Cite as: 536 U. S. 150 (2002)
Rehnquist, C. J., dissenting
access numbers to bank debit cards and then killing their owners. See Dartmouth Professors Called Random Targets, Washington Post, Feb. 20, 2002, p. A2. Their modus operandi was to tell residents that they were conducting an environmental survey for school. They canvassed a few homes where no one answered. At another, the resident did not allow them in to conduct the "survey." They were allowed into the Zantop home. After conducting the phony environmental survey, they stabbed the Zantops to death. See ibid.
In order to reduce these very grave risks associated with canvassing, the 278 " 'little people,' " ante, at 163, of Stratton, who, unlike petitioners, do not have a team of attorneys at their ready disposal, see Jehovah's Witnesses May Make High Court History Again, Legal Times, Feb. 25, 2002, p. 1 (noting that petitioners have a team of 12 lawyers in their New York headquarters), enacted the ordinance at issue here. The residents did not prohibit door-to-door communication; they simply required that canvassers obtain a permit before going door-to-door. And the village does not have the discretion to reject an applicant who completes the application.
The town had little reason to suspect that the negligible burden of having to obtain a permit runs afoul of the First Amendment. For over 60 years, we have categorically stated that a permit requirement for door-to-door canvassers, which gives no discretion to the issuing authority, is constitutional. The District Court and Court of Appeals, relying on our cases, upheld the ordinance. The Court today, however, abruptly changes course and invalidates the ordinance.
The Court speaks of the "historical and analytical backdrop for consideration of petitioners' First Amendment claim," ante, at 161. But this "backdrop" is one of longstanding and unwavering approval of a permit requirement like Stratton's. Our early decisions in this area expressly
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