Highland Park Bans Protests In Residential Districts After Congressman's House Picketed

HIGHLAND PARK, IL — Councilmembers this week approved new restrictions on protests outside homes in Highland Park and hiked the penalty for prohibited picketing practices.

A pair of ordinances tightening demonstration regulations passed unanimously at Monday's City Council meeting.

They were drawn up in response to an early morning anti-Israel protest outside Congressman's Brad Schneider's house in June and discussed during a committee meeting last month.

The first ordinance amends the portion of the City Code regarding picketing, aiming to address the city's needs while remaining consistent with the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and state law, under which the crime of residential picketing was already a class B misdemeanor.

"[R]esidential picketing is inappropriate in society, where the jealously guarded rights of free speech and assembly have always been associated with respect for the rights of others," the City Council declared, referencing the state legislation, "and that picketing late at night or early in the morning, however just the cause inspiring it, also disrupts home, family, and communal life, and because of its volume level, duration, and character, annoys, disturbs, injures and endangers the comfort, health, peace, repose, and safety of reasonable persons of ordinary sensibilities within the city."

Steve Elrod, the city's top attorney, said the ordinances were constructed to pass constitutional muster.

"In surveying laws that have attempted to have 24/7 curfews or laws that have attempted to ban picketing or protesting everywhere in town and seeing how they have failed, we have done two things," Elrod told councilmembers.

"One: we've put in a time restriction so that, during daylight hours, it is possible to picket or protest even against non-residential uses in residential areas — remember, we have schools, religious institutions, some public institutions in a residential district — those would be excluded," he said. "But then the time restriction comes into place, and even with respect to those areas, if they're in a residential district or if they're within 250 feet of a residence, there cannot be protesting in those dusk-to-dawn hours."

Under the amended City Code, protesting inside residential districts at any time is banned, unless it is at a building used as a business, at a meeting on "premises commonly used to discuss subjects of general public interest," non-residential buildings and at protestors' own homes.

That means if former President Donald Trump or former President Barack Obama held a fundraiser and delivered a speech to supporters in a private Highland Park residence, people who hold up protest signs outside could be fined by the city.

Additionally, protests are banned within 250 feet of any Highland Park home between 8 p.m. and 9 a.m., regardless of whether they target non-residential buildings.

The second ordinance amends the city's annual fee resolution to add fines ranging from $50 to $1,000 for violations of the city's residential picketing rules or blocking roadways.

Any other violations of the "offenses against public peace" portion of the City Code still carry fines from $25 to $500.

Councilmember Andres Tapia said city officials need to stay vigilant and within the bounds of the law. He said he was still worried about the feeling of vulnerability in the community in the wake of the protests at the congressman's house.

"As the only one on the City Council without Jewish heritage, my neighbors, my friends, my colleagues here mean everything to me," Tapia said. "And what you've gone through, for those who are Jewish, was appalling and scary, and I'm glad that we doubled down together with legal counsel and the chief of police and our citizens to really see what is the best thing to do."

Mayor Nancy Rotering said both measures will strengthen the ability for city officials to respond to protests.

"There are additional policy considerations that we discussed that will be presented at upcoming City Council meetings," Rotering said, "after additional research and collaboration with legal, law enforcement and other community partners.