First Amendment advocates are raising concerns about a city proposal to use anti-littering laws to outlaw mass dissemination of antisemitic fliers that have appeared in some Los Angeles neighborhoods.
The motion, submitted last month by Councilmembers Bob Blumenfield and Nithya Raman and approved last week by the city’s Public Safety Committee, seeks a report from the city attorney and the Police Department on “littering in mass as a method to disseminate hate speech” and what legal options may be used to prevent it.
Although it does not identify who is responsible the antisemitic fliers, the motion notes there have been incidents in recent years in Culver City, Brentwood, Beverly Hills and Huntington Beach, and that such incidents are “sadly becoming a common occurrence.”
“They go into a Jewish community and they put these very antisemitic pieces on people’s front steps trying to target, trying to intimidate a particular community,” Blumenfield said.
Los Angeles is not the first California city to consider combating hate speech with anti-littering laws, but the idea is still relatively untested.
David Loy, legal director of the California-based First Amendment Coalition, said fliers and leaflets are “at the core” of the country’s constitutional protections.
“We have a long historical and protected tradition of people using fliers and leaflets and pamphlets to express their point of view going back to the founding of the republic,” he said. That includes hate speech, he added.
However, the constitution does not protect true threats of harm.
“What is a true threat cannot arise simply from the content of viewpoint or speech,” Loy said. “It has to be a genuine threat.”
So one question that could be used to determine whether the idea — if…
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