Posted: Sunday, August 31, 2008 12:00 am
Albany has a city law prohibiting campaign signs in your yard outside of a certain period before an election. It would be fun to see what the state Supreme Court would do with such an ordinance in view of Oregon's free-speech guarantee.
The ordinance says that political yard signs are prohibited until 45 days before an election. Just last week the city council agreed to interpret the law as meaning 45 days before ballots are mailed to voters, which essentially lengthens the period in which signs are allowed by about three weeks.
Judging by the number of Obama signs around town in the past few months, nobody pays much attention to this law. Which is just as well, because the ordinance would be unlikely to be upheld if the city was unwise enough to issue somebody a ticket.
Everywhere you go, you see signs promoting Blue Sky power. These are yard signs stuck in people's lawns, proclaiming that they proudly pay extra for their electricity because wind power costs more than the conventional kind.
And then there are for-sale signs, perfectly legitimate, but also placed in yards.
The courts have made it plain that government must not discriminate on the basis of what a sign says. Government usually can regulate the size and placement of a sign, especially if there's some public health or safety reason for the regulation. But it can't control the message.
Signs in people's yards don't block anybody's view of traffic. And there is no conceivable reason they can be regulated on the grounds of public health.
So the city has no legitimate reason to prohibit political signs, any more than it would have a reason to proceed against environmentally conscious residents who want passersby to know they buy electricity generated from wind.
Officially, the legal period for signs is about to start. But in fact it does not matter. Small signs stuck in people's yards are not something that the law should be able to touch. (hh)