RNC protesters seek to overturn marching orders

Organizers of a protest slated for the first day of the Republican National Convention argued in U.S. District Court Wednesday afternoon that the proposed parade route violates their First Amendment rights. The Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War is seeking a temporary injunction that would force the City of St. Paul to issue a permit for the preferred route of protesters.

"Defendants use of unspecified security concerns to bludgeon the rights of free speech and assembly, and elevation of their own economic interests above the Constitutional rights of the Coalition members must be stopped before it is too late," attorneys for the plaintiffs argued in court documents seeking the injunction.

In May the St. Paul Police Department issued a parade permit that would allow protesters to proceed from the Capitol down Cedar Street, across 7th St. toward the Xcel Energy Center, and conclude at a triangle of streets adjacent to the convention location. Protest organizers had requested a more-visible route that would have included the John Ireland Boulevard bridge over Interstate 94 and Kellogg Boulevard.

In court this afternoon, attorney Robert Hennessey, representing the protesters, stated that organizers of the march have been working on the details since 2006, but have repeatedly been given short shrift by the city. The coalition’s preferred parade route, for instance, was deemed unacceptable because it will be utilized by buses carrying people to the convention. "Instead of planning around a march, the march must be planned around the buses that are going to bring in delegates," Hennessey said.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs also argued that the two-hour window proposed for conducting the parade, which is expected to draw in excess of 50,000 protesters from across the country, is infeasible and potentially dangerous. "The time is a tremendous concern," Hennessey said.

Assistant St. Paul City Attorney John Kelly countered that St. Paul is providing "unprecedented access" for protesters. He noted that in 2004 there were no parades permitted in either Boston or New York during the actual conventions. Kelly further pointed out that there will be an 180,000-square-foot area near the Xcel center where protesters will be permitted to gather every day of the convention from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. "It is accomodating; it is expansive; it is close," he said of the public-demonstration site.

Judge Joan Ericksen did not immediately issue a ruling, but she did provide several indications of how she views the issues raised in the case. Clearly she was most sympathetic to plaintiffs’ argument that the two-hour window initially offered by the city for the parade to be conducted is overly constrictive. "The times seemed a little tight to me," she said at one point during the hearing.

But Ericksen seemed much less agreeable to the protest group’s argument that the proposed parade route violates the coalition’s First Amendment rights. She noted that protesters will be given greater access than was allowed at previous conventions, including the the 2004 Democratic gathering in Boston, where demonstrators were confined to a fenced-in area topped by razorwire. "The access in Boston was nothing compared to this," Ericksen noted.

The judge said he she hopes to issue a ruling on the matter by early next week.