HARRISBURG, Pa. — The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Pennsylvania filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Harrisburg on Friday.
The organization, which is a state branch of the nationwide ACLU, claims that the city violated the first and fourteenth amendments by enforcing unconstitutional permitting requirements for the Better Path Coalition.
The Better Path Coalition is a group of climate activists hoping to plan three days of events at the Capitol Complex in June.
"They are just pummeling our client with all of these requirements that aren't in any law anywhere and it appears doing what they feel like," said Stephen Loney, Senior Supervising Attorney for the ACLU-PA.
Loney says the coalition had to go through various requirements for three separate jurisdictions: Capitol Police, PennDOT and the city of Harrisburg.
"It's a permitting fee over here," Loney explained. "It's a reimbursement of costs for traffic control. It's insurance premiums that the Better Path Coalition is going to have to pay to comply with the insurance requirements from the city."
Loney says it isn't unusual for towns and municipalities to impose permitting requirements.
However, he claims Harrisburg has not done this right.
"None of their requirements are laid out on any law or ordinance, so that's requirement number one," he said.
While Loney says they were able to square away permitting with Capitol Police and PennDOT, he says the permitting requirements for the city of Harrisburg equates to thousands of dollars.
"Any amount of money you're putting on the right to political expression is burdening free speech," he said.
Meanwhile, Matt Maisel, the director of communications for the city of Harrisburg released a statement, writing, "We're not going to comment on active litigation. All the parties involved are awaiting formal word from the court on the next steps in the case soon."
Both sides of this lawsuit had an oral argument this afternoon. Loney says they should have a decision on the temporary restraining order they filed as early as this week.