Local Government and the Regulation of Speech

This CLE course will guide counsel to local governments on how to lawfully regulate the display of political signs and public employee campaigning on municipal property--without violating federal and state constitutions.

It seems that election season never stops. Campaign signs and billboards are flooding every city and town, along with complaints about sign clutter. Local governments must also deal with complaints about public employees campaigning on municipal or county property.

Although political speech is at the core of First Amendment protection, some local regulation of the "time, place and manner" in which political discourse occurs is constitutional. The law in this area is notoriously complicated, however, and local governments frequently lose litigation over political and protest signs.

What are the constitutional limits on the regulation of political signs? Can political signs be regulated as a distinct class? Must a city allow the signs on public property? Can a political sign be so extreme that its display is a crime? Can public employees campaign on work time or in the workplace?

Listen as our authoritative panel of land use and First Amendment legal specialists explains the regulations that local governments may place upon the display of political signs and upon public employees' activities--without violating the federal and state constitutions. The panel will also discuss cases where regulations of political posters and employees' political speech have been ruled unconstitutional and the implications of the Supreme Court's Reed v. Town of Gilbert decision on this complex area of law.