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You are here: Home / Organizing & Resistance / Don't Mourn, Organize / Another really bad idea from Governor Walker’s idea factory

Another really bad idea from Governor Walker’s idea factory

by Kay|  December 2, 20113:02 pm| 32 Comments

This post is in: Don't Mourn, Organize, Enhanced Protest Techniques

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When Kasich barred Ohio protestors from the statehouse, it only made them more determined. It was a bad move:

Gov. Scott Walker’s administration could hold demonstrators at the Capitol liable for the cost of extra police or cleanup and repairs after protests, under a new policy unveiled Thursday.

The rules, which several legal experts said raised serious free speech concerns, seemed likely to add to the controversy that has simmered all year over demonstrations in the state’s seat of government.

The policy, which also requires permits for events at the statehouse and other state buildings, took effect Thursday and will be phased in by Dec. 16. Walker administration officials contend the policy simply clarifies existing rules. State law already says public officials may issue permits for the use of state facilities, and applicants “shall be liable to the state . . . for any expense arising out of any such use and for such sum as the managing authority may charge for such use.”

But Edward Fallone, an associate professor at Marquette University Law School, said the possibility of charging demonstrators for police costs might be problematic because some groups might not be able to afford to pay. “I’m a little skeptical about charging people to express their First Amendment opinion,” he said. “You can’t really put a price tag on the First Amendment.”

Sure you can. Scott Walker just did.

It applies to groups of “four or more people” and that provision alone is going to make it worthy of derision:

Bob Dreps, a lawyer who handles First Amendment cases including work for the Journal Sentinel, noted that the state can put some restrictions on the “time, place and manner” of free speech. But he said it was “laughable” to define a rally as four or more people.

I wanted to add this really helpful info (thanks commenter kideni) from the last Wisconsin post, so now Governor Walker and his non-union thugs gave me an excuse to do that:

You may know this already, but the DPW’s Recall HQ site has a section where you can find locations of upcoming signature collecting activities, and there may be something near you. You can also download your own petitions from United Wisconsin’s site or Recall HQ and circulate them among people you know (you can sign and certify your own petition).

via, TPM

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32Comments

  1. 1.

    FMguru

    December 2, 2011 at 3:08 pm

    That’s some straight-up Warsaw Pact Securitate/Stasi-level shit. Unapproved gatherings of more than four people are counter-revolutionary, comrade!

  2. 2.

    Redshift

    December 2, 2011 at 3:10 pm

    Ah, I see Walker is continuing his efforts (like Rick Scott and the other radical governors) to solve unemployment by promoting full employment for lawyers…

  3. 3.

    kay

    December 2, 2011 at 3:11 pm

    @FMguru:

    I love “four”. Who decided on that number? Why not “three” or “five”?

    How many Koch brothers are there?

  4. 4.

    Dr.BDH

    December 2, 2011 at 3:12 pm

    But if you download a petition to use yourself, be very careful to follow all the rules and get all the information required with each signature. There will be multiple challenges to the validity of the petition signatures.

    And of ocurse, only Wisconsin residents, please. All you who wish the Packers were your team but don’t live in the state, buy a share of Packers stock instead ($250 as of next Tuesday).

    Also, too, go Badgers Big Ten championship game Saturday!

  5. 5.

    ed drone

    December 2, 2011 at 3:13 pm

    “Whenever three or more are gathered in my name:” Christ

    “I’ll go you one better:” Gov. Scott Walker

    Ed

  6. 6.

    Kanamit

    December 2, 2011 at 3:14 pm

    Reminds me of the anti-silent protest law in Belarus.

  7. 7.

    Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn

    December 2, 2011 at 3:15 pm

    Unemployment is down as the private sector added new jobs, last month. Why is John Galt Cole ignoring these facts!

    /derFtard

    So far as Walker’s proposal, I’m speechless. I leave it to the professional (and amateur enthusiast) snarksters here for the online disembowling he so richly deserves (for starters).

  8. 8.

    Judas Escargot

    December 2, 2011 at 3:16 pm

    My first thought becomes: “define ‘Group’?”.

    Grab two friends and stand in front of the state house. Someone else grabs two friends and happens to stand X meters away from you and your friends.

    At what value of ‘X’ does this become a group of six, who now have to pay? Make the bastids define this, in court. Then move your groups of three to stand (X+1) away from each other.

