JUSTICE:

In libertarian Vegas, ACLU keeps finding battles to fight

Mon, Sep 22, 2008 (2 a.m.)

Nevada ACLU supports an individual’s right to bear arms (7-11-2008)

ACLU of Nevada President Richard Siegel, Executive Director Gary Peck and General Counsel Allen Lichtenstein named these issues and cases as some of the organization’s most memorable:

• Free speech: Since the 1990s, the Nevada ACLU has been defending the right to free speech in two locations central to the psychic and physical maps of the Las Vegas Valley: Fremont Street and the Strip. A third case focused on the sidewalk in front of the Venetian. Judges have repeatedly ruled that the walkway under the Fremont Street Experience is a public forum, meaning the First Amendment applies there. As for the Strip, the courts established that such activities as handing out pamphlets — even if they advertise the services of escorts — are protected there as well. Similarly, courts determined that the sidewalk in front of the Venetian is a public forum, meaning activities such as protesting, which spawned the case, are protected there. Another lawsuit got rid of a law that prohibited the state’s legal brothels from advertising in Clark County.

• Prisons: In the 1970s and 1980s, a period during which the Nevada ACLU depended on national ACLU attorneys or local attorneys from other groups, the organization took on two cases that dealt with state prison issues including crowding, insufficient medical care and a lack of educational opportunities. Peck points out that the conditions that led to those suits remain a concern, spawning lawsuits throughout the 1990s and in recent years, including a current case over medical and mental health care.

• Voting rights: The organization helped rewrite state law and regulations in recent years, ensuring access to polling places, defining not just who can challenge voters at the polls but also the form of those challenges, and making it easier for felons to regain their right to vote.

• Gay and lesbian rights: In recent years, the organization has fought for hospital visitation, public accommodations and domestic partner benefits and policies in Nevada.

• Access for the disabled at UNR: During the 1970s and 1980s, the organization sued the University of Nevada, Reno, over its lack of access for disabled students. The university responded by joining forces with the ACLU and successfully lobbying the Legislature for $2 million in renovations to the campus.

Shortly after becoming executive director of the ACLU of Nevada in 1996, Gary Peck sat at a table with the group’s board of directors and listened as his newfound colleagues discussed a Las Vegas ordinance that made a stretch of Fremont Street practically private, prohibiting most First Amendment activities such as passing out leaflets.

Peck urged the board to sue, to establish a “beachhead with respect to public space and free speech.”

The reaction: “A number of board members ... expressed real concerns about taking on big casinos and big government,” he recalls.

“They said, ‘We may take a huge hit on this.’ ”

They didn’t. Federal courts ruled that the roadway turned into the Fremont Street Experience pedestrian mall is a public forum, and that everyone on it is guaranteed constitutional rights.

Fast forward 12 years from when those board members hoped to shy away from a righteous lawsuit, and the Nevada ACLU is an organization that stands ready and able to go to court. It recently added its fourth staff attorney, a first for the group. It also has more members, 2,500, than ever, a staff of nine for the first time, and a $700,000 budget, 40 percent more than just a year ago.

A look back on its accomplishments and growth since its launch in 1966 offers perspective on the evolution of the Las Vegas Valley.

Those accomplishments include: a 1999 law that made it illegal to discriminate against employees based on sexual orientation and a 2001 law that made it easier for felons to regain the right to vote; prevailing in case after case in defense of the public’s rights on Fremont Street and the Strip; defending the right to religious expression; spurring the creation in 1999 of the Metro Police Civilian Review Board for police abuse complaints.

In the decades this work has gone on, “the (valley’s) growth has been fast in terms of population,” says Franny Forsman, federal public defender. “But progress in terms of those who are powerless has lagged behind.”

The ACLU’s constant litigation and lobbying have helped close the gap a bit, she says. Twenty years ago, for example, poor defendants often had little to no contact with attorneys and wound up just pleading guilty, she notes. Now, indigent defense is recognized as a need that government budgets must cover, mostly because of the ACLU’s work.

Sticking up for the proverbial little guy is particularly noteworthy in Nevada, where there are “so few institutions that have social justice at the core of their mission,” says David Thronson, law professor and associate dean at UNLV’s Boyd School of Law.

Thronson notes that a look at the ACLU of Nevada’s to-do list at any given time offers insight into our changing local culture.

“We’re seeing them move with the times,” he says. “As our community changes, freedom of speech and freedom of expression take on new meaning. It’s not just leafleters on a corner, but a Muslim girl wanting to wear her head scarf to school, or a police officer wanting to wear a beard because of his religion.”

Similarly, the ACLU of Nevada has found itself protecting the constitutional rights of homeless people as they become more numerous on the valley’s streets.

Larger metropolitan areas such as New York City, with histories that dwarf Las Vegas’, “faced these issues a long time ago,” Thronson says. “But as we become less monotone, less monochromatic, you see new issues.”

So the ACLU’s agenda can be seen “almost as a mirror of this valley,” he says.

Barb Brents, a professor of sociology at UNLV, says there’s another way to look at the relationship between the ACLU and the valley as each has grown in recent decades.

“Part of what makes a sense of community is a sense ... that you can change or influence things,” Brents says. As the ACLU has “allowed more voices to be heard,” people think they can have more of an effect, and this makes for more of a community.

“Without the ACLU, this would be even less of a community than it is,” she says.

