Political Signs And

The First Amendment

To the Editor:

As a longtime teacher and practitioner of First Amendment law, I suppose I should weigh in on the political sign issue that Elise Romanik raised in her October 4 letter.

The US Supreme Court ruled unanimously in 1994 that people have a right to place political signs on their lawns or in their windows. The government may, within reason, regulate the size and number of the signs, but cannot forbid their placement altogether. Thus, if there were a town ordinance prohibiting Ms Romanik’s display, or if a town official had ordered her to remove it, there would be a clear First Amendment violation.

In my understanding, however, Ms Romanik’s problem was not with the town; it was with private individuals who, acting on their own behalf or on behalf of a political party, asked her to take the sign down. Here, they are the ones with First Amendment rights in the matter: that is, they are entitled to express their views about signs to Ms Romanik unless she tells them plainly that she does not want them to approach her. This is so regardless of whether they are speaking for themselves or as representatives of their party. In some circumstances courts treat political parties as if they were government entities — for instance, it is unconstitutional for parties to exclude blacks from voting in party primaries — but that is because in these circumstances the government has delegated to the parties the power to control citizens’ access to the political process. For most purposes, though, parties are private organizations, and as such have the same first amendment rights as any individual citizen. Ms Romanik, in turn, has the right to tell her interlocutors off and send them off — or to put neighborliness first and comply, as she seems to have done.

I am not trolling for business, because I see no business here worth trolling for: no one has acted illegally, as far as I can discern. I hope that I’ve answered Ms Romanik’s and other writers’ questions on the subject.

Martin B. Margulies

79 High Rock Road, Sandy Hook                           October 17, 2004