LAUSR

The US Supreme Court has developed a doctrine on the political neutrality of public institutions, through the concept of “government speech”. The central idea of this doctrine is that when the government talks ideologically, through its policies, it is not limited by the Constitution and therefore its control is not legal but through the political process. This paper studies the jurisprudential evolution of this doctrine, paying particular attention to how the constitutional concept “public forum” operates as an internal limit on the idea of government speech. Similarly, we focus attention on the criteria used by the Supreme Court to set limits on government discretion to discriminate, for ideological motives, in its public spending policies. Finally, we conclude with a reflection on the problems of this doctrine in a context where, through the internet and the development of web 2.0, the presence and dissemination of government speech and its interaction with citizens has changed radically.