Cite as: 505 U. S. 123 (1992)
Rehnquist, C. J., dissenting
where the Court upheld a permit fee, the Court stated: "And the fee is not a nominal one, imposed as a regulatory measure and calculated to defray the expense of protecting those on the streets and at home against the abuses of solicitors." 319 U. S., at 116. This sentence does not mean that an invalid fee can be saved if it is nominal, or that only nominal charges are constitutionally permissible. It reflects merely one distinction between the facts in Murdock and those in Cox.
The tax at issue in Murdock was invalid because it was unrelated to any legitimate state interest, not because it was of a particular size. Similarly, the provision of the Forsyth County ordinance relating to fees is invalid because it unconstitutionally ties the amount of the fee to the content of the speech and lacks adequate procedural safeguards; no limit on such a fee can remedy these constitutional violations.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Chief Justice Rehnquist, with whom Justice White, Justice Scalia, and Justice Thomas join, dissenting.
We granted certiorari in this case to consider the following question:
"Whether the provisions of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution limit the amount of a license fee assessed pursuant to the provisions of a county parade ordinance to a nominal sum or whether the amount of the license fee may take into account the actual expense incident to the administration of the ordinance and the maintenance of public order in the matter licensed, up to the sum of $1,000.00 per day of the activity." Pet. for Cert. i.
The Court's discussion of this question is limited to an ambiguous and noncommittal paragraph toward the very end of the opinion. Supra this page. The rest of the opinion
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