Thread: CA: Court strikes down ban on soliciting day laborers

Court strikes down ban on soliciting day laborers


by Associated Press (September 16th, 2011 @ 4:49pm)

2 comments


SAN FRANCISCO - A divided federal appeals court Friday struck down a Southern California city's ban on day laborers who stand on public sidewalks soliciting work from motorists.

In doing so, the workers' lawyer said the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling against Redondo Beach most likely put an end to similar bans in other western cities, including about 50 in California.

``It calls them all into very serious question,'' said Thomas Saenz, a Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund lawyer who represented the workers. Saenz said Redondo Beach was ordered to suspend the law in 2004 until the workers' lawsuit was resolved.

``Each municipality with such an ordinance should immediately suspend and repeal its law,'' Saenz said.

Redondo Beach city attorney Michael Webb said he would consult with the City Council and mayor to decide whether to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to consider the case.

Pablo Alvarado, director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, said the Redondo Beach ban and the dozens that followed were intended to ``to render day laborers invisible'' and that such workers have been fighting for more than 20 years

``For the past two decades, the ordinances have stigmatized day laborers as criminals - now they are civil rights leaders,'' Alvarado said.

City officials enacted the ban because they said the workers were interfering with traffic and pedestrians.

The ruling also struck down a Phoenix law prohibiting the political action group ACORN from soliciting donations from motorists stopped at red lights. Redondo Beach based its ban on the Phoenix law.

Judge Milan D. Smith Jr., writing for the 9-judge majority of the special 11-judge panel, said Redondo Beach's ordinance violated the workers' free speech rights and was so broad that it was illegal for children to shout ``car wash'' to passing drivers.

Smith said the ordinance ``regulates significantly more speech than is necessary to achieve the city's purpose of improving traffic safety and traffic flow at two major Redondo Beach intersections, and the city could have achieved these goals through less restrictive measures, such as the enforcement of existing traffic laws.''

A three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based appeals court originally upheld the ban, but the specially convened panel of 11 judges voted 9-2 to overturn the earlier decision. Judges Alex Kozinski and Carlos Bea dissented. ``This is folly,'' wrote Kozinski, who noted as many as 75 workers would congregate at a busy intersection.

``As might be expected when large groups of men gather at a single location, they litter, vandalize, urinate, block the sidewalk, harass females and damage property,'' Kozinski wrote. ``Cars and trucks stop to negotiate employment and load up laborers, disrupting traffic.''

Kozinski said it was the city's duty to protect its residents from such nuisances.

``Nothing in the First Amendment prevents government from ensuring that sidewalks are reserved for walking rather than loitering; streets are used as thoroughfares rather than open air hiring halls; and bushes serve as adornment rather than latrines,'' Kozinski said. ``The majority is demonstrably, egregiously, recklessly wrong. If I could dissent twice, I would.''

http://ktar.com

Decent people will leave and they will be left with those people they take care of.

Originally Posted by Newmexican

Decent people will leave and they will be left with those people they take care of.

This is exactly why the cost of IA's is being passed on a national level.
No matter where you live YOU must contribute to your own demise. The political elite have decided that's the best thing for ya.

Of course those same elites live in gated/separated community's.

Originally Posted by Ratbstard

Originally Posted by Newmexican

Decent people will leave and they will be left with those people they take care of.

This is exactly why the cost of IA's is being passed on a national level.
No matter where you live YOU must contribute to your own demise. The political elite have decided that's the best thing for ya.

Of course those same elites live in gated/separated community's.

========================================

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Illegals should not be allowed any rights...they are criminals..and should be arrested and deported. Its time not for the Feds to do massive sweeps of day labor sites and street corners and round up any and all illegals found there as well as at construction sites. We need to stop pandering to the hispanic community, stop encouraging illegals and stop giving illegals the ability to live freely here in the USA.

Kozinski said it was the city's duty to protect its residents from such nuisances.

``Nothing in the First Amendment prevents government from ensuring that sidewalks are reserved for walking rather than loitering; streets are used as thoroughfares rather than open air hiring halls; and bushes serve as adornment rather than latrines,'' Kozinski said. ``The majority is demonstrably, egregiously, recklessly wrong. If I could dissent twice, I would.''

Well....it looks as if least one judge (perhaps 2 with Bea) were sober this day.

Calif. ruling could undermine SB 1070
yumasun.com
BY HOWARD FISCHER
CAPITOL MEDIA SERVICES
September 17, 2011 5:17 PM

PHOENIX — Information acquired late Friday suggests a new federal court ruling striking down a law aimed at day laborers could undermine a provision of a year-old Arizona law aimed at illegal immigrants, one which is now in effect.

One provision of last year's SB 1070, the broad-based measure aimed at illegal immigrants, has a provision designed to make it illegal to stand on a street corner to solicit work. The language is similar to the Redondo Beach, Calif., ordinance that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down on Friday.

The Arizona statute has some key differences.

But it is based on a 1984 Phoenix ordinance designed to make it illegal for pedestrians to approach and solicit drivers and passengers and vehicles stopped at red lights.

In a 1986 ruling, the 9th Circuit had upheld the legality of that Phoenix law, calling it “a reasonable, time, place and manner regulation which preserved the city streets for safe and peaceful use by motorists when the streets are open to traffic.â€