D.L. Snyder
StandWeMust@gmail.com
937-658-2400
Sidney, Ohio
StandWeMust@gmail.com
937-658-2400
Sidney, Ohio
Contact
STAND in Washington 2010
Legalities of a STAND .....See Below
It is important to note that under the First Amendment of the Constitution your right to Redress Grievances to all three branches of the Government, is still in tact.
It must be peaceful but it can be very direct and in person, to confront the Government as to it's abuses of policy, of laws, and of the people.
While they are not obliged to respond or reply, they are obliged to hear.
Certainly they cannot inhibit or rebuff your lawful, peaceful right to redress.
A STAND invokes this First Amendment right on a massive scale
United We STAND
It must be peaceful but it can be very direct and in person, to confront the Government as to it's abuses of policy, of laws, and of the people.
While they are not obliged to respond or reply, they are obliged to hear.
Certainly they cannot inhibit or rebuff your lawful, peaceful right to redress.
A STAND invokes this First Amendment right on a massive scale
United We STAND
First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution November 20, 1789
Freedom of Speech, Press, Religion and Petition
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
In other words ---- a STAND as described on this site
The right to petition allows citizens to focus government attention on unresolved ills; provide information to elected leaders about unpopular policies; expose misconduct, waste, corruption, and incompetence; and vent popular frustrations without endangering the public order.
Petitioning was a form of public dialog in a time before mass media and national political parties. The nascent assemblies solicited the views and complaints of the colonists as a barometer of the popular mood and as justification for their measures. The intimacy between colonist and assembly meant that petitions essentially drove the legislative agenda, and so the early laws developed in a patchwork of special interests and personal appeals.
With the commercial and geographic expansion of the Colonies, however, many assemblies imposed internal rules to quell the tide of petitions, which had increased both in volume and complexity. Connecticut, for example, raised the fees for submitting petitions, increased the jurisdictional amounts in controversy, introduced conditions of admissibility, and threatened contempt proceedings against grievances that proved to be false.
In theory, disgruntled colonists could take their appeal to the royal governors, and, if still unsatisfied, to the king in England. Starting in the 1770s, an increasingly vocal and coordinated group of petitioners sought relief from England for a series of intolerable acts relating to restraints on trade, the quartering of troops, taxation, restrictions on westward expansion and numerous other limits on self-government. Denied redress, the petitioners became revolutionaries and, in 1776, leaders of a new nation.
Inflamed by the king's stonewalling of their appeals, the Founders embedded the right to petition into the Constitution by way of the First Amendment. The first test of this guarantee arose over the issue of slavery in the District of Columbia. Abolitionists in the 1830s sought to end slavery in the nation’s capital for symbolic and practical reasons: Congress, as lawmaker for the District, could abolish slavery without trampling on states’ rights.
Abolitionists organized a massive petitioning campaign that flooded Congress with letters and special appeals. Besieged by paper, the House of Representatives adopted a "gag rule" that summarily tabled all such petitions without debate or acknowledgment. Former President John Quincy Adams articulated the outrage of the Northern antislavery position by decrying that only "the most abject despotism" could "deprive the citizen of the right to supplicate for a boon, or pray for mercy."
Though the gag rule was repealed in 1844, this episode illustrates how far the nation had evolved and how the strategic goals of petitioning had changed.
Two hundred years later, however, petitioning has become an instrument of mass politics, designed to make a point, not a plea. As with the divisive issue of slavery, petitioning is now seen as a means of uniting popular groups and overwhelming political opponents.
"Petitioning" has come to signify any nonviolent, legal means of encouraging or disapproving government action, whether directed to the judicial, executive or legislative branch. Lobbying, letter-writing, e-mail campaigns, testifying before tribunals, filing lawsuits, supporting referenda, collecting signatures for ballot initiatives, peaceful protests and picketing: all public articulation of issues, complaints and interests designed to spur government action qualifies under the petition clause, even if the activities partake of other First Amendment freedoms.
The direct appeal and individualized response that once marked petitioning belong to a more organic past when leaders knew petitioners by name. No branch of the government today is equipped to provide such personal attention. The right to petition, however, requires only that the state receive complaints and grievances, not that it respond to them.
By Adam Newton
Lawyer & contributing writer
and Ronald K.L. Collins
First Amendment Center scholar
Even if the "redress" dimension of the petition clause merely expresses the hope of government response, the very act of channeling popular opinion for public officials serves important societal goals. It creates an information flow from the public to the government, and serves as a safety valve for public passions.
Yet despite its social benefits, the First Amendment right of petition has not been developed as a doctrine or championed as a cause. Few scholars or courts have fully appreciated the importance of the right to petition and its more contemporary applications.
The right of assembly was originally closely tied to the right to petition. One notable case involving the two rights was United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875). There, the Supreme Court held that citizens may "assemble for the purpose of petitioning Congress for a redress of grievances." Essentially, it was held that the right to assemble was secondary, while the right to petition was primary. Later cases, however, have expanded the meaning of the right to assembly. Hague v. CIO, 307 U.S. 496 (1939), for instance, refers to the right to assemble for the "communication of views on national questions" and for "disseminating information."
On January 18, 2007, the U.S. Senate voted 55-43 to strike Section 221 from the bill.