Honolulu Star-Bulletin
Since the U.S. Supreme Court gave its approval to bans on house-to-house peddling more than a half century ago, various towns and cities have busily adopted such ordinances. The high court's ruling yesterday protecting the rights of Jehovah's Witnesses to go door-to-door was a reminder that limitations short of outright prohibitions are risky. Honolulu has been wise to avoid such restrictions.
Door-to-door sales people in Honolulu were criticized last year for selling $2,000 vacuum cleaners in recent years to elderly people with wood floors. State law regulates such door-to-door sales of merchandise, but rights to free speech and religion should continue to be protected.
The restrictive ordinance at issue was enacted in the small town of Stratton, Ohio, to protect elderly residents against irritating sales people. The town council required that anybody who wanted to go door-to-door first had to obtain a permit from the mayor's office. ...
Jehovah's Witnesses has battled for decades for its First Amendment protection, allowing its members to follow the example of the disciple Paul in teaching their religion "publicly and from house to house." Many people are irritated by their solicitations, but the same is true of an array of communication conveyed by an assortment of methods.
If the town of Stratton had limited its restrictions to sales people or fund-raisers, the high court probably would have allowed its ordinance to stand. However, the inclusion of religious proselyters and political campaigners in its list of potential banned organizations encroached on the right of free speech. ...
In a supplemental brief in the case, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has many door-to-door missionaries, raised concerns about "a dramatic surge in the number and severity of anti-solicitation laws that are being applied to religious proselyting." The court ruling should counter such a movement toward intolerance.
Chicago Tribune
Some people hate door-to-door solicitors. Some tolerate them. Others look forward to them. In a free and open society, there is ample room for both solicitors and those who would rather avoid them.
Most people find individual ways to deal with these uninvited visitors -- by posting "No soliciting" signs, by slamming doors (or refusing to open them), or by listening to the parade of pitches. Most people don't insist that the government step in and regulate these encounters.
But that's exactly what the municipal government of Stratton, Ohio, chose to do.
In 1998, the village, which has fewer than 300 residents, passed an ordinance requiring all canvassers, peddlers and other solicitors to obtain permits before going door-to-door. ...
The Jehovah's Witnesses went to court, arguing that the ordinance infringed on their 1st Amendment rights. This small and unconventional sect, with its practice of persistent evangelism, has considerable experience with such ordinances -- much of it unpleasant -- and it has often found the Constitution to be a source of protection. In 1930s and 1940s, the Supreme Court struck down municipal statutes requiring solicitors to get permits and barring door-to-door leafleting entirely, both times at the urging of the Jehovah's Witnesses.
Now the court has come to the sect's aid again. On Monday, the court invalidated the Stratton law, by a decisive 8-1 vote, because it so broadly restricted communication. ...
Many people don't look forward to a knock on the door by a Jehovah's Witness, but there are ways for those homeowners to avoid or limit such encounters. With this law consigned to the fate it deserved, Stratton's residents may find that those methods are more than adequate.
Washington Post
Protecting the right of Jehovah's Witnesses to canvass neighborhoods looking for converts may not seem like the cutting edge of free speech. But the Supreme Court, in its decision this week throwing out a local regulation in the tiny village of Stratton, Ohio, seemed to go out of its way to emphasize the historical importance of the right to annoy one's neighbors. It credited the sect with, over many decades, prompting the high court to consider and reject restrictions on door-to-door speech. And by an 8 to 1 vote, it rejected Stratton's requirement -- challenged by the Jehovah's Witnesses -- that canvassers of all types seek a permit from the mayor. ...
Yet the court rightly rejected even this minimal regulation. Requiring people to register in order to speak, as Justice Stevens points out, renders certain types of spontaneous speech illegal: Someone inclined during the weekend, for example, to raise money for a new-found cause would have to wait until government offices opened. More fundamentally, such a licensing scheme insinuates the government -- however minimally -- into the exchange of ideas between individuals. The government needs a compelling reason to burden such communications, and the reasons Stratton offers -- protecting privacy and preventing con artists from preying on residents -- don't remotely justify the intrusion. It isn't the place of government to protect people from being irritated by the religious or political convictions of those among whom they live. People who don't like canvassers can protect themselves by using their unfettered right to slam their front doors.
San Diego Union-Tribune
The nation's highest court struck a welcome blow for free speech this week in a far-reaching case that pitted the Jehovah's Witnesses against the tiny village of Stratton, Ohio.
Stratton, population 287, passed an ordinance covering "canvassers, solicitors, peddlers (or) hawkers" who go door to door for purposes of "advertising, promoting, selling and/or explaining any product, service, organization or cause."
Those targeted by the law were required to register with the town, provide their name and address, their cause, why they were canvassing, which homes they intended to visit and how long they planned to solicit. ...
The Supreme Court, however, found Stratton's ordinance overly broad. ...
The justices concluded that Stratton's dictates, as they applied to religious proselytizing, anonymous political speech and the distribution of handbills, violated the First Amendment. ...
By reaffirming the church's constitutional right to proselytize door to door, the justices also affirmed the free speech rights of all nonsectarian, non-commercial canvassers.
And if the residents of Stratton or any other community do not want to listen to the canvasser they can simply post a "No Solicitations" sign at the door, or simply refuse to engage in conversation.
The Supreme Court's ruling sends a message to local governments throughout the land: They may not impose an overly broad law that prevents individuals from exercising their free speech rights door to door.
Portland Press Herald
Knock-knock.
Who's there?
Just about anyone, according to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that communities can't require traveling salesmen, political activists and religious proselytizers to get a permit before ringing doorbells.
The case arose when the Jehovah's Witnesses challenged a Stratton, Ohio, ordinance forbidding door-to-door solicitations without a permit. Although the town gave a permit to anyone who asked, the Witnesses claimed that the system required them to ask for the government's permission before they were allowed to speak.
The town said that it only meant to protect citizens from fraud and intruders.
The Court didn't buy it. "It is offensive - not only to the values protected by the First Amendment, but to the very notion of a free society - that in the context of everyday public discourse a citizen must first inform the government of her desire to speak to her neighbors," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority.
While we agreed with the lone dissenter, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who said similar requirements have met constitutional muster in the past, we believe the practical outcome is the right one. ...
The court's majority pointed out that there are better, less restrictive ways to protect homeowners from door-knockers. A "no-solicitation" sign will do the trick for those who value their privacy, while others who enjoy an unexpected visit literally can put out the welcome mat.
Portland Oregonian
If it were only the Girl Scouts who came to the door, the issue of unwanted solicitors would never have reached the U.S. Supreme Court. Because, really: Is it ever a bad time to buy cookies?
Regular solicitors, however, include proselytizers, politicians, con artists, signature gatherers, and city workers who want you to disconnect your downspouts to protect the Willamette River. No wonder the idea of regulating solicitors sounds attractive.
But it violates the First Amendment, as the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 yesterday. In the free-speech case, the justices sided with a group of Jehovah's Witnesses against a small Ohio town that required all solicitors to get a permit to go door to door. Forcing people to register with the government before talking with their neighbors, the justices said, was blatantly unconstitutional. ...
People who weary of solicitors should take the court's advice: Post a "no solicitation" sign, or don't answer the door. We advise something less severe, but still constitutional: Look out the peephole and ensure the stranger on the steps is under four feet tall and smiling.
(Compiled by United Press International)
