490
Souter, J., dissenting
ever, on the assumption that regulation of commercial speech is justified solely or largely on preservation of public access to truthful information, an assumption we have already seen to be inaccurate. Supra, at 478-480. Truth is indeed a justifiable objective of commercial speech protection, but so is nonmisleading persuasion directed to the advertiser's own choice of what to promote.
Although not cited by the Secretary, the closest pass at authority for his limited rationale of commercial speech protection is Zauderer v. Office of Disciplinary Counsel of Supreme Court of Ohio, 471 U. S. 626 (1985), our only examination of a commercial speech mandate before today. The state law there required disclosures about the method of calculating a contingent fee when legal representation on that basis was advertised. In speaking of the objecting lawyer's comparatively modest interest in challenging the state requirement, we referred to protection of commercial speech as "justified principally by the value to consumers of the information such speech provides . . . ." Id., at 651 (citation omitted); see also Virginia Bd. of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc., 425 U. S., at 765, 770; Rubin v. Coors Brewing Co., 514 U. S., at 481. But this proposition will not bear the weight of the Government's position. We said "principally," not exclusively, and proceeded to uphold the state requirement not because a regulation adding to public information is immune from scrutiny, but because the mandate at issue bore a reasonable relation to the "State's interest in preventing deception of consumers," 471 U. S., at 651, who might otherwise be ignorant of the real terms on which the advertiser intended to do business. Zauderer thereby reaffirmed a longstanding preference for disclosure requirements over outright bans, as more narrowly tailored cures for the potential of commercial messages to mislead by saying too little. See id., at 651-652, n. 14; see also Hurley, supra, at 573; Riley, supra, at 796, n. 9; Central Hudson Gas & Elec. Corp. v. Public Serv. Comm'n of N. Y., 447
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