Courts say cities can regulate the constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of speech and assembly if the restrictions are content-neutral. But Bloomington’s protest ordinance exempts churches and schools, St. Paul’s exempts funerals, and Minneapolis’ applies only to protests during the Republican National Convention. All three tread on or over the content-neutral line of constitutional law, according to American Civil Liberties Union-Minnesota attorney Teresa Nelson. 

Bloomington’s public assembly ordinance (PDF, see 5.4C), approved in May in anticipation of RNC-related protests, grants the broadest exemptions. Elementary and secondary schools, public and private, don’t need to get a permit for public assemblies of more than 50 people on school grounds or public property. Nor do they have to pay the $15 city permit fee. And if they failed to get a permit, they wouldn’t be committing a petty misdemeanor. The same goes for religious organizations gathering on private property, which could include the contested interior of the Mall of America or the new Bloomington Central Station park area. 

 

St. Paul exempts funeral processions from its public assembly permit requirement. In highly charged political environments in the Middle East and elsewhere, funerals frequently double as public assemblies for the purpose of political speech. St. Paul expects its own highly charged political environment during the RNC, but its 3-year-old ordinance lets funerals proceed without a public assembly permit. An assembly of 26 persons or more not judged to be a funeral procession would require a permit costing $10, without which participants could be charged with misdemeanors.

 

The Minneapolis City Council went back and forth and finally this month approved a public assembly ordinance that applies only during the time around the RNC (PDF, see 2008R-213), from Aug. 25-Sept. 8. Courts would likely buy an argument that the city selected that time period because that’s when it expects unprecedented protests. Still, the net effect is an additional layer of regulation on speech and assembly when most people seeking to exercise those rights will be anti-Republican or anti-war. 

 

RNC protesters who can convincingly construe their demonstration to fit the definition of a school or church event, or a funeral procession, might get a free pass from public assembly regulations in Bloomington and St. Paul. Minneapolis doesn’t have such exemptions, but other oddities in that city’s ordinance will be the topic of a future installment of RNC Protest 101 Extra Credit. Click here for the Minnesota Independent’s Public Assembly Guide, a table that compares the basics of ordinances in St. Paul, Bloomington and Minneapolis.