By Sherman Smith, The Topeka Capital-Journal
Actions taken to quell a protest in the gallery of the Kansas Senate on the final day of the Legislative session, including the expulsion of news reporters from the chamber floor, add kindling to a legal firestorm over policy governing Statehouse decorum.
The American Civil Liberties Union in Kansas earlier this year challenged rules that ban handheld signs, prohibit unnecessary noise and require the prior approval of activities after Kansas State University students were evicted for staging a protest in March.
Both protests involved supporters of Medicaid expansion who targeted GOP leaders for standing in the way of legislation that would provide health care coverage to an additional 130,000 low-income adults and their children.
The ACLU sued the superintendent of the Kansas Highway Patrol, secretary of the the Department of Administration and director of legislative services for enforcement of rules that restrict First Amendment rights to free speech and protest.
A hearing scheduled for Wednesday before a federal judge in Topeka will include arguments on whether to issue a temporary injunction that would block enforcement of the rules pending the outcome of the case.
“The rules the state is trying to defend are grossly overbroad,” said ACLU Kansas spokesman Mark McCormick. “The state’s position gives individual state officials extraordinary power and oversight over every square foot of the Statehouse as well as over every inch of ground it rests on.”
K-State students Jonathan Cole, Katie Sullivan and Nathan Faflick are plaintiffs in the case. They joined Topeka Rev. Sarah Oglesby-Dunegan in unfurling banners 24 feet tall and 10 feet wide from the four corners of the Statehouse rotunda in a March 27 demonstration. The banners declared GOP leaders had “blood on their hands.”