Chiles v. Salazar · ¶44

Our precedents have long made that much clear. California faulted Mr. Cohen for the “conduct” of wearing an offensive jacket. Cohen, 403 U. S., at 16. The federal government insisted that its law banning support to terrorists regulated “conduct” even as applied to the written and spoken advice of professionals like lawyers and doctors. Holder, 561 U. S., at 10, 26. But the effort to recast speech as conduct failed in those cases—and it must here too. Under the First Amendment, what matters is not how a government describes its law or whether the law may regulate conduct in other circumstances. What matters is whether, in fact, the law regulates speech in the case at hand.

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