Posted on 07/07/2008 1:14:04 PM PDT by PastorTony
Arlington, Va—May the city of Philadelphia subject tour guides to hundreds of dollars in fines for engaging in unauthorized talking?
This is the question the Institute for Justice (IJ) seeks to answer in a federal lawsuit filed today, two days before Philadelphia celebrates the signing of the Declaration of Independence, in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The suit is brought on behalf of three Philadelphia tour guides—Mike Tait, Josh Silver and Ann Boulais—seeking to overturn a law enacted in April that will make it illegal for anyone like them to give a tour of much of the city’s downtown area without first passing a test and obtaining a government license—without, in essence, getting the government’s permission to speak. Effective in October, unlicensed tour guides can face fines of up to $300 per violation and have their businesses shut down.
“The government cannot be in the business of deciding who may speak and who may not,” said Robert McNamara, a staff attorney with the Institute for Justice, a national public interest law firm with a history of defending free speech and the rights of entrepreneurs. “The Constitution protects your right to communicate for a living, whether you are a journalist, a musician or a tour guide. It makes no more sense to let city officials decide who is allowed to talk about history than it would to let them decide who is allowed to talk about sports.”
The new law makes it illegal to give a tour for compensation of the city’s main tourist area without first submitting a written application, paying a fee, providing proof of insurance and passing a written examination in order to be granted a license to tour. The program will be administered and the test developed by an administrative agency to be named by the mayor’s office. No test has been made public.
The law is targeted at speech and applies only to someone who guides or directs people within the city or offers to do so while “provid[ing] information on the City’s geography, history, historic sites, historic structures, historic objects or other places of interest.” The program also discriminates against small or independent tour operators. The law gives the administrative agency complete discretion to exempt large operators—who would be better able to cope with the costs of regulation—from the testing requirements, provided the companies have training programs that are “equivalent.”
The irony of forbidding people to talk about Philadelphia’s history—including the history of the Framers’ enshrining fundamental American liberties in the Constitution—is not lost on Mike Tait, Josh Silver and Ann Boulais, three Philadelphians who make their living by telling visitors and natives about the history, culture and architecture of the place they love. Mike, Josh and Ann are serious about their city’s history—they share a deep commitment to accuracy as well as entertainment in their tours—and they are also serious about the liberties protected by the Constitution, which is why they joined together with the Institute for Justice to strike down the Philadelphia tour guide licensing scheme as a violation of their freedom of speech and right to earn an honest living.
“It is the right of every American to challenge laws that are unfair and wrong,” said Mike Tait. “As a matter of fact, that was fundamentally what the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia—and the birth of our nation—was all about.”
“This unfortunate law is part of a nationwide explosion of occupational licensing that has occurred in recent decades,” said Institute for Justice President and General Counsel Chip Mellor. “The city’s decision to force tour guides to obtain government licenses before speaking is just another surprising example of government gone wrong and precisely the type of regulation the Institute was created to combat.”
Founded in 1991, the Virginia-based Institute for Justice has represented individuals nationwide who successfully defended their free speech rights and ability to earn an honest living in the occupations of their choice. These cases include the landmark legal battle to open the interstate shipment of wine, in which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down discriminatory state shipping laws that hampered small wineries as well as consumers. IJ also freed online advertisers from complying with California’s onerous real estate licensing regime and secured the first federal appeals court victory for economic liberty since the New Deal, this on behalf of casket retailers in Tennessee.
Passing the test is superfluous. The amount of the license is what is at the core.
Philadelphia’s large bell with a crack in it will henceforth be known as the Obedience Bell.
Sounds like an occupational license
The guy said that the city government does not own the city's history, and that this was about the city trying to regulate what one private individual says to another private individual about their city's history, while on public property.
-PJ
/johnny
This was on FoxNews over the weekend and it turns out that these "tour guides" didn't know poop about what they were describing to the paying tourists - THAT'S why a test and license is required under this law.
For instance: they'd pass Independence Hall and say stuff like ...
