8/2/2019 NLG Comments to Tampa City Council on Proposed RNC Ordinance: WMNF News

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Comments by the National Lawyers Guild

to the Tampa City Council

on the Unconstitutionality of

An Ordinance Regulating Activities in the City of Tampa Related to the

2012 Republican National ConventionApril 5, 2012

The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) strongly opposes the proposed special ordinance regulatingactivities related to the 2012 Republican National Convention (RNC) being considered by theTampa City Council. It is unconstitutional, as an impermissibly broad prohibition on protectedconstitutional activity, and will especially impact conduct protected by the First Amendment.

Since its founding 75 years ago, the NLG has been a staunch defender of First Amendmentrights. Our members include constitutional attorneys who have litigatedand secured landmarksettlements inprotest-related cases in Florida and across the country.

For example, Guild attorneys brought major litigation challenging the governments deliberateassault on protesters civil rights at the 2003 Free Trade Area of the Americas Conference,including a challenge to a Miami ordinance resembling the one under consideration by the Cityof Tampa. In a series of cases stemming from mass false arrests and excessive use of force bypolice, the City of Miami and Miami Dade County paid over $1.5 million in settlements(Killmon, et al. v. City of Miami, et al.; Bell v. Miami Dade County ; Swanson v. City of Miami, etal. and Fletcher v. City of Miami).

In recent years the NLG has litigated multiple similar crackdowns by municipal governments onfree speech and assembly, including attempts to enact event-related special ordinances similarto the 2012 RNC ordinance.

Although municipalities are permitted to set content-neutral time, place and manner restrictionson public assemblies and marches, the provisions in this ordinance are unreasonable, and, ifenacted would have an unmistakable chilling effect on free speech and assembly. Put anotherway, if the City Council passes this ordinance regulating activities related to the 2012Republican National Convention, it will find itself on the wrong side of the Constitution and,the NLG will join with other civil liberties organizations to defend the civil rights ofdemonstrators to protest against unconstitutional government and police practices. Publicperception that Tampas government is intolerant of free speech will persist long after the 2012RNC.

In case after case, the NLG has documented problems resulting from aggressive policing,supported by ill-informed local governments, of peaceful mass assemblies. History has shown usthat special ordinances passed in anticipation of National Special Security Events such asthe RNC are not only often unconstitutional, but have also repeatedly failed to enhance publicsafety. The vast majority of any violence seen at demonstrations in the United States is notcarried out or caused by demonstrators, rather it is undertaken by police who are trained to seeprotesters as inherently criminal, and are then deployed with so-called less-lethal weaponry and

8/2/2019 NLG Comments to Tampa City Council on Proposed RNC Ordinance: WMNF News

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the power of false arrest. We hope that the City of Tampa will take seriously our observation thatpolice overreaction and the curtailment of First Amendment activities run directly counter to thesafety and rights of event participants. The militarization of these events in the past has resultedin the costly and violent curtailing of free speech and has been detrimental on a number of fronts,from huge costs during hard economic times to the tarnishing of host cities reputations.

It does not have to be this way. The National Lawyers Guild urges the Tampa leadership to avoidan over-militarized police presence that punishes First Amendment activities, and to insteadpractice sensible policing so that safety and free speech can co-exist on the days leading up toand including August 27-30, 2012. In so doing Tampa will send a positive message to the rest ofthe country that free speech and public safety are not mutually exclusive, but are in factcomplimentary.

National Lawyers GuildNational Office

132 Nassau Street #922New York, NY 10038212-679-5100, ext. 11www.nlg.org