800
Opinion of Kennedy, J.
sis. See E. Levi, An Introduction to Legal Reasoning 1-2 (1949). I am not suggesting the plurality should look far afield to other areas of law; these are settled First Amendment doctrines dealing with state action depriving certain speakers of protections afforded to all others.
In all events, the plurality's unwillingness to consider our public-forum precedents does not relieve it of the burden of explaining why strict scrutiny should not apply. Except in instances involving well-settled categories of proscribable speech, see R. A. V., 505 U. S., at 382-390, strict scrutiny is the baseline rule for reviewing any content-based discrimination against speech. The purpose of forum analysis is to determine whether, because of the property or medium where speech takes place, there should be any dispensation from this rule. See Consolidated Edison Co. of N. Y. v. Public Service Comm'n of N. Y., 447 U. S. 530, 538-539 (1980). In the context of government property, we have recognized an exception "[w]here the government is acting as a proprietor, managing its internal operations, rather than acting as lawmaker with the power to regulate or license," and in those circumstances, we have said, regulations of speech need only be reasonable and viewpoint neutral. Lee, supra, at 678-679. Here, of course, the Government has not dedicated the cable operator's property for leased access to serve some proprietary function of its own; it has done so to provide a forum for a vital class of programmers who otherwise would be excluded from cable television.
The question remains whether a dispensation from strict scrutiny might be appropriate because § 10(a) restores in part an editorial discretion once exercised by the cable operator over speech occurring on its property. This is where public-forum doctrine gives guidance. Common-carrier requirements of leased access are little different in function from designated public fora, and no different standard of review should apply. It is not that the functional equivalence of leased access channels to designated public fora
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