Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1015 v. Spokane Transit Auth.

The panel affirmed the district court’s judgment in favor of a union in a case involving the union’s challenge to the Spokane Transit Authority (“STA”)’s decision, under its advertising policy, not to run a proposed advertisement from the union on STA’s buses.

The panel affirmed the district court’s holding that the STA unreasonably rejected the proposed ad in violation of the union’s First Amendment rights. The panel declined to accept the First and Sixth Circuit’s approaches of giving deference to a transit agency’s application of its advertising policy.

The panel held that the STA’s bus advertising program was classified as a “limited public forum” which allowed content-based restrictions as long as they were reasonable and viewpoint neutral. The panel applied the three-part test for a limited public forum to review STA’s decision to exclude the union’s ad under “public issue” advertising. First, the panel held that the policy was reasonable in light of the forum because STA’s concern with engaging in matters of public debate was related to the purpose of running an efficient and profitable transit system. Second, the panel held that STA’s standard lacked objective criteria to provide guideposts for determining what constituted prohibited “public issue” advertising. Third, the panel held that, based on an independent review of the record, STA’s application of its “public issue” advertising ban to exclude the union’s proposed ad was unreasonable.

Finally, the panel held that because the union’s ad promoted an organization that engaged in commercial activity, STA unreasonably applied its “commercial and promotional advertising” policy to reject the union’s ad.

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