On Thursday the new rules that the city of Tampa intends to impose on those protesting at the Republican National Convention will come before the City Council for the first time. But the rules were put on trial, so to speak, on Tuesday night, at a forum hosted by the ACLU at the Stetson University College of Law Tampa Law Center.
Among the most contentious of the provisions in the proposed ordinance is one that would limit groups to rallies of just one hour in length.
Though City Attorney Jim Shimberg told the packed audience that the ordinance was created after consulting with attorneys and law enforcement officials who have hosted previous conventions, the ACLU's John Dingfelder, who has been speaking with civil liberty attorneys across the country, said nobody he has spoken with had ever heard of just an hour-long limit to protesting.
Shimberg responded that the one-hour limit was written because it would be unfair for Tampa Police officers to endure the late August heat and humidity wearing riot gear. And he suggested that most protesters would not want to stand outside in the searing heat and humidity that is Tampa in late August, using Mayor Bob Buckhorn's State of the City Address earlier Tuesday (which took place in uncomfortably hotter than normal early April weather at Curtis Hixon) as a good example.
In addition to Shimberg, the all-star panel included Hillsborough County Public Defender Julianne Holt, Mickey H. Osterreicher, General Counsel of the National Press Photographers Association, Stetson Professor of Constitutional Law Louis Virelli, and Ellyn Angelotti from The Poynter Institute.
This article appears in Mar 29 – Apr 4, 2012.