BREAKING: Walker administration drops permit requirement for Capitol protests
Source: UW Badger Herald
Gov. Scott Walker’s administration dropped the permits required for protesters in the Capitol Tuesday after the American Civil Liberties Union sued the administration in January.
Under the settlement, the Department of Administration will allow five days of demonstration if protesters give the DOA a two-day notification. The DOA will keep their permitting process in place, but will not require permits to hold protests.
According to a statement from ACLU:
“This is a victory because giving notice is significantly difference than forcing people to ask the government for permission to exercise free speech,” Larry Dupuis, legal director of the ACLU of Wisconsin, said Tuesday. “Giving notice is very informal. The state can’t deny use of the Capitol to anyone giving notice, unless someone else has reserved the entire space by obtaining a permit for the same time.”
Read more: http://badgerherald.com/news/2013/10/08/breaking-walker-administration-drops-permit-requirement-capitol-protests/
I wonder if this drops the liability concerns of the permit.
Here the Milwaukee journal sentinel article as well
http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/scott-walker-administration-drops-permit-requirement-for-capitol-protests-b99115870z1-226929951.html
Still kinda weaselly.
ACLU Press release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 8, 2013
CONTACT: Sarah Karon, ACLU of Wisconsin, (608) 469-5540, skaron@aclu-wi.org
MADISON — The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin today announced a settlement in its federal lawsuit against the state Department of Administration concerning free speech at the Capitol.
As part of the settlement, the state must create a notice system, which allows groups to gather inside the Capitol without a permit.
“This is a victory because giving notice is significantly different from forcing people to ask the government for permission to exercise free speech,” said Larry Dupuis, legal director of the ACLU of Wisconsin. “Giving notice is very informal. The state can’t deny use of the Capitol to anyone giving notice, unless someone else has reserved the entire space by obtaining a permit for the same time.”
Under the former permitting rules, which the state adopted in November 2011, groups as small as four were forced to obtain prior permission from the government before engaging in expression “for the purpose of actively promoting any cause” inside the Capitol, a public building.
The new rules also prohibited people from gathering in the Capitol for any performance, ceremony, presentation, meeting or rally without a permit.
The ACLU of Wisconsin lawsuit, filed in February in U.S. District Court, charged that the state violated the First Amendment by requiring permits for demonstrations held inside the Capitol and by punishing protesters who gather there without a permit.
The ACLU of Wisconsin and Madison attorney A. Steven Porter brought the suit on behalf of Michael Kissick, an assistant professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. In the past Kissick sometimes participated in demonstrations inside the Capitol, including the Solidarity Sing Along.
Kissick ceased exercising his First Amendment rights inside the Capitol in September 2012, when police began arresting and citing people who exercised free speech there without a permit. In July, U.S. District Judge William M. Conley ordered the state to stop enforcing the permit rules for small groups. Last month, Magistrate Judge Peter Oppeneer held a mediation session between the parties, resulting in the settlement.
“I’m happy because this agreement allows the Solidarity Sing Along to continue as it always has,” Kissick said. “The group has effectively been giving the state notice all along, and has always deferred to events with permits.”
As part of the settlement, a person may give the DOA notice of a gathering of 12 or more people by phone, email, in person, or via a form supplied by the state. Notice must be given at least two business days and not more than 10 business days before an event.
Individuals and groups may also give notice for consecutive events, and there is no limit on how many notices an individual or group may provide.
“There isn’t any question that the old permitting system was unconstitutional,” said legal director Dupuis. “This settlement halts the state’s unwarranted punishment of individuals who gather inside the Capitol to exercise their free speech rights.”
= new reply since forum marked as read
quite spiritual.... the marble, the murals the woodwork, just invigorating, especially all the different kinds of marble and granite
The Capitol was constructed of 43 types of stone from six countries and eight states. The exterior stone is Bethel White granite from Vermont, making the exterior dome the largest granite dome in the world. In the rotunda is marble from Greece, Algeria, Italy, and France, along with Minnesota limestone, Norwegian syenite (Labradorite) and red granite from Waupaca, Wisconsin. Other Wisconsin granites are located throughout the public hallways on the ground, first, and second floors.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wisconsin_State_Capitol_dome_interior_panorama.jpg
Woo hoo!
