Constitutional Law

High court won't revive case of 2 ejected from Bush event

By By The Associated Press

WASHINGTON ? The Supreme Court has turned down the appeal of two people who say they were kept from attending an appearance by then-President George W. Bush in Denver in 2005 because of their opposition to the war in Iraq.

The Court refused today to get involved in a case concerning whether people may be excluded from taxpayer-funded events featuring public officials because of their political views.

Lower courts dismissed a lawsuit filed by Leslie Weise and Alex Young, who say a White House aide and two volunteers violated their free-speech rights by ejecting them from a hall just before Bush was to speak. Weise and Young arrived in a car with a bumper sticker reading "No more blood for oil" but say they had no plans to disrupt the event.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor voted to hear the appeal. "I cannot see how reasonable public officials, or any staff or volunteers under their direction, could have viewed the bumper sticker as a permissible reason for depriving Weise and Young of access to the event," Ginsburg said in a short, written opinion.

The case is Weise v. Casper, 10-67.

Acting in another free-expression-related case today, the high court refused to stop Utah from enacting a tax that hits only adult-oriented businesses.

The high court turned away an appeal from Denali, LLC, which wanted to overturn a ruling by the Utah Supreme Court. That court upheld a 2004 decision by the Utah Legislature to enact a 10% tax on sexually explicit businesses in an effort to pay for sex-offender treatment. The tax covered everything a sexually explicitly business sold ? admission, T-shirts and hamburgers included.

A group of strip clubs challenged the constitutionality of the law, saying it was overly broad and violated their First Amendment rights. But the state Supreme Court upheld the tax.

Full post as published by First Amendment Center on October 11, 2010 (boomark / email).