Springfield’s panhandling prohibition struck down as violation of freedom of speech
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined that Springfield’s ban on panhandling unconstitutionally discriminated against certain kinds of speech.
Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Reed v. Town of Gilbert and the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision in Norton v. City of Springfield, the free-speech rights of all Illinoisans are further protected against government regulations – such as sign ordinances and speech codes – that treat certain kinds of speech worse because of its topic, idea or message.
On Aug. 7, in the case of Norton v. City of Springfield, the 7th Circuit struck down a Springfield, Illinois, city ordinance that banned panhandling in Springfield’s downtown historic district as a content-based restriction on the freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution. In finding the panhandling ban unconstitutional, the court noted that the Springfield ordinance distinguished between different kinds of speech, outlawing oral requests for the immediate donation of money, but allowing signs requesting money and oral pleas to send money later.
The 7th Circuit based its holding on Reed v. Town of Gilbert, which the Supreme Court decided in June. In Reed, the Supreme Court ruled that a government that treats certain signs more favorably than others based on the message conveyed in those signs violates the First Amendment’s protection of the freedom of speech.
At issue in the Reed case was a sign code established by the town of Gilbert, Arizona, which treated “political signs,” or temporary signs designed to influence the outcome of an election, more favorably than “temporary directional signs,” or temporary signs intended to direct people to an assembly, gathering, activity or meeting sponsored by a nonprofit organization.
Under Gilbert’s sign laws, people could exhibit political signs as large as 16 square feet on residential property and up to 32 square feet on nonresidential property. And the town permitted people to display political signs 60 days before a primary election and up to 15 days following a general election. But temporary directional signs could be no larger than six square feet and could be displayed no more than 12 hours before the event and no more than one hour afterward.
Good News Community Church, a small congregation with no building that held services at elementary schools in Gilbert, put temporary signs around town displaying the church’s name, along with the time and location of its upcoming services. On a few occasions, the church did not take its signs down within one hour after worship services ended, and the town cited the church for violating the sign code. The church filed a lawsuit challenging the distinctions between political signs and temporary directional signs.
The Supreme Court held that the sign code’s different treatment of political signs and directional signs was a “content-based” restriction on speech. Prior to Reed, federal courts applied different standards for what counts as a content-based restriction, and the Supreme Court heard the Reed case to clarify the matter. The Supreme Court explained that a content-based regulation is one that applies to particular speech because of the topic discussed or the idea or message expressed. To determine how to apply a content-based sign regulation, one must look at what the sign says.
Determining whether speech is content-based is important because the Supreme Court presumes that a content-based regulation is unconstitutional and places a high burden on the government to overcome this presumption. In practice, the government can almost never do this.