Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v. Public Utilities Commission
Pacific Gas & Electric v. Public Utilities Commission, 475 U.S. 1 (1986), was a United States Supreme Court case involving a dispute over newsletters that the San Francisco–based privately-owned public utility Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) had included with its monthly bills to customers. The special interest group Toward Utility Rate Normalization (TURN) sued PG&E, arguing that the extra space in the billing envelope taken by the newsletters constituted a form of political speech whose cost the public should not have to bear. The California Public Utilities Commission mediated the dispute and initially determined that, since the space in the envelope ostensibly belonged to the general public, PG&E could be compelled to carry a message supplied by TURN in rebuttal to the messages supplied in the newsletter. The rationale used by the regulatory agency was that the space in the billing envelope which could have material added that did not increase postage belonged to the ratepayers rather than the utility; thus the commission could order the utility to allow other groups to use that space subject to restrictions. PG&E responded to the decision by suing California's Public Utilities Commission, invoking a First Amendment right against compelled speech.