Taking grievances to the street for 248 years 

Here it is, torn from the battered and abused pages of the Bill of Rights:

“Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

No question about it. We Alaskans are enthusiastic fans of the First Amendment right “peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” Just the other day, April 19, over 3,000 people seeking “redress of grievances” demonstrated in downtown Anchorage carrying signs such as “Hands off the Constitution” and “Health Care is a Human Right.”

A couple months earlier, Feb. 17, Presidents Day, hundreds demonstrated all over Alaska seeking “redress of grievances.” Anchorage, Juneau, Palmer, Fairbanks, and Seward had sign-wavers galore redressing grievances. “Democracy is not a spectator sport,” “Resist,” and “No Kings” bobbed over the heads of spectators growing hoarse from chants and shouts while unabashedly assembling and making their grievances known. The democratic process is messy, dontcha know. 

And talking about “kings,” the right to assembly goes back that far. It has its roots in English history, evolving from the Magna Carta signed in 1215, to the English Bill of Rights, to the Founding Fathers and on to our Bill of Rights. We Alaskans have not been alone in the embrace of public demonstrations to pursue grievances. The Suffragettes, for example, who advocated the right of women to vote were not shy about public demonstrations. 

As the historian Mike Wallace has written:

“The twenty-third of October, 1915, was a crisp fall day, splashed with sunshine, perfect for a parade. In midafternoon tens of thousands of women clad in white dresses and yellow sashes stepped out of Washington Square. They strode up Fifth Avenue arrayed in delegations of assorted age and station — letter carriers’ wives from Queens, schoolgirls from Washington Irving High, ILGWU seamstresses, Henry Street settlement workers.”

Of course, later in the same century the Civil Rights Movement put even more feet on the pavement to air grievances about racism and inequality. On Aug. 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech as part of the March on Washington. The speech was delivered to an estimated 250,000 people who came to Washington, D.C., to demonstrate for civil rights. 

So you get the idea. The principle of free speech, including the right to peaceful assembly, was so central to a successful democracy that it was the very first right in the Bill of Rights. We Americans have been using that right since the founding of this nation 248 years ago. But here in Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy would like to see an end to this First Amendment foolishness. 

Early this year, the governor introduced House Bill 71/Senate Bill 74, “An Act related to obstruction.” It appears to target large demonstrations and spontaneous demonstrations without a permit. In my view, the primary purpose of this bill is to strongly discourage Alaskans from exercising their right to peaceful assembly in the first place. Here are some of the “highlights,” so to speak:

• If the protest “substantially interferes” with someone’s access to a government building, or “interferes” with an emergency responder, the offense would be a class C felony, punishable by up to five years in prison and $50,000.
• A person “whose passage is obstructed” could sue a protester for $10,000 if their rights were infringed, $50,000 if their property was damaged, and $100,000 if they were personally injured — in addition to attorney’s fees and costs.

Draconian. Might be worth considering if there were a substantial history of these crimes by demonstrators in Alaska. Let’s take a look. The governor’s transmittal letter makes no mention of a history of these crimes. The bill itself makes no mention of a history of such crimes. A report submitted by the attorney general a year ago for very similar proposed legislation, House Bill 386, came up with cases in New York and Washington, D.C., where demonstrators blocked traffic, but did not report a single such case in Alaska. 

And to top it all off, an internal legal analysis conducted by the Legislative Affairs Agency for HB 386 found, among many other critical findings: 

“The bill raises issues under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution and art. I, secs. 5 and 6, of the Alaska Constitution.  In particular, if challenged, there is a risk that the new crime of obstruction of free passage in public places could be found unconstitutional both facially or if applied to the protected speech of protests or demonstrations.”

Finally, this is just the tip of the iceberg of Gov. Dunleavy’s attempts to subvert constitutional protections for Alaskans. See the ACLU analysis aptly titled, “Dunleavy is the anti-First Amendment governor.”