Should government limit the people’s right to speak?

Freedom of speech as embodied in the First Amendment is one of the corner stones of individual rights in the United States.

That’s why it bothers us so much when we see elected public officials seemingly trying to silence the public.

We cried foul against a few weeks back when Mat-Su Borough Assembly Mayor Larry DeVilbiss abruptly ended public testimony at a hearing at the Palmer Train Depot Sept. 6.

First he had two signup sheets created and required speakers to sign the sheet to speak in favor or opposed to the proposed resolution. Then he alternated between those lists. But he called an end to public comment before many of the 95 people who signed up were allowed to testify

Those signup sheets, which we have copies of, list 36 people signed up to testify in favor of the assembly resolution supporting coal, 59 people signed up to testify against the resolution and four people signed up neither for or against.

Now look at how the numbers for the people who were not allowed to testify and how they break down along pro and con lines — seven people who were in favor of the resolution weren’t allowed to speak and 34 who opposed it weren’t allowed to speak.

Why would the assembly rent the depot to accommodate a crowd of larger than normal size and then abruptly halt testimony, effectively silencing the First Amendment rights of these people to comment?

Even if they were repeating views shared earlier by other speakers, our form of government and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protect a citizen’s right to speak.

Then a couple of weeks later, our phones started ringing with information about two Wasilla mayoral candidate forums planned at local senior centers. Calls from someone at Wasilla City Hall to the Wasilla Senior Center and Primrose Retirement Community told staff there that the Alaska Public Offices Commission had said the forums were illegal.

And so the forums were canceled.

But curious folks followed up with their own calls to APOC to ask for information. APOC staff Heather Hebdon, said the forums did meet the letter of the law and could proceed as planned.

“Based on the facts that were provided, we did not see that any type of a violation that might have occurred,” Hebdon said.

Nevertheless, Mayor Verne Rupright opted not to attend the WASI forum and instead sent a note alleging the forum was illegal.

For Rupright’s part, he said he didn’t think it was appropriate to participate in either forum because staff with mayoral candidate Dianne Woodruff’s campaign helped set them up.

So we called APOC’s Hebdon today and asked.

She said the forum at WASI was legal. And that it might not necessarily run afoul of APOC rules even if a candidate had clearly organized the forum, so long as all candidates had equal opportunity to participate.

“Basically what it comes down to is that you’re not offering an advantage to one candidate or another,” Hebdon said.

So was this really an attempt by Mayor Rupright to follow APOC’s rules? Or was it really an attempt to silence the public?

Did Mayor DeVilbiss really end testimony to keep the meeting short? Did he really divide speakers into pro and con and then alternate between the lists in an attempt at fairness?

Perhaps neither mayor intended to trample on the people’s rights to speak, to address their elected representatives. Perhaps.

But we can find no place in U.S. law or Alaska statute that says it should be government’s role to limit the public’s right to speak.