Faces of Liberty: Free Speech Challenged in Cascade Locks
"Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech..."
-First Amendment, Constitution of the United States
"No law shall be passed restraining the free expression of opinion, or restricting the right to speak, write, or print freely on any subject whatever..."
-Article 1, Section 8, Constitution of Oregon
Michelle Bright had just resigned from the Cascade Locks City Council after a series of tense confrontations over the city's recycling policies, a proposed sewer plan and other issues. She felt community residents were not paying enough attention to the way the town was being run. Many, she thought, were too intimidated to speak up. "I would hear people talking about things, like at the Charburger (a local restaurant). They didn't like what was going on in the town, but none of them had enough guts to come forward. Nobody would ever dare show up for a council meeting because once you did you were a marked person...There weren't a whole lot of people involved in government."
Bright, who served on the Council for three years, decided at the end to make a public plea to her fellow citizens. If they had concerns, she felt, they should exercise their civic franchise and attend Council meetings. "I noticed when people did come, the Council was very careful about the decisions they made and they got really sloppy when people weren't around."
The day after she resigned in April, 1993, Bright wrote out an ad and a $19 check to pay for it and sought to have it posted for a month on the City-owned and operated cable access channel. Bright's ad read: "If you, too, feel this City needs changes in rates, policies, and equal enforcement of ordinances, speak out at your City Council meeting."
"The citizens of Cascade Locks are being systematically intimidated to keep them 'out of the loop.' City ordinances and resolutions are in complete disarray and contradict each other and no one knows which are in effect and which aren't. Repealed or expired ordinances and resolutions are enforced selectively and current...ordinances and resolutions are ignored."
The channel's community bulletin board typically is used for all kinds of public and private messages, ranging from public meeting notices and garage and rummage sale announcements to church schedules and commercial ads.
City Administrator George Lewis refused, however, to permit Michelle Bright's plea to be posted. "I have determined that ad space does not need to be provided to a single individual who wants to monopolize the use of City equipment to broadcast their personal message," he told her in a letter.
"This refusal... was clearly a violation of the First Amendment. Any local government that seeks to stay in power by censoring dissent and opposition...is setting a most dangerous precedent."
Bright sought legal assistance from the ACLU. Christopher Martin, on the ACLU's behalf, demanded the City repeal the resolutions relied on to suppress the broadcast of her message and to run her ad. One of those resolutions, it turned out, had been rescinded in 1990. The other was superseded six months after Bright submitted her ad by another resolution.
The City ultimately invited Bright to re-submit her message. But the new resolution, like the old one, gives the City Administrator broad discretionary powers over what ads are, and are not, deemed appropriate. The new rule, like the old one, is an unconstitutional restriction on free speech in the ACLU's view. But Michelle Bright, her husband and two young children have moved away from Cascade Locks.
"We didn't want to raise our children there. I mean, after I opened my big mouth, I was actually afraid to live there. I was afraid for my children. I was afraid for myself."
Photographer: Brian Foulkes
Writer: Harry Lenhart
