Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 22, 1994 TAG: 9402220050
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: LADUE, MO. LENGTH: Medium
The Persian Gulf War came and went. A fight in Ladue over that 2-by-3-foot yard sign only escalated.
This week, what began as a local dispute over a city's sign prohibition becomes a major First Amendment test at the Supreme Court. Ladue prohibits its residents from erecting political and social signs at their homes.
The case, to be heard by justices on Wednesday, casts free speech proponents against a municipality's desire to control visual blight. Advertisers, publishers and free speech activists have sided with Gilleo, as has the U.S. solicitor general. Numerous governmental organizations and seven states are with Ladue, saying strong anti-sign laws are necessary to protect the scenic beauty and safety of their jurisdictions.
"It's not the message," insisted Jordan Cherrick, lawyer for the city. "It's the medium."
Ladue officials think signs are ugly. "Ladue has comprehensively protected aesthetics from its beginning" in 1936, Cherrick said. "Police have enforced the ordinance against commercial signs that say, `Siding going up,' and against ones that say `Happy Birthday.' "
Judges traditionally have given political speech, such as Gilleo's anti-war protest, the greatest protection under the Constitution. But Supreme Court precedent on the different levels of protection for noncommercial speech and commercial speech is murky. A ruling in the case could help clarify how far governments may go in regulating both commercial and noncommercial speech.
Relying on the general rule that noncommercial speech has greater constitutional coverage, lower courts in the Gilleo case concluded that Ladue was impermissibly favoring commercial speech, such as real estate signs, over political speech.
Ladue's sign ordinance generally prohibits all signs within its 8 1/2 square miles. Exemptions are included for real estate signs, road and safety hazard signs, health inspection signs, public transportation markers and commercial signs in commercially zoned or industrial districts.
Under previous Supreme Court cases, when an ordinance targets the content of a particular kind of speech, the city must be able to show that the law serves a "compelling interest," such as public health, and the ordinance must be narrowly drawn to achieve that end. Lower courts said Ladue failed that test.
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by CNB