554
Scalia, J., dissenting
Rust that decision "does not infringe the right" to bring such litigation. Cf. Ortwein v. Schwab, 410 U. S. 656, 658-660, and n. 5 (1973) (per curiam) (government not required by First Amendment or Due Process Clause to waive filing fee for welfare benefits litigation). The Court's repeated claims that § 504(a)(16) "restricts" and "prohibits" speech, see, e. g., ante, at 545, 546, and "insulates" laws from judicial review, see, e. g., ante, at 547, are simply baseless. No litigant who, in the absence of LSC funding, would bring a suit challenging existing welfare law is deterred from doing so by § 504(a)(16). Rust thus controls these cases and compels the conclusion that § 504(a)(16) is constitutional.
The Court contends that Rust is different because the program at issue subsidized government speech, while the LSC funds private speech. See ante, at 541-542. This is so un-persuasive it hardly needs response. If the private doctors' confidential advice to their patients at issue in Rust constituted "government speech," it is hard to imagine what subsidized speech would not be government speech. Moreover, the majority's contention that the subsidized speech in these cases is not government speech because the lawyers have a professional obligation to represent the interests of their clients founders on the reality that the doctors in Rust had a professional obligation to serve the interests of their patients, see 500 U. S., at 214 (Blackmun, J., dissenting) ("ethical responsibilities of the medical profession")—which at the time of Rust we had held to be highly relevant to the permissible scope of federal regulation, see Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U. S. 747, 763 (1986) ("professional responsibilities" of physicians), overruled in part on other grounds, Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833 (1992). Even respondents agree that "the true speaker in Rust was not the government, but a doctor." Brief for Respondents 19, n. 17.
The Court further asserts that these cases are different from Rust because the welfare funding restriction "seeks to
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