NC Capitol’s new rules frustrate activists

The state chapter of the NAACP is considering taking legal action against new rules that limit where protestors can gather within the capitol.

The new rules went into effect on Jan. 13 and allow police to designate where protestors can stand in the rotunda of the legislative building.

Kory Goldsmith, interim legislative services officer for the N.C. General Assembly, signed the rules into effect. They had an immediate impact on the NAACP’s Ecumenical Clergy Preach-In and Pray-In demonstration Jan. 28.

Rev. William Barber II, president of the N.C. NAACP, and a group of religious leaders were stopped from entering the legislative chambers by police acting under the new guidelines.

After being blocked from the chambers, protesters tried to deliver letters to legislators in order to share their goals for the 2015 legislative session. A receptionist and an aide told the protestors they were not allowed to see legislators without invitations.

Irving Joyner, legal counsel for the N.C. NAACP said he objects to the rules, specifically those that designate where people are allowed to protest.

“They’re arbitrarily drawn,” Joyner said. “The chief of police has been given authority, based on whatever criteria he wants and whenever he wants to use it, to draw no-protest zones within the legislative body.”

The rules require protest areas to be clearly marked and to allow unobstructed entry to the chambers, chapel and legislative services office. Protestors are also prohibited from obstructing elevators or the photocopy machine.

Joyner said the rules allow protesting space to be determined on a day-by-day basis. He worries they are being used against specific groups of protestors.

As written, the rules forbid that.

“Nothing in these restrictions may be used to deny the use of the 2nd Floor Rotunda based on the content of the speech that is or may be expressed in that area,” the document states.

Goldsmith said the rules are not targeting protestors specifically and are intended to allow everyone using the rotunda to go about their business.

The Moral Monday demonstrations, started by Barber in 2013 to protest the legislature’s conservative agenda, were among the most high-profile events to take place in the rotunda.

Nearly 1,000 protesters were arrested at Moral Monday events during summer 2013. Among them was UNC student Kaori Sueyoshi, who protested recent laws on voting and abortion restrictions.

“The whole slew of legislation being passed was largely against my principles, so in that light, I decided to do what I can,” she said.

She said she thinks the more restrictive protest rules were politically driven, but she said they would not dissuade protestors like herself.

“This isn’t the first and it certainly isn’t the last obstacle that people have faced in organizing against a particularly restrictive legislative body,” she said.

state@dailytarheel.com