cert grant: Question Presented

[Alexander Dushku]

The second question reads as follows:

"2.  Does a municipal ordinance that requires one to obtain a permit prior to engaging in the door-to-door advocacy of a political cause and to display upon demand the permit, which contains one's name, violate the First Amendment protection accorded to anonymous pamphleteering or discourse?"

The question not certified read:

1. Under the Free Exercise of Religion, Free Speech,
and Free Press Clauses of the First Amendment to the
United States Constitution, must a municipal ordinance
regulating uninvited peddling and solicitation be narrowly
tailored to the least restrictive means necessary to achieve
an actual compelling governmental interest, when that
ordinance requires religious ministers to obtain permits prior
to door-to-door communication of their religious beliefs and
dissemination of religious literature at no charge?

>>> "Eric W. Treene" <etreene at BECKETFUND.ORG> 10/15/01 11:00AM >>>
The Court this morning granted cert. in Watchtower Bible and Tract Society
of New York v. Village of Stratton, Oh., no. 00-1737.  The Sixth Circuit
below rejected the Jehovah's Witness plaintiffs' free speech and free
exercise challenges to the village's ordinance requiring all door-to-door
solicitors to register with the village.

The Cert grant specified that cert. was "limited to Question 2 presented by
the petition."

Does anyone know what question that was?  It seems that this means it is
either solely a free speech case or solely a free exercise case.

Eric Treene

Eric W. Treene
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
1350 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Suite 605
Washington, D.C. 20036
(202) 955-0095
etreene at becketfund.org
www.becketfund.org