I’d like that too.
And I’d be curious about why last year’s SOTU demonstrators weren’t similarly ejected.
You know, all those people waving purple fingers in the air. Surely that’s more of a ‘demonstration’ than merely wearing a T-shirt with a slogan on it. (Stolen from Glenn Greenwald.)
Well, I’m no legal expert, but I’d say Article I, Section 5, clause 2 would give the House very wide latitude to decide whether certain actions should be allowed inside its chambers. I find that to be a much different question than arresting people for praying in the Capitol Rotunda, which I agree should not be justified.
As far as arresting Sheehan and not Congressman Young’s wife, that’s a very good point. Barring some other event transpiring that we don’t know about, I don’t think that Sheehan should have been arrested, but I still think the the House is well within its rights to enforce some degree of decorum on those who are actually inside its chambers.
I can’t help but think that if I showed up at Charles Graner’s court martial with a t-shirt reading, “How many more will be tortured?” the judge would not look kindly on it, even though there’s no law against wearing such a t-shirt. I don’t see a big difference between that type of situation and kicking someone out of the congressional galleries.
OK, but even they have to stick with the rules they’ve previously agreed on. So what rule did she break?
That’s apparently different. IANAL, but I gather that judges have pretty close to absolute power to determine what constitutes proper decorum in their courtrooms, and the power to enforce it through contempt citations.
Crooks and Liars is reporting this:
[quote]
This just coming in: Sources close to the case have told C&L that the Capitol Police will ask the US Attorney to drop the charges against Cindy and the wife of Rep. C.W. Bill Young- Beverly Young, because there is no rule or law that they could find which was violated.**
[QUOTE=NurseCarmen]
Crooks and Liars is reporting this:
Great news. This opens the door for the next SOTU. Hopefully, we’ll see a sea of t-shirts and signs.
Yeah, that’ll be great!
Why “hopefully”? Why is it good for a few nutjobs to be disruptive? Sheehan and the rest of the fucking protesters on both the left and the right need to shut the hell up and let the established political system work.
Signs are prohibited my the law I refered to earlier.
There’s nothing disuptive about wearing a t-shirt.
Ok. I,m good with just t-shirts.
What are you in the armed services for? To protect the Constitution? In Soviet Russia, you could get arrested for wearing a t-shirt with a message the government didn’t agree with. In Communist China, too. That’s why I was told we armed ourselves with enough nuclear weapons to destroy the entire fucking planet three times over–so that sort of thing wouldn’t happen here. Well guess what, bitch, it’s happening here, in the fucking House of Representatives.
Don’t any of you authoritarian apologists ever, ever use the word “freedom” again. Either you don’t know what it means, or you don’t care.
No rule the Congress can come up with trumps this.
I’m not an expert in House rules, so I can’t cite you a rule. I’ll take the Capitol Police reports just cited as enough evidence that there isn’t a specific rule against wearing t-shirts.
If there isn’t a rule against such a thing, then it looks like the Capitol Police goofed up in sending both Sheehan and Mrs. Young out of the galleries. However, I would still maintain that if the House wanted to make a blanket rule against observers wearing political slogans while in the galleries – whether it is “stop the war,” “support the troops,” “vote Republican,” or whatever – I think it’s perfectly fine to establish standards of decorum in places like courtrooms, the chambers of Congress, the White House, and so on.
Hell, if Congress wanted to make a dress code that gentlemen must wear a tie and so on, I think that’d be just fine, too. As I said before, that seems like the kind of rule that should be enforced by kicking people out, not arresting them.
What I don’t think is fair to say is what Crooks and Liars stated, namely, that “It was a blatant attempt to control the environment where our fearless leader appears as usual.” I fail to see how if that is the case, why Mrs. Young would be thrown out, too. Was Mrs. Young a threat to the environment of the fearless leader? Hardly! A breach of decorum? I think so. A crime? It shouldn’t be.
(I’m also curious as to why the Capitol Police would be asking the charges against her to be dropped if she wasn’t arrested, but the question appears moot.)
As I said, I’m not a lawyer, but I seem to recall that the courts decided long ago that Congress is acting within its authority by establishing a morning prayer, regardsless of what the First Amendment says. Furthermore, I’d be very surprised if courts would find that ordinary people are allowed to engage in protests on the Floor of the House, for example, even if the same assembly might be perfectly alright on the steps of the Capitol.
Wow. This is just so disturbing on so many levels.
FBI Crime Statistics for 2002 list the number of arrests for Vagrancy as 27,300. Daily average of ~78 nationwide. Unless there has been a HUGE spike in homelessness/vagrancy in the past three years I wouldn’t expect this number to have yet reached “hundreds” per day.
Not that your arguement hinges on the actual number of course, just providing a factoid.
If I wanted to counter your arguement I would note that there is no Constitutional guarantee of shelter. There is a Constitutional guarantee for free speech and tons of caselaw saying that political speech is vigorously protected. There is also caselaw that messages on t-shirts can constitute expressive political speech.
Enjoy,
Steven
In Soviet Russia t-shirt arrest you!
Hmm. Needs more Nazis.
There’s no right to peaceably assemble? Oh, I guess if you’re alone on the street, you aren’t “assembled” so the police can arrest you. Ok, nevermind. Guess those filthy vagrants should have been smart enough to be in a group, then they’d actually have the constitutional right to hang out on the street without being arrested.
Guess it proves the point though, one person gets arrested, it’s a tragedy, 27,300 get arrested, it’s a statistic.
Please show me where in the Consitution it says I can’t shoot my neighbor.
Which answers the question not at all. You are guaranteed the inalienable right to freedom of expression. You’re not guaranteed the inalienable right to blowing the head off anyone who pisses you off. Unless you happen to be President, that is.