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Andrew Cilek might be — this is just a hunch — unaware that 2018 is Brooks Brothers’ bicentennial. Judging by what he wore when he went out to vote in Minneapolis on Nov. 2, 2010, his preferences in shirts run less to button-down Oxford cloth than to chatty T-shirts. The question the U.S. Supreme Court will consider on Wednesday is whether Cilek’s expressive shirt impermissibly interfered with Minnesota’s interest in maintaining “peace, order and decorum†at polling places.Minnesota forbids voters from wearing in a polling place political badges, buttons, or other insignia designed to “influence and impact†voting, or “promoting a group with recognizable political views,†even if the things worn do not refer to any candidate or issue on that day’s ballot. Nine other states have similar laws, and all 50 states have “speech-free zones†around polling places. Cilek’s T-shirt featured the Gadsden Flag (“Don’t Tread on Meâ€) and a small tea-party logo. He also sported a button, from a group worried about voter fraud, that read “Please I.D. Me.†He was temporarily prevented from voting, so, being a real — that is, litigious — American he went to court.The Supreme Court has found no constitutional infirmity in campaign-free zones, but Minnesota’s law as Cilek experienced it seems to mandate a First Amendment-free zone, which he says is unconstitutionally overbroad. Minnesota has admitted that its law also would forbid apparel bearing the logos of, for example, the Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO, which do indeed have “recognizable political views.†These might (to use the language of campus speech police) “trigger†in people who see them. . . what? Political thoughts perhaps tangentially related to candidates or propositions on the ballot?. . . It is one thing to ban, as the court has allowed, active “solicitation of votes†in or close to a polling place. It is, however, a bit much for Minnesota to forbid passive expression of political — very broadly defined — allegiances not associated with any person or issue being voted on . . . Nowadays, the court frequently adjudicates speech controversies because governments eagerly embrace sinister rationalizations for “balancing†free speech against competing values, to the detriment of free speech. Hence the court should affirm Cilek’s admirably prickly resistance to Minnesota’s officiousness. Today more than ever, with freedom of expression increasingly threatened, an American’s default position regarding restrictions should be: Don’t tread on me.
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Topic: Hey SCOTUS: Don’t Tread on Voters’ T-shirts (Read 270 times)
