America is a “Free Speech Zone” - Except in Government Meetings

The Coach's Team ^ | 11/18/17 | Karen Lees

[Oldpuppymax]

When something happens in my own community that triggers alarm bells, I am compelled to write. And this subject provides an excellent learning opportunity, which is one important purpose of the Language of Liberty series.

Last Thursday, November 2nd, the City Board of Alderman in Sparta, Tennessee declined a motion to allow citizen input at City Board meetings. Their decision is now a part of the public record: a policy that alienates the people they represent and is repugnant to the Framers' original intent of free speech enshrined in the First Amendment.

City Board meetings are required to be open to the public under Tennessee State Sunshine laws and are among the most critical places that free speech of the public should be encouraged and fostered.

First Amendment scholar David L. Hudson, Jr. writes about free speech in government meetings: “Sometimes government officials need to silence disruptive citizens or to prohibit endless repetition. However, other times the officials may be squelching citizen speech because they want to suppress the message.”

The Framers wisely designed our unique system so that everything government does must be in public view and subject to public scrutiny. Hearing the public verbalize that scrutiny can be uncomfortable for elected officials. However, encouraging public involvement and input, adding it to the public record and thereby fostering public trust is an integral part of their job.

Those elected by the people are tasked with doing the people's business on the behalf of the people. Banning public comment in public meetings would be like telling your boss he or she is banned from giving input in staff meetings concerning the job you are doing for him or her.

As it was designed, the experience of citizen interaction is actually supposed to be...

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

or to prohibit endless repetition.

As a Town Meeting member in my community, I can sympathize with that statement.

But, it is the duty of the Moderator to control that. It seldom gets done.

[VicVanleeuwenhoek]

Down the road in Athens Tennessee was the place the famous 2nd Ammendment rights battle was fought in 1946 (see Battle of Athens Tn.) Maybe Sparta Tn. needs such an incident as a reminder that the people ARE the government.

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

Democracy will only survive as long as the nation has a VERY strong value system including appropriate behavior and public discourse. When that evaporates, the end result will be what you are seeing in this country and have seen in many other countries for a long time. Meanwhile, our federal government, long devoid of values, keeps welcoming millions of immigrants with little or no values into this country knowing they (once naturalized) and their offspring (automatically citizens upon birth) will vote for the party which wishes to develop an oligarchy.

[Gil4]

I’m not seeing a first ammendment issue here (other than another example of the continuous misapplication of it.) The requirement for the meeting to even be open to the public is not a constitutional requirement, it’s a state law.

You can go have your own meeting (peaceably assemble) and submit a petition to the Government for a redress of grievances. You can go talk to people. You can write. If you don’t like what your representatives do, you can vote for someone else.

At that meeting, when they speak, you speak, because the people elected them to speak for their constituents. They don’t need to open the floor up for everyone who wants to speak at every meeting.

For the record, the preacher is unlikely to share the pulpit with you and the singer is unlikely to share the stage. The school teacher may call on you (or not), but if you step to the front of the class and start lecturing, your next stop will probably be the principal’s office.

[ModernDayCato]

Kinda. I helped a Pro Se defendant write a motion (I am not an attorney), and went to court with him to help.

The judge was an a-hole, and threatened to have me arrested for impersonating an attorney.

In the ensuing complaint I made with the Board of Judicial Conduct, I told the other judges that the Defendant and I had every right to assemble, even right there in the courtroom, and every right to petition the government, regardless of who wrote the motion.

They agreed.

I would argue that the same thing applies here, and I wouldn't hesitate to file a civil rights lawsuit against my town if they kept me from speaking at any public meeting. This is not without teeth, as I DID sue my town and town officials for wasting my money about a decade ago.

In your examples the preacher is not the government, so the argument doesn't apply, and the school teacher is not having a public meeting. Apples and oranges.

[I want the USA back]

There is no free speech in the USA.