In 2010, Andrew Cilek went to his polling place in Minnesota wearing a shirt with a Tea Party logo and the words “Don’t Tread on Me.”
On Wednesday, he’s going to the Supreme Court.
Cilek, the executive director of the Minnesota Voters Alliance, is challenging a state law that prohibits individuals from wearing a “political badge, political button or other political insignia” at polling places.
When he went to vote, election workers, citing the law, initially stopped Cilek from casting a ballot, but later relented and said he had to leave his name and address with them.
The case, which justices will hear Wednesday, pits the First Amendment against the sanctity of the polling place and could impact everything from Tea Party apparel to logos featuring the NAACP and the National Rifle Association.
After the election, Cilek brought suit arguing the law violates the First Amendment because it is overbroad and it defers to the discretion of election workers to determine which messages are political. He said group, for instance, did not endorse or oppose any candidates or issues on the 2010 ballot.
A lower court upheld the ban arguing that it advances the government’s interest in “peace, order and decorum” at polling places. Cilek’s lawyers from the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation filed an appeal with the Supreme Court.
“The law prohibits and potentially criminally punishes every variety of political speech on clothing from that which simply names a political group, to messages supporting political causes, to ideological or party references to messages about current issues,” they said in court papers.
“No conceivable governmental interest can sustain a statute that prohibits and chills, the entire realm of political speech that can be conveyed on apparel,” they wrote.
Minnesota officials defend the law and argue that citizens’ speech interests must yield to “reasonable” election restrictions.
“Minnesota’s limited prohibition is a reasonable restriction of speech in a quintessential nonpublic forum that protects the integrity of elections by preserving order and decorum in the polling place and preventing voter confusion and intimidation,” they argued in court papers.
They point out that all 50 states have laws that limit speech to some extent and that 11 states have similar laws to Minnesota’s.
The Supreme Court has permitted campaign free zones that prohibit campaign materials and active solicitation but it has yet to rule on a ban on more general political speech on apparel.
A decision is not expected until this spring.
