Submitted by Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
A controversy developed in Moses Lake, Washington over a Fourth Congressional Candidate’s and his supporters’ placement of campaign signs on city owned property and rights of way in the city.
House hopeful Gavin Seim declined to agree to a required use permit in placement of his campaign signs calling the permitting and removal of his signs a violation of his free speech and his right to participate in government.
Moses Lake City Manager Joe Gavinski claims the policy somehow protects the public. The city’s government permits six campaign free speech zones within its jurisdiction.
The language on the use permit application reads:
The Moses Lake City Council has determined to allow the placement of signs including political and campaign signs on some city-owned, meaning deeded property and city leased property and adjacent right-of-way under certain terms and conditions. The terms and conditions are referenced in attachment A to this agreement and are incorporated within this agreement.
I,_____________________________________, agree to be responsible and liable for any damage caused to the City’s irrigation system as a result of placing any signs, including political or campaign signs, on City owned or leased property or the right-of-way adjacent to such property. If an irrigation line is damaged by sign placement, the undersigned shall notify the Parks and Recreation Department immediately, (509)764-3816, Monday through Friday, 8 am to 5 pm or (509)760-2959 for all other times.
If, by placing any signs, including political or campaign signs, on city-owned or leased property or the right-of-way adjacent to such property, damage is caused to the City’s irrigation system, the undersigned agrees to reimburse the City of Moses Lake for all costs incurred by the City in repairing the damage.
The undersigned agrees to reimburse the City for the costs upon receipt of a bill, statement, or invoice submitted by the City.
The city designates the subject areas on a map, HERE (PDF). The permit may be viewed HERE. (PDF)
This use permit operates under the guise of “protecting the irrigation systems” of those properties owned by the city and somehow also applies to the roadway rights of way surrounding these. The candidate may only place one sign per location, cannot have a sign larger than 16 square feet or more than 5 feet tall. The signs may only be at the location for 30 days prior to an election and they need to be removed five days after the election. The ordinance does not affect signs in front of homes and businesses.
City code enforcement removed the Gavin Seim signs for the campaign not agreeing to sign the use permit and called the campaign to retrieve them at city hall. It also removed signs placed by individuals. Seim’s campaign then returned to place more signs and these also were removed.
Reportedly, twelve other candidates and causes signed the use permit.
The manager claimed that “It all started several years ago. The city was dealing with a plethora of signs … We had a conversation about prohibiting them all together … The council came up with this policy. Then there was a revision to that agreement … The policy has been considered at least twice by the city council going back several years.
Though no city ordinance, according to Candidate Seim, was enacted the city admitted the matter was enforced through “policy.”
The Seim campaign had the following statement:
“The City of Moses Lake has started removing our signs, leaving up those of competition. Why? They insist we have to sign a CONTRACT with them to exercise our free speech. This is one of the larger cities in the WA04 district…We begin putting up signs months ago for our campaign. We went out of our way to place them so as to make it easier for city workers. The city however took down signs here and there, even though according to the Constitution and the WA State Supreme Court in Collier v Tacoma, their actions are wrong.”
Candidate Seim could very well have a case against the city for violating his free speech rights. In 1993 The Washington Supreme Court ruled in Collier v. City of Tacoma 121 Wn.2d 737 (1993) 854 P.2d 1046 that time durations, aesthetics, and selective enforcement giving preference of one political cause over another violate Article 1 Section 5 of the Washington Constitution, essentially the Washington analogue of the US Constitution’s First Amendment.
In this case Moses Lake’s policy, as expressed by council members in the public hearing, notes city aesthetics as one of the reasons for enforcement, namely the number of signs and the dimensions of the signs themselves. It can be strongly argued the amount of signs placed constitutes numbers of individuals expressing their free speech rights together as a form of expression through association. A very traditional method of protest and support rallies use as a form of expressing support of their cause is to show large numbers of individuals who participate along with those expressing their individual support through signage, attire, and speech.
Furthermore, requiring a use permit of the candidate excludes individual citizens who are not required to submit to the regulation from participating in their free speech rights if the candidate chooses not to enter into the permit’s contract. The city then selectively removed those signs based upon the content of their message and therefore it can be argued this violates Collier v. City of Tacoma.
The areas in question are public areas, though owned by the city, ordinarily permit the public access.
The state legislature did enact the Highway Advertising and Control Act as well as the Scenic Vistas Act, as codified in Chapter 47.42 RCW. However, these acts were limited in scope as to political signage by the state constitution. Moreover, it is common and traditional in the state to place political campaign signs on rights of way for various roads and highways and this practice has been used for decades.
