondents. The LSC as petitioner is joined by the Government of the United States,
which had intervened in the District Court. We agree that the restriction violates the First
Amendment, and we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
I From the inception of the LSC, Congress has placed restrictions on its use of funds. For
instance, the LSC Act prohibits recipients from making available LSC funds, program
personnel, or equipment to any political party, to any political campaign, or for use in
"advocating or opposing any ballot measures." §42 U.S.C.  2996e (d)(4). See
§2996e(d)(3). The Act further proscribes use of funds in most criminal proceedings and