Political sign bans by housing that receive public funds
Q: I want to put a campaign in my apartment window but my particular apartment lease has a restriction in it barring political yard/window signs. Is this a violation of the First Amendment?My complex is funded by a special type state loan — a California Housing Finance Agency loan. [See: www.calhfa.ca.gov/] Might this circumstance lend support to my First Amendment right, if need be?
A: California law is not well-settled on this point, but the most recent authority indicates that your landlord could potentially impose a lease restriction prohibiting the display of a campaign sign. In Golden Gateway Center v. Golden Gateway Tenants Assoc., 26 Cal. 4th 1013 (2001), a divided California Supreme Court held that the California Constitution does not protect the distribution of newsletters by a tenant’s association in a private apartment building. This reasoning could be extended to restrictions on other activities that would normally be protected by the constitutional protection for free speech, such as the display of campaign signs. However, only four of the Court’s seven justices joined the decision, and one—Chief Justice Ronald George—joined only the result.
Thus, the Court seems to have left the issue open for reconsideration.The mere fact that the state funds the apartment building probably does not alter the analysis. Under the Golden Gateway case, the Court held that restrictions on distribution of newsletters could be imposed by the landlord because there was no “state action,” i.e. no real government involvement. The federal courts have generally held that mere public funding of an entity, without state involvement in the actual constitutional violations at issue, does not mean that constitutional violations by an entity constitute “state action.” See, e.g., Rendell-Baker v. Kohn, 457 U.S. 830, 840-41 (1982).