TRI In The News

West Virginia Restriction on Soliciting in Parks Overturned

From DailyPress.com
Original article available here.

A federal judge has ruled that the state Division of Natural Resources violated residents' free speech rights by prohibiting a political party from gathering petition signatures in a state park.

U.S. District Judge John Preston Bailey ruled earlier this month that the division's requirement that "solicitation" in state parks is only allowed after getting written permission from the DNR director is unconstitutional.

The Charlottesville, Va.-based Rutherford Institute filed the lawsuit in 2008 on behalf of the Constitution Party of West Virginia. Party members wanted to use a National Hunting and Fishing Day event at Stonewall Jackson Lake State Park in Lewis County to collect signatures to put their candidates on West Virginia's ballot.

DNR officials told party members to stop collecting signatures because the activity was not authorized under park and state regulations.

In its argument before the court, the division claimed the park was intended "for the recreational and aesthetic wilderness enjoyment for the citizens of West Virginia," and is not a public forum. In his ruling, Bailey said that argument was "silly at best."

Rutherford Institute President John Whitehead hailed Bailey's decision as a victory for free speech.

"We cannot allow the government to silence us," he said. "In America, we have the right to be heard and we have to protect it."

Calls to the Constitution Party's office in Martinsburg were not immediately returned Thursday.

DNR spokesman Hoy Murphy said the agency was disappointed with the ruling.

"At this point, the matter is still pending before the court and the DNR continues to evaluate the current and next stage of this litigation," Murphy said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

In his ruling, Bailey did not strike down a portion of the regulation that requires written permission for "hawking, peddling, begging, advertising or carrying on any business or commercial enterprise" in state parks.

But the term "soliciting" essentially vested the DNR director with unlimited discretion to grant or deny a permit to anyone, Bailey ruled.

"The regulation, thus, burdens a large quantity of speech and subjects all potential speakers to the whim of the director of the DNR," he wrote.