Municipal Law Q&A Test your knowledge of municipal practices and procedures with the questions and answers below. Click here to submit a question to Ancel Glink.
Municipal Q&A - November 2006
Can a municipality restrict political campaign signs on private property?
ANSWER:
During election seasons, political campaign signs grow like weeds in every neighborhood. What can municipalities do to control these ugly pests?
Many municipal codes provide that political signs on private property can only be displayed 30 days prior to an election and must be removed five days after the election, except for the signs of continuing candidates, i.e., those who have won a primary and will go on to the general election. Unfortunately, these durational restrictions on political signs located on private property would probably not be upheld in a court challenge.
The cases generally hold that durational limits on campaign signs on private property are invalid. If a realty sign can be posted for six months, but a campaign sign is banned except for 45 days prior to an election, the regulation is unconstitutional, because it is content-based. The leading Supreme Court case is City of LaDue v. Gilleo, 512 U.S. 43, 114 S.Ct. 2038 (1994), where the defendant placed signs opposing the Gulf war in her window and front yard. The City said the signs were prohibited. The Court found that the City had prohibited
a venerable means of communication that is both unique and important. It has totally foreclosed that medium to political, religious, or personal messages…. Often placed on lawns or in windows, residential signs play an important part in political campaigns, during which they are displayed to signal the resident's support for particular candidates, parties, or causes. They may not afford the same opportunities for conveying complex ideas as do other media, but residential signs have long been an important and distinct medium of expression. Id. at 54.
The Court placed a high value on residential signs for First Amendment purposes. Consistent with that opinion, the courts have regularly invalidated durational restrictions on political signs on private property. Curry v. Prince George's County, Maryland, 22, F.Supp.2d 447 (D.Md. 1999) (durational limit for political signs on private property invalid); Dimas v. City of Warren, 939 F.Supp. 554 (E.D. Mich. 1996) (durational limit for political signs on private property invalid); Whitton v. City of Gladstone, Missouri, 54 F.3d 1400 (8th Cir. 1995) (durational restriction on political sign is content-based and thus invalid). Very recently, in a case directly on point, a District Court in the Fourth Circuit found that an ordinance limiting political signs to 30 days before and 7 days after an election was unconstitutional, because certain other kinds of signs were exempt from the time limitation. McFadden v. City of Bridgeport, 2006 WL 696324 (N.D.W.Va. 2006). As the court pointed out, "While a Bridgeport resident may display a directional sign reading 'park in back,' … or an historical sign reading 'George Washington slept here,'… anytime he or she wants, that same resident may not display a sign reading 'Vote for Jim' two months before an election." Id. at 13. In all these cases, the ordinance restricting placement of political signs on private property to a certain time period before the election was invalidated by the courts, because the time limit applied only to political signs.
In one Illinois case, a less restrictive time limit for political signs on private property was upheld. In City of Waterloo v. Markham, 234 Ill.App.3d 744, 600 N.E.2d 1320 (5th Dist. 1992), all temporary signs, which included political signs, had to be removed after 90 days. The court found this regulation to be content-neutral and a valid time, place, and manner restriction on First Amendment speech. The court found it significant that nothing in the ordinance prohibited an individual from taking down the temporary sign on day 89 and replacing it with a new one. Id. at 748.
However, a more recent case has invalidated a similar type of restriction. In Christensen v. City of Wheaton, 2000 WL 204225 (N.D. Ill. 2000), a 30-day restriction on temporary signs, among them political signs, was struck down because the ordinance allowed other commercial signs like realty and construction signs to stay up until a property was sold or a construction project was completed. The ordinance was not content-neutral and thus invalid.
Other sign regulations, such as limits on the number of signs, their size, lighting, or movement, will face the same test as time limits: all signs must be treated alike. If a "For Sale" sign can be six feet high, a political sign cannot be limited to less. "Content neutrality" is the key to a valid sign regulation. It must apply equally to all signs, regardless of the content of the sign.
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