L ast month, a recording device was confiscated from a reporter during a committee meeting at the N.C. General Assembly after N.C. Sen. Rick Gunn, R-Alamance, erroneously announced that recorders required prior approval. Gunn later admitted his mistake, but it could be more easily written off as a slip of the tongue were it not so consistent with new restrictions meant to curtail rights of access and expression within the legislative building.
A recent series of arrests associated with the Moral Monday protests took place in the dead of night around 2 a.m. after reporters left the building. What about the sit-in became more illegal after midnight? Were the legislators hoping the reporters might turn into pumpkins?
This type of ad hoc underhandedness is accompanied this summer by a far more concrete set of restrictions. It would be another strange coincidence that the “building rules,” which govern the conduct of the public in and around the legislative building, were amended in May for the first time since 1987 and just in time for the first in this summer’s series of protests.
To an outsider, the content neutrality of the revisions might lend them credibility if they were not so otherwise vague. But the General Assembly’s lack of commitment to transparency and accessibility should concern citizens of all political stripes.
The building rules could not have been more specifically crafted to prohibit the type of activism used by the Moral Monday movement — the type of activism responsible for bringing the antics of the General Assembly to the country’s attention. Singing, clapping and, for some reason, signs affixed to sticks are now prohibited, as are vaguely defined “disturbances.” What is the point of peaceful assembly, one wonders, if not to disturb the thinking of the objects of protest? Arrest is the goal for a small portion of these activists. As such, it may seem these new regulations are simply seeking to give protesters more of what they want. But the new building rules are also unduly restrictive for run-of-the-mill sign-wavers who just want their voices heard, now and in the future.
Some have called the Moral Monday protests overly bellicose, but that should have no real bearing on their legality. In a state where the legislature has had a carte blanche for the last several sessions, it should be in the interests of all North Carolinians to accommodate those voicing opposition to the current state of one-party dominance.