That's where Benjamin Franklin lived and that statue over there is Thomas Jefferson (but actually Alexander Hamilton).They were/are completely IGNORANT of the history of the city, monuments and historic buildings.So this is not about Freedom of Speech, its about IDIOTS giving out wrong, made up information about Philly and U.S. History to tourists for money.
The Bill Of Rights The Bill Of Rights, the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, are considered to be a collection of rights guaranteed to the people on which the government cannot intrude. The court has ruled that it sees the words the people in the bill of rights referring to all of the people of the United States and that it is the same "people" referred to in the First (free speech, worship, press) as in the Fourth (searches, warrants) and Fifth (speedy trial, self-incrimination) as in the Second (right to arms).
Additionally, the Supreme Court has held that the government may not require a license to exercise a right. For example, the government may not require people to have a license to practice free speech, or to attend a church. Likewise the government may not require record keeping of those who practice a right or those who participate. Like the post-civil war era poll tax levied on blacks to prevent them from voting, the government may not require the people to pay any fees or taxes to exercise a right. This does not mean that any right is free from regulation or fees however. But the basic right must be unfettered.
To learn more about your rights and how much the government might be able to tell you how and when you can exercise them, point your browser to this "site"
I suspect you will be inclined to agree.
Semper Fi
An Old Man
Because the government said so. Simple as that. Wrong, but simple.
The cure is worse than the disease.
/johnny
/johnny
I have to admit your logic is almost perfect; however, if we follow through with what you are proposing, we would have to proof read every news paper prior to publication.
This is nothing more than an attempt by the government to control people After all, there is no law which prohibits stupidity.
Semper Fi
An Old Man
State code says so. Also health and safety are a couple of reasons.
Actually, there is one. It's a natural law. There is no appeal and the punishment immediately follows the verdict.... Some fools, the universe does not allow to procreate. ;)
/johnny
/johnny
Hummm.. That would be kinda like gravity. This is getting series.
So what if they do, the government has no right to regulate them. This is supposed to be a free society, but we are looking more and more like a police state every day.
You generally don't get freedom and order in the same package.
Not today, anyway.
/johnny
/johnny
Do you feel the same way about medical boards or the bar exam?
I don't give a rat's pointy little tail whether they passed boards or bar. I do care about results.
/johnny
/johnny
If that's the case then the city could adopt some kind of certification scheme instead.
Th city could create a voluntary test for tour guides covering city history. If the applicant passes, then they can display the certificate. The city could put up signs at the airport and on the highways telling tourists to look for the certificate if they want an accurate tour.
This way, tourists aren't misled (unless they choose to take that risk), but no one is forced to get a license. It's not a perfect solution, but it's better than a one-size-fits-all licensing approach.
WTF relies on a tour guide? If you don't know enough to know the difference between Hamilton and Jefferson, you're not taking the tour anyway. Call the tour guide on it, cancel and don't pay.
And get out of the details of running American lives. We'll manage.
/johnny
/johnny
It's got to be one or the other.
johnny
Old Man (not sure when I will hit that designation, but at 61 the joints are reminding me of the passage of time) —
I read the web page you recommended. I agree totally with what I read there. The first gun I bought on my own was a .357 Ruger Blackhawk in 1964 at Doc Owens Sporting Goods, just up the road. About $85. I was 17 years old. Half down, half in 30 days. Took it home when it was paid for. As we have read here on FR and other places, ATF ought to be three adjacent isles at Wal-Mart.
Back to Philadelphia and their licensing scheme. Both water and effluent tend toward the path of least resistance. It is easier for everyone around the table there in Philly to sign off on a new source of money than to hash out a plan to control the speech of a group of tour guides. End result is the same, fewer people speaking fewer words, but I have to continue to believe that the proximate cause is the quest by government for money.
Either way, ‘til we return to settling our differences down at the OK Corral again, by other means, the lawsuit was a good thing to take place. I bet there are more than the three tour guides who filed the suit who will benefit from a win here. Where are the rest of ‘em?
Thanks for the conversation!
Robin
You are for stronger government.
/johnny
According to the ACLU, there are only nine amendments in the Bill of Rights: 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Count’em. Nine.
You’re a joke - get a life guy
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