By STEVE KNOX - Osceola Times
With the political season upon us, political signs have been popping up in yards, fields and on buildings all across Mississippi County. Candidates have been knocking on doors, canvasing neighborhoods, attending festivals, etc. Those candidates, more than likely are handing out cards or flyers espousing their reasons for being “the” right person for office.
All of those campaign materials have one thing in common, they are supposed to bear the words “Paid Political Advertisement, paid for by candidate, his committee, etc.”
The Arkansas Legislature made it the law for all campaign materials to bear the words written in the previous paragraph in 2021. So every campaign sign, flyer, card, etc. must bear those words. If not the candidates can be fined for each and every item found to not comply with the law.
As for campaign signage, well that is another topic unto itself. Traditionally, sign ordinances in the area forbade the erection of signage no sooner than 60 days prior to election day. Some signs have been up for much longer than that and here is the reason. Political sign ordinances all across the nation have been invalidated by the United States Supreme Court.
In the Courts ruling on Reed v. The Town of Gilbert, Ariz. the Court upended First Amendment jurisprudence and made the jobs of city attorneys much more difficult at the same time. The Court gave a rigorous test for sign ordinances which all but preclude the use of content based distinctions. In other words, it is not advisable for city’s to have different rules for different types of signs. In other words, city codes which are content based regarding signage are “unconstitutional.”
So all state and local ordinances regarding political signs are void for the time being. City’s all across the country, like Blytheville, will need to craft new rules regarding all signage. Just when and if that will occur is unknown.