which supreme court case forms the basis for commercial speech protection today
Commercial speech Until the 1976 Supreme Court case Virginia State Pharmacy Board v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, commercial speech in the United States was viewed as an "unprotected" category of speech beyond the pale of First Amendment protection.[4] Indeed, the idea of commercial speech was first introduced by the Supreme Court when it upheld Valentine v. Chrestensen in 1942, which ruled that commercial speech in public is not constitutionally protected.[5] In upholding the regulation, the Supreme Court said, "We are...clear that the Constitution imposes...no restraint on government as respects purely commercial advertising". This ruling, however, would be overturned with Virginia State Pharmacy Board v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council (1976) and Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission (1980).[2]
Freedom of the press in the United States The 1931 U.S. Supreme Court decision Near v. Minnesota recognized freedom of the press by roundly rejecting prior restraints on publication, a principle that applied to free speech generally in subsequent jurisprudence. The court ruled that a Minnesota law targeting publishers of malicious or scandalous newspapers violated the First Amendment (as applied through the Fourteenth Amendment).