What Not To Wear, Minnesota polling place edition

In its decision yesterday in Minnesota Voters Alliance v Mansky, the Supreme Court ruled that a Minnesota law banning political apparel at polls ran afoul of the First Amendment. The ruling was 7-2, a classic line-up in which the conservatives, Ginsburg, and Kagan joined in a strong free speech stand while Sotomayor and Breyer were more deferential toward speech restrictions. Cato had urged in a brief that the law be overturned.

For the majority, Chief Justice Roberts wrote that while the aim of Minnesota’s law was constitutionally acceptable (keeping peaceful order and preventing electioneering at the polls) the details of its drafting were not. “A rule whose fair enforcement requires an election judge to maintain a mental index of the platforms and positions of every candidate and party on the ballot is not reasonable.” So the proposition is not that states can’t regulate the wearing of campaign paraphernalia into the polling place, but that Minnesota needs to come up with rules that are more readily enforced in an even-handed way. More: Eugene Volokh; Trevor Burrus; Andrew Grossman on Twitter (“decision is exceedingly narrow and will only hit the most outlier state laws. Still, a nice win for expressive rights.”)

One Comment

  • I continue to be confounded and befuddled why people’s default reaction to issues where the essential question is “more or less freedom” isn’t — why, more, of course! Anytime a case ends up in court where a viable argument exists and freedom is on the side of that argument, I always wonder — who in the hell are the people (Minnesota legislators, Colorado Civil Rights Commission, basically any public body in California) who are AGAINST freedom by putting this stuff into practice in the first place? I am always confounded. And befuddled.