Whether a statute that prohibits telephone harassment may, consistent with the First Amendment, prohibit speech on matters of public concern or impose content-based restrictions on speech

QUESTION PRESENTED The federal government and 43 States have enacted laws that criminalize telephone harassment. Some of these statutes apply only to calls that lack any legitimate purpose or that contain speech traditionally outside the protection of the First Amendment, such as true threats or obscenity. But some telephone harassment statutes apply even when the caller is speaking to a government official on a matter of public concern, or criminalize speech where the caller uses particular “words” or “language” deemed offensive. E.g. Wash. Rev. Code § 9.61.230(1)(a). Circuits and state high courts are deeply divided, 10-8, on whether such broadly written or contentbased telephone harassment laws comply with the First Amendment. The question presented is: Whether a statute that prohibits telephone harassment may, consistent with the First Amendment, prohibit speech on matters of public concern or impose content-based restrictions on speech. (i)