Cite as: 513 U. S. 454 (1995)
Rehnquist, C. J., dissenting
ante, at 463, n. 6. This artificially narrow prism of class members, however, is the focus of the Court's entire First Amendment discussion.
The class definition speaks of anyone who would receive an honorarium but for the statute. App. 124-125. An unknown number of these individuals would receive honoraria where there is a nexus between their speech and their Government employment. There is little doubt that Congress reasonably could conclude that its interests in preventing impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in the federal work force outweigh the employees' interests in receiving compensation for expression that has a nexus to their Government employment. Cf. Federal Election Comm'n v. National Right to Work Comm., 459 U. S. 197, 210 (1982) ("The governmental interest in preventing both actual corruption and the appearance of corruption of elected representatives has long been recognized").
The Court relies on cases involving restrictions on the speech of private actors to argue that the Government is required to produce "evidence of misconduct related to honoraria in the vast rank and file of federal employees below grade GS-16." Ante, at 472; ante, at 475-476, and n. 21.3 The Court recognizes, however, that we " 'have consistently given greater deference to government predictions of harm used to justify restriction of employee speech than to predictions of harm used to justify restrictions on the speech of the public at large.' " Ante, at 475, n. 21 (quoting Waters, 511 U. S., at 673 (plurality opinion)).
3 Ironically, the Court engages in unsupported factfinding to justify its conclusion. Thus, its First Amendment analysis is replete with observations such as "[w]ith few exceptions, the content of respondents' messages has nothing to do with their jobs and does not even arguably have any adverse impact on the efficiency of the offices in which they work," ante, at 465; and "[b]ecause the vast majority of the speech at issue in this case does not involve the subject matter of Government employment and takes place outside the workplace, the Government is unable to justify § 501(b) on the grounds of immediate workplace disruption." Ante, at 470.
495
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