Richard Siegel has been president of the Nevada ACLU’s board since 2000 but he has been a member of the board since 1967. He points out that the group had few to no allies in the Legislature and the courts four decades ago. At the time, the Nevada ACLU also didn’t have a paid attorney on its staff. It didn’t get one until 1996. Volunteers ran the organization during its first two decades.

At the same time the group began leaving an imprint on state life — gaining access for the disabled on the University of Nevada, Reno, campus and improving conditions in state prisons — the Legislature and the court system became increasingly liberal, Siegel said. He began lobbying state lawmakers in 1967, and in the past decade or so, he says, what he calls a left-of-center sensibility can increasingly be found in Carson City. The same shift has occurred in state courts, he said.

Peck says the group’s extensive work on free speech and what constitutes a public space — years of court battles over the Fremont Street Experience and Strip sidewalks — highlights another aspect of life in Las Vegas.

Those cases treat the same issue, he says — “who controls public space and whether or not the government and/or private businesses can squelch free speech merely because such expression can be ... supposedly disruptive of the ‘Vegas experience.’ ” That freedom of expression includes pamphlets advertising “strippers direct to your room,” the “porn peddling” that has been criticized by locals and tourists alike.

When the issue of control over public space is contrasted with Las Vegas’ image as a “free-spirited place ... where anything goes, it’s clear the reality is much, much more complex,” Peck says.

In the end, a look at the Nevada ACLU’s ongoing work and the changes it has brought to law enforcement, justice, education, employment and public space brings us to another truth about the Las Vegas Valley: It has become a major metropolitan area, like so many others, with major metropolitan area problems.

“Las Vegas is no different from anywhere else,” says Lichtenstein, the ACLU of Nevada’s general counsel since 1996.

“Institutions will attempt to abuse the Constitution, and we will use the system of checks and balances designed to rein in the abuses.”

Discussion: 11 comments so far…

By odog

9/22/08 at 4:03 a.m.

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There is a great need for the ACLU, but before they take on an issue, they should make sure the the people involved are legal and following our laws. The owners are hiring illegal immigrates. The illegal immigrates passing out cards and flyers are getting paid in cash and paying no taxes. They are littering and obstructing the pathways of pedestrians.
By KDR81

9/22/08 at 8:31 a.m.

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Public streets should be public, but private property should NOT be held to the same restraints. A real libertarian knows that.
By dave202

9/22/08 at 9:48 a.m.

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This is one of the disgraces of Las Vegas. When visitors are forced to confront this insanity, they are completely turned off. The ACLU should be ashamed to be a party to this nonsense.
By jfnance32

9/22/08 at 10:07 a.m.

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ACLU...believes that it is a guaranteed constitutional right to own, sell and distributed child pornography.

They do not think it is a guaranteed constitutional right to make child pornography.

I am sure that is what Thomas Jefferson wanted to protect. He made many speeches saying we have the right to own and sell child porn.

ACLU....is nuts!!!!
By lvken7

9/22/08 at 10:36 a.m.

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The ONLY reason the ACLU wanted Felons to vote is
so they can vote to LEGALIZE DOPE IN NV.

The RJ has pushed for it for years.

NOT GOOD.

ACLU - NOT GOOD.

How can the Sun Endorse them?
By azsk8fan

9/22/08 at 11:17 a.m.

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Let's not forget the id theft occurring because these illegals steal other peoples social security numbers and god only knows what else they steal. When the ACLU is mentioned I have to ask myself what kind of AMERICAN Civil Liberties is an ILLEGAL entitled to anyway? If the ACLU is taking up for the side of these illegal CRIMINALS then that just reaffirms in my own mind that the ACLU is nothing but a big pain in the rear side and totally misguided.
By KDR81

9/22/08 at 11:43 a.m.

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ALCU, stop the authoritarian smoking bans please.
By KDR81

9/22/08 at 11:47 a.m.

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lvken7...our government can't keep drugs out of maximum security prisons.

So short of walling off americans behind bars for our own health and saftey protection...the government still can't stop the problem.

The drug war has been a failure and a waste of money. The RJ is right and they're brave enough to point out our failure.
By jfnance32

9/22/08 at 1:06 p.m.

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Obama's spiritual mentor has said many times over the years that US government gave drugs and AIDS to blacks.

That is why there are drugs in prisons.....Bush is handing it out.......there he goes with a bag of coke.
By geezelouise

9/22/08 at 8:34 p.m.

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KDR81-

Right on. The drug war is a dismal failure that costs our country gazillions of tax dollars every year to catch, prosecute and incarcerate people who have every right to do whatever horrible thing to their own bodies they decide to do.

I fully expect the government to target Bananna Splits as the next illegal substance.

Not every person who drinks a beer and drives home kills people or damages property.

Both drug and alcohol laws are preemptive and therefore unconstitutional in my book.

All these arrests etc... just cost a lot of money and keep law enforcement in jobs.

The overall death rate hasn't dropped, so I guess if it's your time to go, it is your time to go. We aren't really saving any lives, just making it more difficult with all these preemptive laws.
By I_Love_Las_Vegas

9/22/08 at 9:51 p.m.

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This is too easy! If the hotel/casinos bought the portion of Fremont Street known as the Fremont Street Experiance, it would suddenly become private property. No more panhandling street people, and no more leaflet purveyors.