must bear some relation to the purpose of the funding program.  Id.  And finally, “other constitutional provisions may provide an independent bar to the conditional grant of federal funds.”  Id. at 208.  In particular, the spending power “may not be used to induce the States to engage in activities that would themselves be unconstitutional.  Thus, for example, a grant of federal funds conditioned on invidiously discriminatory state action or the infliction of cruel and unusual punishment would be an illegitimate exercise of the Congress’ broad spending power.”  Id. at 210.

Plaintiffs do not contend that CIPA runs afoul of the first three limitations.  However, they do allege that CIPA is unconstitutional under the fourth prong of Dole because it will induce public libraries to violate the First Amendment.  Plaintiffs therefore submit that the First Amendment “provide[s] an independent bar to the conditional grant of federal funds” created by CIPA.  Id. at 208.  More specifically, they argue that by conditioning public libraries’ receipt of federal funds on the use of software filters, CIPA will induce public libraries to violate the First Amendment rights of Internet content-providers to disseminate constitutionally protected speech to library patrons via the Internet, and the correlative First Amendment rights of public library patrons to receive constitutionally protected speech on the Internet.  The government concedes that under the Dole framework, CIPA is facially invalid if its conditions will induce public libraries to violate the First Amendment.  The government and the plaintiffs disagree, however, on the meaning of Dole’s “inducement” requirement in the context of a First Amendment facial challenge to the conditions that Congress places on state actors’ receipt of federal funds.  The government contends that because plaintiffs are bringing a facial challenge, they must show that under no circumstances is it possible for a public library to comply with CIPA’s conditions without violating the First Amendment.  The plaintiffs respond that even if it is possible for some public libraries to comply with CIPA without violating the First Amendment, CIPA is facially invalid if it “will result in the impermissible suppression of a substantial amount of protected speech.”

Because it was clear in Dole that the states could comply with the challenged conditions that Congress attached to the receipt of federal funds without violating the Constitution, the Dole Court did not have occasion to explain fully what it means for Congress to use the spending power to “induce [recipients] to engage in activities that would themselves be unconstitutional.”  Dole, 483 U.S. at 210; see id. at 211 ("Were South Dakota to succumb to the blandishments offered by Congress and raise its drinking age to 21, the State’s action in so doing would not violate the constitutional rights of anyone.").  Although the proposition that Congress may not pay state actors to violate