Cengage Advantage Books: Foundations of the Legal Environment of Business 3rd Edition by Marianne Jennings

Exercise 11

For the past 62 years, Pacific Gas Electric (PG E) has distributed a newsletter in its monthly billing envelopes. The newsletter, called Progress, reaches more than 3 million customers and contains tips on conservation, utility billing information, public interest information, and political editorials. A group called TURN (Toward Utility Rate Normalization) asked the Public Utility Commission (PUC) of California to declare that the envelope space belonged to the ratepayers and that TURN was entitled to use the Progress space four times each year. The PUC ordered TURN's request, and PG E appealed the order to the California Supreme Court. When the California Supreme Court denied review, PG E appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, alleging a violation of its First Amendment rights. Is PG E correct? [ Pacific Gas Electric v Public Utility Commission of California , 475 U.S. 1 (1986)]