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ACW AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION Southern California Sent via email March 18, 2024 Santa Ana Mayor and City Council City Council Chamber 22 Civic Center Plaza Santa Ana, CA 92701 eComment(a,santa-ana.org Re: March 19, 2024 City Council Agenda, Item No. 24 Opposition to Adoption of Residential Picketing Ordinance Dear Mayor Amezcua and Members of the Santa Ana City Council: The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California is concerned with an ordinance listed as Item No. 24 on the March 19 agenda which, if adopted, would prohibit targeted picketing within 300 feet of a residential dwelling and would impose up to a $1,000 fine and/or up to six months in jail ("draft ordinance"). The draft ordinance comes on the heels of robust public discourse and protests by Santa Ana residents urging the Mayor, Councilmembers, and Congressman Lou Correa to call for a ceasefire of Israel's war on Gaza. In fact, the preamble to the urgency ordinance confirms that it is intended, at least in part, to insulate the Congressman from ongoing pro -Palestinian protests that are critical of his positions and actions. Although the ordinance will force protesters to move nearly an entire football field or full city block away from the Congressman's home, inhibiting their First Amendment rights, it will not stop protests altogether. Instead, it will merely ensure that Congressman Correa's neighbors are subject to hearing protestors' complaints that are intended for the Congressman, whose residence will likely not be in earshot of the protests. Equally concerning is the fact that, if adopted, the ordinance will be one of the most restrictive targeted residential protest laws in the Country. We therefore urge you to vote against this extreme attempt to curb free speech. A public street is a traditional public forum where picketing enjoys First Amendment protections, and it does not lose this status "simply because [the street] runs through a residential neighborhood." Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U.S 474, 480 (1988). Instead, courts have emphasized that these protections extend to targeted residential picketing. Klein v. San Diego Cnty., 463 F.3d 1029, 103636 n.5 (9th Cir. 2006). This is because the "right to residential privacy does not encompass a right to remain blissfully unaware of the presence of picketers." Id.; see also Murray v. Lawson, 138 N.J. 206, 232-33 (1994) (in striking down 300-foot restriction, observing that keeping picketers "at such a great distance, thereby rendering [the residents'] awareness of the picketing most unlikely as a practical matter, is unnecessary to protect [the] residential - EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Hector 0. Villagra CHAIR Stacy Horth-Neubert VICE CHAIR Rob Hennig CHAIRS EMERITI Michele Goodwin Marla Stone Shari Leinwand Stephen Rohde Danny Goldberg Allan K. Jonas' Burt Lancaster' Irving Lichtenstein, MD' Jarl Mohn Laurie Ostrow' Stanley K. Sheinbaum' "deceased ORANGE COUNTY OFFICE • 765 THE CITY DRIVE, SUITE 360 • ORANGE, CA 92868 • T 714.450.3962 • F 714.583.8046 • ACLUSOCAL.ORG