Musikfest Yellow Shirts Crack Down on Obama Registration Efforts

Both The Morning Call and Express Times tell us that Musikfest organizers are upset that Obama campaigners are straying from the ''Freedom of Expression Platz'' that everyone in his right mind tries to avoid. Twice, the Yellow Shirts have had to ask Obamaphiles to stop soliciting support on festival grounds. Some festgoers have apparently complained that all this campaigning interferes with their right to get drunk, pig out and spend money. That right trumps the First Amendment at Musikfest.

According to Bethlehem Attorney Don Miles, Musikfest organizers have actually tried to eject Obama campaign. Here's his report.

Contrary to the statement of Musikfest spokesperson Kim Pyler, Jeff Parks' minions did NOT say that Obama's folks had "every right to be there" at their voter registration table on the sidewalk in front of the Obama for President office on Main St. The Obama voter registration volunteers were several times confronted by yellow-shirted Musikfest staff earlier this week and told to close down their table or they'd call the City to enforce "Musikfest's rights".

I was contacted by Obama volunteer staffers (I'm an Obama volunteer -- although I haven't volunteered at their office -- and they knew I was a lawyer) and asked if I thought they were violating any laws. Having recently researched the issue of whether a tenant of a store fronting on the Main St. sidewalk had a right, despite Musikfest's "renting" of Main St., to conduct sales of its own on the sidewalk in front of its store, I told them the answer:

Musikfest's "Use Permit" with the City of Bethlehem for its use of Main St. states (paragraph 5) that Musikfest will "not restrict" the use of the public sidewalk outside a storefront. Further, my research -- confirmed to me by City officials -- showed that the "right-of-way" that Musikfest "rents" along Main St. consists of the street itself and the five feet of the sidewalk beginning at the curb -- the public right-of-way (and thus Musikfest's domain) does NOT extend to the rest of the Main St. sidewalk beyond five feet from the curb (most of Main St.'s sidewalk is about 15 feet wide).

By the way, interestingly: most of Musikfest's vendor booths along Main St. extend well past the five-feet-from-the-curb right-of-way line -- meaning most of them are in violation of Musikfest's City permit to use Main St. :-)

This means that any Main St. tenant (like Obama for President) or owner can do whatever they want on the sidewalk outside Musikfest's five-foot-wide realm. I told the Obama folks that they had complete freedom to do voter registration or political campaigning on their own portion of the Main St. sidewalk and if Jeff Parks' minions threatened them again to tell them to call city officials, who knew the true legal situation (when during research on this issue I asked one city official, "Are you really going to arrest citizens for conducting voter registraion on Main Street", he said, "Of course not").

I also advised the Obama folks that they would be wise to comply with Musikfest's demand that they not do political activity on the street itself, since the City supported Musikfest's claimed rights in that regard, and the Obama folks said they would. (However, my own legal opinion -- agreed to "off-the-record" by an involved City official -- is that Musikfest actually has no legal right to ban political activity even on Main Street itself: I don't believe a federal judge would find it lawful for the City to take my right to hand out political leaflets on Main St. 51 weeks a year but sell my right to Jeff Parks for one week during Musikfest. But I suggested to Obama's folks that they didn't want the animosity or monetary costs such a federal suit would entail and that it would be more sensible to just confine their voter registration and political activities to their own portion of the sidewalk outside Musikfest's five-feet adjacent to the curb.)

I know Obama's campaign has no wish to create any controversy or animosity with the City or with Musikfest and was merely trying to register voters and promote their candidate peacefully.

When Parks heard about Obama's volunteers' reliance on their legal rights yesterday, he caused the press release to be issue which was quoted in the M. Call and Express-Times today, trying to make it sound as if Musikfest had all along consented to the Obama folks voter registration table set up outside Musikfest's five-feet of sidewalk. In fact, they had done no such thing, until the City confirmed to them that they had no jurisdiction outside the five-foot line.

Musikfest's attempt to confine our First Amendment rights to a ghetto they call "Freedom of Expression Platz" would be laughable if it were not so draconian. The White House frequently sets up "free speech areas" blocks away from wherever Bush or Cheney are going to publicly speak, to insure that no real protesters ever get within eye- or ear-shot of our esteemed leaders -- thereby violating the First Amendment on a regular basis.

Apparently Jeff Parks (a Lehigh U. classmate of mine :-) is under the delusion that he is entitled to exercise Presidential powers along our Main Street here in Bethlehem.