The Huffington Post reports that despite city officials’ initial insinuations that the entire “City of St. Paul” would be fully open to demonstrators during the Republican National Convention this fall, new city plans say otherwise:
“The guidelines include a primary event area… a secondary event area (a wider perimeter, the boundaries of which are yet to be determined) and something called a, ‘designated public assembly area’.
To be located at the edge of the primary event area, the designated public assembly area looks suspiciously like a first amendment zone.
According to the guidelines, groups and organizations who have applied for and received permits will assemble in a “parade staging area”. Then they will march along a “secondary event area parade route” to that designated public assembly area.
At that point, groups will be free to demonstrate. To go ahead and knock themselves out.”
So-called “Free Speech Zones”—typically small, fenced-in areas that are located away from main event proceedings—have been staples at high-profile political events for decades, criticized by speech advocates who suggest the zones go beyond the stated goal of protecting attendees and into the territory of unconstitutional content-based restriction.
The 2004 nominating conventions, especially the Democratic convention in Boston, were peak moments of public awareness of the speech zones as thousands of demonstrators were relegated to fight for positions within a “cage” built to hold 400 people.
Although the St. Paul plans are not yet fully developed or official, advocates are already bracing for what is sure to be a contentious debate on the limits of the right to public protest.
Huffington Post columnist Peter Smith points out the irony of Free Speech Zones: “It’s just that the Constitution designates the entire country a public assembly area/first amendment zone.”
The St. Paul Pioneer Press quotes Assistant Police Chief Matt Bolstrom as saying, “Just because this is an international event, we’re not making the assumption that we’re going to deploy as if we’re going to have to fight with people.”