By Darren Smith
Sources:
I-Fiber One News
Collier v. Tacoma
City of Moses Lake, Washington
Gavin Seim Campaign Website
Chapter 47.42 Revised Code of Washington
The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.
Centinel2012: Like : Fire! in a crowded theatre. Or: Momma don’t like no banjo playin round here. Or: Marlboro, smoke em if ya gottem. Buy one get one free. Or: Nixon: Pull out now like your father should have. Or: sign at school: Kids- don’t fuk in the hallway.
Free speech is free speech. Until you cross the line. One can cross the line on this blog and violate the civility rule. One can pay Blue Cross until one is blue in the face and still die of cancer.
I just hope that the tobacco company which got nailed with the big punitive damage judgment has to go out of business. Telling kids to “Smoke em if ya gottem” needs to be curtailed by these corporations which will tell you one thing to make a nickel and one thing leads to another and then you die.
Free speech is free speech! lets not get into the definition of words I’ve had enough of that line of thought. It is after all the 1st Amendment one of 12 demanded for the approval of the then new Constitution and therefore it and the other 9 that were approved are an integral part of the Constitution; more so than those that followed.
hat tips Darren.
as a native from eastern Washington State.
And would the case have other aspects of the First Amendment involved if the citizen wanted to post a large sign with the Ten Commandments printed thereon? Or The Sixth Commandment each time the State killed some inmate in the gas chamber. That would be a combination of freedom and expression of religion and petitioning the government for redress of grievances.
“Governor Perry: Thou Shalt Not Kill.”
Darren Smith
“Has he filed a lawsuit yet?”
~+~
I asked the candidate via email a couple days ago if he planned any legal action. While he replied to the email directing to sources of information on his views of the topic where he did quote the case and statutory laws that he feels support his position, he did not offer any suggestion on whether he would or would not file.
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Interesting.
He should consult competent counsel.
“Has he filed a lawsuit yet?”
~+~
I asked the candidate via email a couple days ago if he planned any legal action. While he replied to the email directing to sources of information on his views of the topic where he did quote the case and statutory laws that he feels support his position, he did not offer any suggestion on whether he would or would not file.
I always wonder why people think it’s ok to regulate the second amendment but the very moment the first is being regulated, all hell breaks loose?
License for political advertsing outside your home and it should be limited to seven sentences. Lol
This is Off Topic but it needs to be a topic on this blog. From the Associated Press:
MIAMI (AP) — A Florida jury has slammed the nation’s No. 2 cigarette maker, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., with $23.6 billion in punitive damages in a lawsuit filed by the widow of a longtime smoker who died of lung cancer in 1996.
The case is one of thousands filed in Florida after the state Supreme Court in 2006 tossed out a $145 billion class action verdict. That ruling also said smokers and their families need only prove addiction and that smoking caused their illnesses or deaths.
Last year, Florida’s highest court re-approved that decision, which made it easier for sick smokers or their survivors to pursue lawsuits against tobacco companies without having to prove to the court again that Big Tobacco knowingly sold dangerous products and hid the hazards of cigarette smoking.
The damages a Pensacola jury awarded Friday to Cynthia Robinson after a four-week trial come in addition to $16.8 million in compensatory damages.
Robinson individually sued Reynolds in 2008 on behalf of her late husband, Michael Johnson Sr. Her attorneys said the punitive damages are the largest of any individual case stemming from the original class action lawsuit.
“The jury wanted to send a statement that tobacco cannot continue to lie to the American people and the American government about the addictiveness of and the deadly chemicals in their cigarettes,” said one of the woman’s attorneys, Christopher Chestnut.
Reynolds’ vice president and assistant general counsel, J. Jeffery Raborn, called the damages in Robinson’s case “grossly excessive and impermissible under state and constitutional law.”
“This verdict goes far beyond the realm of reasonableness and fairness, and is completely inconsistent with the evidence presented,” Raborn said in a statement. “We plan to file post-trial motions with the trial court promptly, and are confident that the court will follow the law and not allow this runaway verdict to stand.”
The lawsuit’s goal was to stop tobacco companies from targeting children and young people with their advertising, said Willie Gary, another attorney representing Robinson.
“If we don’t get a dime, that’s OK, if we can make a difference and save some lives,” Gary said.
