I suppose he could do that. I was under the impression that, for example, anti-LGBTQ would not be granted permission, but Christian Avengers (note: made-up name) would be. If they restrict use for ALL groups, and only allow press conferences with public officials, I guess that's legit. Kind of unAmerican, but legit.

The impression I got from the article is that they're trying to get a little cute about it.

Let's imagine that in the fictional U.S. state of Albabia, the Capitol Rotunda is (today) a designated public forum. Anyone can go there and say whatever they want. So a person can stand up there and make a speech encouraging young people not to smoke, proclaiming the evils of smoking and pointing out the health risks. But another person (say, Nick Naylor) can stand up there and make a speech about how smoking is awesome and cool and kids should be doing this. In fact, this Naylor guy keeps doing that - standing up with slick presentations about how Albabians should be smoking more and how awesome it is.

As Governor of Albabia, I'm annoyed at this situation. Albabia is officially against smoking. We spend literally millions of dollars on an youth-oriented anti-smoking campaign.* The state's Office of Tobacco Control spends even more on anti-smoking efforts - educational programs in school, enforcement against underage sales, you name it. I'm delighted that private anti-smoking crusaders like organizing protests against Big Tobacco in the Capitol Rotunda. But it seems ridiculous that Big Tobacco gets to use public property to push its pro-smoking agenda, when Albabia is literally doing everything it can to stop youth smoking.

So I come up with a fix. The Capitol Rotunda will no longer be a designated public forum. It will only be available for Albabian state agencies to put on programs and speeches and what not to promote the various policies and positions of the State of Albabia. But that will also include working with private parties, even soliciting suggestions from private parties, for those private parties to provide speakers and resources and content for those events.

So from now on, all requests for Rotunda space get passed through the agencies. Thus, when Mothers Against Smoking decides they want to protest against Big Tobacco, they file a request with the Office of Tobacco Control - and OTC determines that yes, that event is one that they want to use the Rotunda space for, and you get an official OTC event featuring the Mothers Against Smoking. But when Dastardly Nick Naylor shows up, we point out that OTC doesn't want to do an event promoting smoking - it's literally the opposite of what they do - so they're not going to sponsor that program.

That's probably too cute by half, and probably going to get shot down by the courts. But governments "speak" all the time. They're out there encouraging people to stay off drugs, not to litter, maybe exercise once in a while, visit the local tourist attractions, etc. They use government resources to promote those messages. They sometimes (often?) use private individuals and groups to help promote those messages (if I had a nickel for every Local Sports Celebrity encouraging me to Say No To Drugs as a lad....), effectively giving private individuals who agree with those messages a massive platform that's denied to people with contrary views. They don't have to give "equal access" to pro-drug, pro-litter, pro-sloth, or anti-tourist speakers.

*https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10848476/#:~:text=....