Social justice activists and Washington D.C. city officials have collaborated to paint the slogan “Black Lives Matter” on 16th Street near the White House.
The city has also allowed the words “Defund the Police” to be painted on the street.
Does this mean that the roadways of our nation’s capital city are now a public forum accessible to anyone who files the proper forms?
So far, doesn’t look like it.
So Judicial Watch (JW) is suing for the right to paint its own motto, “Because No One is Above the Law,” on a DC street. JW went to court because its applications to perform a similar paint job have fallen on deaf ears.
It contends that its First Amendment right of freedom of speech is being violated.
“We have been patient,” Judicial Watch says. “We also have been flexible. We have stated our willingness to paint our motto at a different location if street closure is necessary and the city is unwilling to close our chosen location. All we ask is that we be afforded the same opportunity to paint our message on a DC street that has been afforded the painters on 16th Street.”
I can’t wait until all this gets cleared up. I suppose it’ll be one or two paint jobs per applicant.
“ThisisCommonSense.org” has a nice ring to it, eh?
Something about “unalienable rights [to] Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” would also be a great message, assuming it’s still legal to quote the Founders whose legacy we celebrated over the weekend.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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5 replies on “Protest Hits the Pavement”
Judicial Watch seems to think that SOME people are above the law. Specifically, the bureaucrats and thugs who persecute immigrants in violation of the US Constitution’s near-absolute prohibition on federal regulation of immigration.
Where is the near-absolute prohibition on federal regulation of immigration? The only clause that addresses it expired two centuries ago. After 1808, Congress was free to regulate immigration.
Article 1, Section 9, Clause 1:
The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.
Pat,
You write:
“After 1808, Congress was free to regulate immigration”
Not according to the 10th Amendment. The expiration of a prohibition on creating a power doesn’t magically create a power. It took 80 years and an activist Supreme Court to miracle up a federal power to regulate immigration, which appears nowhere in the Constitution.
Thomas,
Thank you. But it didn’t take eighty years for an activist court to grow the federal government.
McCulloch v. Maryland was a landmark legal case in which the United States Supreme Court invoked the “necessary and proper” clause of the Constitution to support the conclusion that the federal government’s power extends beyond the powers specifically listed in the Constitution. This decision was written by Chief Justice John Marshall, decades before even the Civil War. This decision greatly weakened the Tenth Amendment.
The fact that the Constitution had that section specifically barring Congress from interfering with immigration until 1808 implies that this power was always within the purview of the federal government and they took a pause on it.
It’s summertime now but it also snows in DC in the winter. The streets get salted and plowed and potholes develop. Eventually, the road gets repaved. These paint jobs will disappear.