And now, for something completely different…

Getting off the public input kick for a bit here.  Let’s talk about political signs!  Trib columnist Robert Gehrke just wrote about this yesterday, talking about a Morgan County sign ordinance which prohibits political signs more than 30 days before an election.  Gehrke cites the standard in the U.S. Supreme Court sign case ruling in Reed v. Gilbert, AZ, which says in part:

… the court unanimously found that city ordinances that treat certain signs differently based on their purpose and message are unconstitutional, since the ordinces are regulating the content of the speech, not merely how it is being said.

The rule of thumb is that anyone enforcing a truly content-neutral signage rule should be able to tell if the sign is legal or not without having to read what the sign says.

With this year’s ruling in the City of Austin v. Reagan National Advertising case, some may think it is alright to regulate some signage based on content, but it appears that relates to much more neutral factors than the political, ideological or commercial nature of the sign content:

Sotomayor thought that it would be “too extreme an interpretation of this Court’s precedent” to say that Austin’s regulation was content-based simply because someone had to determine whether a sign did or did not relate to a good or service being offered on the premises.

While the sign regulation at issue in the Supreme Court’s ruling in Reed v. Town of Gilbert (2015) had required the city to distinguish among ideological signs, political signs, and temporary directional signs, the Austin regulations did not require such precise classification or treat them differently.

Gehrke writes:

Ultimately, local governments need to get rid of these time restrictions and start respecting both free speech and an individual’s private property rights.

But the answer, as so often seems to be the case in sign regulations and rulings, is not so clear cut.