Political Speech

Political Speech Should Remain Free in Public Spaces

 

There certainly has been a robust discussion in our community about the display of a swastika over an image of the Democratic Party donkey symbol on a flag or poster at the Washington County GOP booth at last Saturday’s West Bend Farmers Market. 

 

The leadership of the County GOP blamed it on a “overzealous volunteer” and sought to distance themselves and their group by rightfully condemning the display and claiming it was not approved by the party leaders. Unfortunately, the condemnation did little to tell those who use symbols of hate and genocide that they are not welcome in their organization. The person who made the display and those who permitted it to go up in their booth obviously felt right at home doing so. 

 

The Downtown Association, which runs the market, also condemned the display, and took the extraordinary step of refusing to rent booth space to all “political” organizations in the future because of the display. 

 

West Bend Mayor Chris Jenkins weighed in condemning the display and threatening to impose prior restraints on future speech at the Market.

 

Social media posts on the local GOP Facebook page and an online poll by this newspaper elicited comments condemning the display while others deflected the complaints by claiming Democrats do the same thing or outright supporting the display as somehow making a true statement about Democrats. 

 

The display and community reactions to it bring us back to the marketplace of ideas concept embodied in the free speech guarantees of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. 

 

Our founders believed and enshrined in the First Amendment the notion that public spaces were the place for a robust debate about the issues of the day and subsequent decisions by the United States Supreme Court have upheld that principle throughout our history with only limited exceptions. One being along the lines of “you can’t falsely scream FIRE in a public theatre.”

 

Attempts by governments to impose prior restraints on public speech in public places have been consistently rejected by the Court. Banning all political speech from public streetcorners and the public square have also been uniformly rejected. Discriminatory application of speech bans that favored one side of the debate over others have also been rejected consistently. 

 

The underlying principle is that while public speech is and should be free, even when it reaches into controversial areas, the public exposed to that speech is free to reject the message and the messengers as they see fit. That is what happened on Saturday at the Market when members of the public, expressing their rightful outrage at the display, caused it to be removed before the Market closed for the day. The backlash on local GOP social media exposed the display to further condemnation within their organization and will, most likely, cost their candidates votes in November as some members of the GOP and independents who lean right reject both the message and the messenger. They will join the exodus of those who believe the GOP majority on the U.S. Supreme Court went way too far in overturning Roe v. Wade’s protections for limited abortions. 

 

This brings us back to the Downtown Association’s decision to ban all “political” organizations from renting space at future markets. While uniform in its application, it prevents political speech by those whose public speech and displays have not crossed the line into universally condemned hate speech symbolism. 

 

The Democratic Party of Washington County has also had a booth at the Farmers Market this season and for many others in the 12 years we have had our office at 132 N. Main St. at the end of the public street used by the Market. I don’t believe there have been any credible complaints about the content of the materials displayed at our booth. We are being banned from renting a booth for the transgressions of others not connected to us other than we both are involved in politics. It is not fair to punish us and bar our message because others choose to cross the line of publicly acceptable speech.

 

The Association’s decision also will impact other groups with booths at the Market which choose to try and influence public policy through political action. Think about Veterans advocacy organizations, environmental groups, insurance companies, telephone companies, and others who lobby for legislation and provide financial support to political candidates. Under the Association’s decision, they, and the rest of us who speak about politics, will be limited to speaking on street corners or in Settlers Park or walking through the market handing out literature.

 

I for one support political speech limited to the confined space of a rented booth at the market where people can stop and engage or merely walk by. Let the public be the judge of the content of the messages on display and make their support or opposition known at the time or later at the polls where it really counts.