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Brochure ban lands in court
Lawsuit filed over Stafford ordinanceDate published: 5/20/2003
Two officials with Republican Mike Rothfeld's state Senate campaign are suing Stafford County officials over an ordinance that prohibits placing leaflets on vehicles. Joshua Morris, treasurer of the Rothfeld for Senate campaign and president of the Mary Washington College Young Republicans, and Herbert Lux Jr., director of Rothfeld's grassroots activity, filed a federal suit in Alexandria last week charging that the county ordinance violates their First Amendment rights to free speech. The ordinance prohibits the placing of handbills on motor vehicles or any other private property without the owner's permission. It also forbids handing out fliers on the sidewalk in a manner that interferes with pedestrians, and it bars people from entering private property to put handbills there. The lawsuit names each county supervisor individually, as well as Sheriff Charles Jett, County Attorney Alda White, and Commonwealth's Attorney Daniel Chichester, whose brother, Sen. John Chichester, is Rothfeld's opponent in the GOP primary election on June 10. The suit was filed by the law firm of Pat McSweeney, a former chairman of the state Republican Party. According to the suit, Lux was at the Virginia Railway Express commuter parking lot in Falmouth on May 2, handing out Rothfeld campaign literature to pedestrians and putting fliers on vehicles. A Stafford County sheriff's deputy called Rothfeld campaign officials to inform them that what Lux was doing was illegal. Campaign officials called Sheriff Jett five days later to say that they would stop distributing campaign literature but had "a constitutional problem with the ordinance." The suit charges that the ordinance stands "in direct contradiction to the First Amendment and its stringent protection of political speech. Plaintiffs have been silenced by the operation of this law and fear its future enforcement as well." Rothfeld said yesterday he supports his campaign workers in filing the suit against an ordinance that he thinks is unnecessarily, and illegally, restrictive. The county's ordinance even bans the time-honored campaign practice of handing out political fliers door-to-door. Rothfeld said he chose to take on the ordinance not because of politics but because of an interest in the First Amendment that goes deeper than this campaign.
Date published: 5/20/2003
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