692
Stevens, J., dissenting
Perhaps the discretion of the AETC staff in controlling access to the 1992 candidate debates was not quite as unbridled as that of the Forsyth County administrator. Nevertheless, it was surely broad enough to raise the concerns that controlled our decision in that case. No written criteria cabined the discretion of the AETC staff. Their subjective judgment about a candidate's "viability" or "newsworthiness" allowed them wide latitude either to permit or to exclude a third participant in any debate.14 Moreover, in exercising that judgment they were free to rely on factors that arguably should favor inclusion as justifications for exclusion. Thus, the fact that Forbes had little financial support was considered as evidence of his lack of viability when that factor might have provided an independent reason for allowing him to share a free forum with wealthier candidates.15
The televised debate forum at issue in this case may not squarely fit within our public forum analysis,16 but its importance cannot be denied. Given the special character of political speech, particularly during campaigns for elected office,
14 It is particularly troubling that AETC excluded the only independent candidate but invited all the major-party candidates to participate in the planned debates, regardless of their chances of electoral success. See n. 6, supra. As this Court has recognized, "political figures outside the two major parties have been fertile sources of new ideas and new programs; many of their challenges to the status quo have in time made their way into the political mainstream." Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U. S. 780, 794 (1983) (citing Illinois Bd. of Elections v. Socialist Workers Party, 440 U. S. 173, 186 (1979)).
15 Lack of substantial financial support apparently was not a factor in the decision to invite a major-party candidate with even less financial support than Forbes. See n. 6, supra.
16 Indeed, a plurality of the Court recently has expressed reluctance about applying public forum analysis to new and changing contexts. See Denver Area Ed. Telecommunications Consortium, Inc. v. FCC, 518 U. S. 727, 741, 749 (1996) (plurality opinion) ("[I]t is not at all clear that the public forum doctrine should be imported wholesale into the area of common carriage regulation").
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