A federal district judge ruled that San Antonio did not violate the First Amendment when it placed limits on how fire union petitioners gathering signatures at libraries and senior centers. The union claimed the city’s free speech zones were located too far from facilities making it difficult to gather signatures. (Rivard Report, September 3, 2019, by Iris Dimmick)
“In a ruling dated September 1, 2019, US District Court Judge Xavier Rodriguez found that the library grounds and the senior citizen center were ‘nonpublic forums’ and that the city’s policies restricting political activities were reasonable and viewpoint neutral. The court further ruled that the city did not retaliate against the firefighters by calling the police, threatening to have them arrested, enforcing the policies, and taking additional steps to advise the public of their right to refuse to sign the petitions.” (Fire Law Blog, September 4, 2019, by Curt Varone)