Cite as: 504 U. S. 191 (1992)
Opinion of Blackmun, J.
Justice Blackmun announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which The Chief Justice, Justice White, and Justice Kennedy join.
Twenty-six years ago, this Court, in a majority opinion written by Justice Hugo L. Black, struck down a state law that made it a crime for a newspaper editor to publish an editorial on election day urging readers to vote in a particular way. Mills v. Alabama, 384 U. S. 214 (1966). While the Court did not hesitate to denounce the statute as an "obvious and flagrant abridgment" of First Amendment rights, id., at 219, it was quick to point out that its holding "in no way involve[d] the extent of a State's power to regulate conduct in and around the polls in order to maintain peace, order and decorum there," id., at 218.
Today, we confront the issue carefully left open in Mills. The question presented is whether a provision of the Tennessee Code, which prohibits the solicitation of votes and the display or distribution of campaign materials within 100 feet of the entrance to a polling place, violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
I
The State of Tennessee has carved out an election-day "campaign-free zone" through § 2-7-111(b) of its election code. That section reads in pertinent part:
"Within the appropriate boundary as established in subsection (a) [100 feet from the entrances], and the building in which the polling place is located, the display of campaign posters, signs or other campaign materials, distribution of campaign materials, and solicitation of votes for or against any person or political party or posi-Nevada, Nicholas J. Spaeth of North Dakota, Mark Barnett of South Dakota, Paul Van Dam of Utah, Mary Sue Terry of Virginia, and Mario J. Palumbo of West Virginia; and for the National Conference of State Legislatures et al. by Richard Ruda and Frederick C. Schafrick.
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