FAYETTEVILLE -- The state Highway and Transportation Department won't respond until Monday at the earliest to a complaint it's violating the free speech rights of anti-abortion protesters in Fayetteville, department spokesman Danny Straessle said Friday.
The area's state representative, the state attorney general's office and the region's highway commissioner all also declined to comment Friday.
The department received a faxed letter of protest late Wednesday from a legal firm representing the local chapter of the "40 Days for Life" prayer vigil. Participants in the vigil were told earlier that day by a department employee they couldn't carry signs along a state highway, according to the letter and to protest organizers. Volunteers are conducting the vigil outside the Planned Parenthood Health Center on North Crossover Road in Fayetteville. The road is also Arkansas 265.
The protesters had previously carried signs in the "40 Days for Life" protests at the same site twice a year, every year since 2011, organizers said. Planned Parenthood is a nonprofit reproductive health care provider.
The Highway Department's legal counsel is reviewing the letter, Straessle said. After that review, any comment will come from department Director Scott Bennett, who was out of state Friday on business, Straessle said. The department is an independent state agency with its own legal department.
The state attorney general's office represents most state agencies, but hasn't been consulted in the matter, spokesman Judd Deere of Attorney General Leslie Rutledge's office said Friday.
Dick Trammel of Rogers, whose district includes Northwest Arkansas and is chairman of the state Highway Commission, learned of the issue Friday and deferred any comment to the director.
Rep. Charlie Collins, R-Fayetteville, whose district includes the protest site, said he would have to check Highway Department regulations before making any comment.
The Thomas More Society, a nonprofit law firm based in Chicago, faxed the letter to the department late Wednesday. The fax was received after the close of business and found Thursday morning, Straessle said.
"Until this week, the pro-lifers have not encountered any problems with law enforcement during the thousands of hours they have spent on the vigil," the law firm's letter said.
The department cited Arkansas Code 5-67-101 and 27-67-304 in their refusal to allow signs, the protest letter stated. The letter argued those laws apply only to advertising and to structures such as billboards.
"To apply this section of the code to a small group of individuals, displaying temporary, hand-held signs in furtherance of their First Amendment Rights to communicate their views on a matter of public importance is to stretch it past the breaking point," the letter said.
The vigil will continue, organizers said, with participants wearing T-shirts with anti-abortion protest slogans.
NW News on 02/28/2015