Burson v. Freeman — Kennedy, J., concurring

Summary

Justice Kennedy concurred in the judgment and explained that the compelling-interest analysis should not generally justify content-based restrictions on speech, but may help determine whether the government's asserted justification is genuinely unrelated to suppressing expression. He concluded that the restriction here was justified by protecting the constitutional right to vote and the integrity of the polling place. Justice Scalia, concurring in the judgment, would uphold the restriction under nonpublic-forum principles, while Justice Stevens, dissenting, would invalidate it as an unnecessarily broad suppression of political speech.