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City council repeals law used to suppress political speech

September 3, 2015
<p>East Lansing City Hall on Aug. 29, 2015. Courtney Kendler/The State News</p>

East Lansing City Hall on Aug. 29, 2015. Courtney Kendler/The State News

Photo by Courtney Kendler | The State News

An ordinance approved at Tuesday night's city council meeting repealed a portion of the city code dealing with handbills and bill posting that had been the subject of controversy at the Great Lakes Folk Fest in early August. 

Councilmember Ruth Beier, East Lansing Mayor Nathan Triplett and city attorney Thomas Yeadon agreed that the repealed portion of the code was subject to misinterpretation and miscommunication. Beier said she was personally the subject of this misinterpretation at the Great Lakes Folk Festival.

Beier said she was handing out handbills that said “I would like to buy root beer but I don’t support hate, so I will buy my drink somewhere else” as a way to “peacefully protest” a vendor that was displaying a confederate flag in his window. The councilmember said she was told by East Lansing police that she had to stop handing out the handbills or be arrested.

“It was misapplied. Those handbills wouldn’t have ended up as litter and that’s what they were applying,” Beier said. “What that ordinance was for was so handbills weren’t on people’s windshields and taken off and thrown on the ground.”

The real reason police were enforcing the now repealed portion of the city code this way was because they didn’t want her protesting at the festival, Beier said. 

“They were using an ordinance to get me to go away and that’s not what our laws are for," Beier said. "Laws are actually to protect me."

Triplett and Yeadon both said they felt comfortable repealing the code because other sections already prohibit littering on both private and public property and that’s what the ordinance was purposed for.

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