Contestations over the Republican National Committee’s efforts to foreclose avenues for lawful protest outside this week’s Republican National Convention (RNC) were already heated months before GOP delegates started booking their flights to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for the convention.

So it was something of a victory for free speech that, after months of mobilizing and negotiations — and in the unexpectedly heightened state of policing following the July 13 assassination attempt on Donald Trump — some protesters managed to demonstrate close enough to the RNC to be seen and heard by its attendees.

The path leading up to that point was filled with uncertainty over whether protest rights would be subordinated to GOP demands. Ahead of the RNC, downtown Milwaukee became a labyrinth of closed streets, vehicle checkpoints and even maritime restrictions on the Milwaukee River. For months, the GOP negotiated over the boundaries permitted for protest. It was clear that the Republican National Committee was trying to engineer a world in which delegates could attend the entire RNC without ever seeing a protester.

To the protesters, of course, this was unacceptable. In the months leading up to the convention, the Coalition to March on the RNC engaged in continuous negotiations with RNC authorities determined to sideline protests and reduce visibility. After the Secret Service established an initial boundary, the Republican Party demanded an even larger exclusion zone, a demand to which the Secret Service partially acceded. Less than a month before the convention, the City of Milwaukee consigned all protesters to a set march route that came, at its closest, four and half blocks from the Fiserv Forum where the nomination would be held. The ACLU of Wisconsin sued on behalf of the Coalition to March on the RNC, arguing that the protest restrictions unduly limited the exercise of free speech rights. A judge denied the injunction on the grounds that, because the mandated protest route applied to every group equally, no First Amendment concerns were implicated. Exercising remarkable deference to the Secret Service and City of Milwaukee protest restrictions, the judge wrote that the “Court will not second guess their judgements, particularly with respect to complex issues like the security needs for a large convention.”

In the aftermath of the ruling, the Coalition to March on the RNC reiterated a commitment to conducting a protest “within sight and sound” of the main venue. Just days before the convention, the coalition remained in negotiations with the city.

On July 12, Milwaukee city’s communications director Jeff Fleming commented to NBC News, “Mayor Cavalier Johnson has said the protesters want to be on the stage at Fiserv Forum, and the Republicans want the protesters to be on the moon.” In the end, the City of Milwaukee resisted the pressure to put protesters on the moon; on July 12, the coalition announced that it had come to a “handshake agreement” with the city about the march route.

In addition to the Secret........

© Truthout