    Or does ‘group’ mean ‘people holding the same types of sign in the same general area’? Good luck winning that First-Amendment case. Or just switch signs to use different languages, or just use pictures.

    When laws were passed trying to keep anti-abortion groups away from the clinics, they played games like this for decades. Maybe OWA could do the same?

  9. 9.

    dave

    December 2, 2011 at 3:16 pm

    So, if I take my wife and two daughters to Madison to see my son and we go to the Capitol I guess we’ll be subject to arrest. Do they have one complete brain between them?

  10. 10.

    Satanicpanic

    December 2, 2011 at 3:18 pm

    Great, another thing only the rich will be able to afford to do.

  11. 11.

    scav

    December 2, 2011 at 3:19 pm

    @Judas Escargot: Similarly, I was thinking along the lines of Who decides what’s an event? What if someone announced that by no means should more than 2 people show up at a certain time in a certain place? And we Really Really Mean It.

  12. 12.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    December 2, 2011 at 3:20 pm

    @scav: If the WHO are there it’s an event!

  13. 13.

    Judas Escargot

    December 2, 2011 at 3:22 pm

    @Judas Escargot:

    Maybe OWA could do the same?

    Oops, my bad, and too late to edit: I tend to conflate the earlier WI protests with the OWA ones that came later, but of course they are technically different movements with different goals.

  14. 14.

    scav

    December 2, 2011 at 3:23 pm

    @Raven (formerly stuckinred): Well, I’d hold out for the Doctor but that’s just a minor difference of cult.

  15. 15.

    piratedan

    December 2, 2011 at 3:23 pm

    ot: http://www.avclub.com/articles/rip-bill-mckinney-of-deliverance-and-the-outlaw-jo,65991/

    although I do believe that many of the characters portrayed by McKinney would be considered mainstream Republicans today.

  16. 16.

    Forsetti

    December 2, 2011 at 3:24 pm

    Just have every third person carry a different protest sign. There are enough individual things about Walker’s policies to protest you could easily have hundreds of groups of three all protesting different things at the same time.

  17. 17.

    Phylllis

    December 2, 2011 at 3:26 pm

    Gov. Nikki Haley has already lost this challenge. http://www.thestate.com/2011/12/02/2065340/occupy-columbia-lawsuit-moved.html

  18. 18.

    Raven

    December 2, 2011 at 3:33 pm

    @scav: I’ll say it is.

  19. 19.

    scav

    December 2, 2011 at 3:37 pm

    @Raven: A demonstration that’s bigger on the inside might just confuse their counting.

  20. 20.

    Phoenician in a time of Romans

    December 2, 2011 at 3:39 pm

    It applies to groups of “four or more people” and that provision alone is going to make it worthy of derision:

    Hmm – so what happens when the groups “Occupy the Capital 1” through to “Occupy the Capital 1000” all protest at the same place on the same day? You could have little ID badges printed up.

    Good luck to the State for recovering the costs – which do they charge, and how do they persuade a court to back them?

    First and foremost rule in passing laws – AVOID LAWS THAT CAN BE MOCKED

  21. 21.

    John Weiss

    December 2, 2011 at 3:41 pm

    Scott Walker = wanker.

    I suppose we’ll never be rid of these dirtballs, as history informs us.

    Sigh.

  22. 22.

    donr

    December 2, 2011 at 3:44 pm

    My speculation into the number 4:

    In many Slavic languages and (I believe) Latin, the numbers 1-4 and 5-10 receive different grammatical treatments. If you have 4 balloons, the word “balloon” is declined according to its case function in the sentence (nominative, accusative etc.). But having 5 balloons would require the noun to be declined in the genitive case (“5 of balloons”). Walker’s limiting the number of demonstrators to 4 is clearly an attack on the Genitive Case which, when you think about it, makes a certain amount of sense.

    From this we might further conclude that Scott Walker is either a Russian mole or wasn’t crazy about Vatican II.

  23. 23.

    kideni

    December 2, 2011 at 3:51 pm

    One of the goals of this is to get rid of the Solidarity Singalong, which has been happening every weekday at noon in the rotunda (outside on Fridays or when a group has reserved the rotunda) since March – over 200 days now. They (we? I’ve gone about a dozen times) sing old and new protest songs, some with updated lyrics, and they’ve printed up songbooks so everyone can sing along; they’ve just put together a Christmas songbook too. People come on their lunch hour; there are about two dozen people who are there every time, and many days there are more than a hundred. They’ve never pursued a permit because this is freedom of speech and assembly.