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court turned away cigarette manufacturers’ appeals of more than $70 million in court judgments to Florida smokers. Reynolds, Philip Morris USA Inc. and Lorillard Tobacco Co. had wanted the court to review cases in which smokers won large damage awards without having to prove that the companies sold a defective and dangerous product or hid the risks of smoking.
The Supreme Court refused to hear another of the companies’ appeals last year, wanting the court to consider overturning a $2.5 million Tampa jury verdict in the death of a smoker.
Other Florida juries have hit tobacco companies with tens of millions of dollars in punitive damages in lawsuits stemming from the original class action lawsuit.
In August, a Fort Lauderdale jury awarded $37.5 million, including $22.5 million in punitive damages against Reynolds, to the family of a smoker who died at age 38 of lung cancer in 1995.
Attorneys for Reynolds said they would appeal, arguing that the woman knew the dangers of smoking because cigarettes had warning labels when she started. The attorney for the woman’s family said teenagers like her were targeted by tobacco companies.
Some large jury verdicts awarding tens of millions of dollars in damages to relatives of smokers have been upheld by appeals courts.
In September, the 3rd District Court of Appeals affirmed $25 million in punitive damages and $10 million in compensatory damages against Lorillard, the country’s No. 3 cigarette maker, for Dorothy Alexander, whose husband died in 1996 of lung cancer. Lorillard, based in Greensboro, North Carolina, unsuccessfully argued the damages were excessive and raised a number of other claims.
The 1st District Court of Appeals upheld in June 2013 a $20 million punitive damage award to another smoker’s widow, more than a year after reversing a $40.8 million award in the same case against Reynolds. After the appeals court rejected the first award as excessive the award amount was recalculated. The tobacco company still objected.
Philip Morris is the country’s biggest tobacco company and owned by Richmond, Virginia-based Altria Group Inc. Reynolds is owned by Winston-Salem, North
This blog is awfully trivial. Was actually looking for a JT blog on the current Malasia airlines shoot down in Ukraine. Seems awfully odd that Russian seperatists would commit political suicide with a move like that, except that it were a 9/11 style false flag attack by the Illuminati/IMF (Europe/USA et alia).
The permit seems to imply full responsibility for all campaign signs with no limits on financial liability for damaged irrigation; does this leave it open for the city to bill one candidate a few dollars and the other candidate several thousand?
The permit makes clear it doesn’t apply to signs placed at homes and businesses but the city action of removing all signs without a method to determine selection violates the permit.
Where I live, the section of my yard nearest the curb is considered city property for which I am responsible for upkeep. A few feet closer to my home is considered my individual property. Based on the permit, If every house on my street installed a sign near the street the city would remove it but if every home shifted it a few feet close to the home they would all be legal even though both situations effectively appear the same. Something vague enough to allow this now seems hastily written and should be void.
Has he filed a lawsuit yet?
Free Speech Zones??? “Congress shall make no law …. abridging the freedom of speech, ….” The first amendment applies to all governments in the USA via the 14th amendment. Am I missing the mention of free speech zones, which has to mean there are zones where free speech is not allowed? Someone find it for me, please?
Somebody wants free lunch. Hell, I got thrown in jail for putting up a political sign in San Bernardino with a political sign permit and renting from the land owner. That wasn’t right of course but its fair to get permision from the land owner and sign a reasonable agreement.
Thank you Lamar, I made the change.
Two points, unrelated:
Rights-of-way are precisely where pubic utility lines are placed and where there would be a need to protect the pipes.
I think the word used by the case you cite is “aesthetics” not “ascetics.”
Free speech zones? Is that like free speech pens? This cannot be the USA.
The First Amendment is under maybe it’s most persistent attack in my lifetime. The Chicago Way has taken over DC. People like JT are needed more now than ever.
Darren, When I was teaching a senior current events class in 2000-01 I had each student adopt a city or state. This was the nascent internet time and all of the old fart history teachers didn’t even know how to turn on a computer. The kids loved it. They picked cities where they would be going to college the following year, where they had family, or just cities they liked. It didn’t matter. Every day we would do a quick around of what was going in their respective adopted cities. They loved it. I love these local Washington stories.
So if my choice of candidate hasn’t signed, my free speech right to advocate via a sign on city property is violated, while my neighbor who supports her opponent, can exercise the right b/c that candidate signed. My neighbor is a dingbat who picks really bad candidates. My choice needs equal space.
Is not that town near Lake Wobegone?
The restrictions seem reasonable. It is one thing to carry a sign. Planting a sign on a pole in a yard or attaching to a wall is a different matter.