Cite as: 513 U. S. 454 (1995)
Syllabus
usually involved individual disciplinary actions taken in response to particular government employees' actual speech. Specifically, the Government must show that the interests of both potential audiences and a vast group of present and future employees in a broad range of present and future expression are outweighed by that expression's "necessary impact on the actual operation" of the Government, Pickering, 391 U. S., at 571. Although § 501(b) neither prohibits any speech nor discriminates among speakers based on the content or viewpoint of their messages, its prohibition on compensation unquestionably imposes a signifi-cant burden on respondents' expressive activity by inducing them to curtail their expression if they wish to continue their employment. Moreover, the ban imposes a far more significant burden on them than on the relatively small group of lawmakers whose past receipt of honoraria assertedly motivated its enactment. The large-scale disincentive to expression also imposes a significant burden on the public's right to read and hear what Government employees would otherwise have written and said. Pp. 464-470. (b) The Government has failed to show how the interests it asserts to justify § 501(b) are served by applying the honoraria ban to respondents. Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S. 75, distinguished. Although the asserted concern that federal officers not misuse or appear to misuse power by accepting compensation for their unofficial and nonpolitical writing and speaking activities is undeniably powerful, the Government cites no evidence of misconduct related to honoraria by the vast rank and file of federal employees below grade GS-16. The limited evidence of actual or apparent impropriety by Members of Congress and high-level executives cannot justify extension of the honoraria ban to that rank and file, an immense class of workers with negligible power to confer favors on those who might pay to hear them speak or to read their articles. Moreover, while operational efficiency is undoubtedly a vital governmental interest, several features of the text of the ban and of the pertinent regulations cast serious doubt on the Government's submission that Congress perceived honoraria as so threatening to the efficiency of the entire federal service as to render the ban a reasonable response to the threat. First, the total exemption of payments for "any series of appearances, speeches, or articles" unrelated to the employee's official duties or status from § 505(3)'s definition of "honorarium" undermines application of the ban to individual speeches and articles with no nexus to Government employment. Second, the definition's limitation of "honoraria" to payments for expressive activities, as opposed to other services that a Government employee might perform in his or her spare time, requires a justification far stronger than the mere speculation
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