    Anyway, the Singalong has been driving the Republicans crazy, and they’ve been trying to figure out a way to stop it for months. Before this they mostly just whined; a couple of the singers have been attacked, but not by legislators (one guy had a tooth chipped when he tried to get a tea partier to stop being an asshole by dragging his flag across peoples faces; a worker came up behind a woman and popped her balloon with a pocket knife, then shoved her into a wall when she confronted him). I guess they’ve decided to go for broke and just violate the constitution.

  24. 24.

    The Other Bob

    December 2, 2011 at 3:51 pm

    So will they charge a fee to any lobby firm that has more than 4 lobbyists on duty at the Capitol at any one time?

  25. 25.

    kindness

    December 2, 2011 at 3:55 pm

    Walker will be lucky to get recalled while he’s still alive.

    Lotta guns in Wisconsin.

  26. 26.

    Paris

    December 2, 2011 at 4:03 pm

    ходок is ‘walker’ in Russian. Sounds like it may come in handy.

  27. 27.

    Bullsmith

    December 2, 2011 at 4:10 pm

    Being cute and clever to get around restrictions on the first amendment seems like a mistake to me. To defend the constitution, people need to show up and use their rights. It won’t stand up in court, but if it reduces the protests it’s a success for Walker. If some people get arrested and both the courts and some of the public notice the wannabe fascists in charge, as I frankly hope will be the result of this kind of petty-dictator stunt, then maybe the pendulum will start to swing back to some pre 9-11 norms. Some of the most most basic constitutional rights are simply non-existent.

  28. 28.

    maya

    December 2, 2011 at 4:10 pm

    Well, ever since Citizens United money = free speech, so I understand Walker wanting to charge something for exercizing free speech on his lawn. He’d also probably get 5 votes for doing this on SCOTUS.
    Why four? Easy. It’s the core component of an infantry fire team. I can understand his concern there too.

  29. 29.

    j

    December 2, 2011 at 4:32 pm

    I was in Milwaukee earlier this week and the petition people were all over downtown. They hung around hotel entrances, at the entrance to the mall, and even the doors to the hockey arena. I even saw some run up to cars stopped at red lights.

    If what I saw in Milwaukee is any indication, Walker is going down in flames.

  30. 30.

    slag

    December 2, 2011 at 4:36 pm

    @kay:

    Why not…“five”?

    I blame Michael Jackson.

  31. 31.

    Keith

    December 2, 2011 at 5:30 pm

    Matthew 18:20

  32. 32.

    Johannes

    December 2, 2011 at 5:33 pm

    Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement, 505 U.S.123 (1992), involved an ordinance which declared that the cost of protecting participants in parades or rallies exceeds the usual and normal cost of law enforcement and should be borne by the participants; required every permit applicant to pay a fee of not more than $1,000; and empowered the county administrator to adjust the fee’s amount to meet the expense incident to the ordinance’s administration and to the maintenance of public order.

    The Supreme Court struck down the ordinance on the ground that: The Forsyth County ordinance contains more than the possibility of censorship through uncontrolled discretion. As construed by the county, the ordinance often requires that the fee be based on the content of the speech.

    The county envisions that the administrator, in appropriate instances, will assess a fee to cover “the cost of necessary and reasonable protection of persons participating in or observing said . . . activit[y].” In order to assess accurately the cost of security for parade participants, the administrator ” `must necessarily examine the content of the message that is conveyed,’ ” Arkansas Writers’ Project, Inc. v. Ragland, 481 U.S. 221, 230 (1987), quoting FCC v. League of Women Voters of California, 468 U.S. 364, 383 (1984), estimate the response of others to that content, and judge the number of police necessary to meet that response. The fee assessed will depend on the administrator’s measure of the amount of hostility likely to be created by the speech based on its content. Those wishing to express views unpopular with bottle throwers, for example, may have to pay more for their permit.

    In short because “[t]he costs to which petitioner refers are those associated with the public’s reaction to the speech. Listeners’ reaction to speech is not a content neutral basis for regulation,” the ordinance was unconstitutional.

    I don’t like (to put it mildly) the Roberts Court, but they’ve been pretty decent on the First Amendment as a whole. Walker’s odds are poor at best on this one.

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