Gilbert church wins: Supreme Court strikes down sign ordinance

The U.S. Supreme Court preached a bit of gospel — from the Greek word meaning "good news" — for a small Gilbert Presbyterian church on Thursday.

A protracted court battle between the Rev. Clyde Reed and Gilbert officials ended with a unanimous ruling from the nation's highest court, striking down the town's unconstitutional sign ordinance.

The court ruling makes it more difficult for governments to treat signs differently based on their content, like Gilbert did when providing more leeway for political and ideological signs but less for church signs directing the public to Sunday services.

That decision has far-reaching implications for most cities and local governments across the nation, where similar sign regulations will come under renewed scrutiny, experts say.

"It's almost universal," said Lisa Soronen, executive director of the State Local Legal Center in Washington, D.C. "A majority of cities will now have to make some sort of change."

The result might not necessarily be fewer or more roadside signs, just less variety as governments make adjustments to treat different categories of signs the same way, Soronen said.

Reed publicly expressed gratitude for the court's ruling during a press conference at the offices of Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian group that fought his case free of charge.

"I've been a pastor for over 40 years, and believe me when I say I never dreamed my small church signs would be a topic for the U.S. Supreme Court," Reed said. "The government shouldn't be able to treat our church's religious speech worse than it treats other speech, like politicians' speech."

Good News Presbyterian Church sued Gilbert in 2007 after the town repeatedly enforced a law banning the church from posting roadside signs the day before its services.

The banners, which measured 6 square feet, directed churchgoers to Sunday worship at a local elementary school. Gilbert classified them as "directional signs" and said they could not be placed in the public right-of-way more than 12 hours before the event.

The church claimed Gilbert's code discriminates by treating temporary signs that direct people to its services differently than other roadside signs, like political or ideological banners.

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"We weren't asking for special treatment," Reed said. "We just didn't want to get fined or go to jail over an unfair and unjust city law."

Gilbert officials countered — and courts had so far agreed — that the rules treat churches no differently than other non-commercial groups and that the signs are not regulated based on who posts them.

Gilbert Town Attorney Michael Hamblin said the case was about a town's ability to place reasonable, common-sense time restrictions on temporary signs, something that was affirmed twice by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

"While today's opinion reverses those decisions, we are hopeful it will provide some much-needed legal clarity to this area of the law, and that Gilbert, along with cities and towns across the country, can now make the necessary adjustments," Hamblin said.

What led the Supreme Court to hear the Gilbert case?

The National League of Cities, which had supported Gilbert's position in the case, issued a statement Thursday morning expressing disappointment that the court has made it harder for local governments to do their job.

"Today's decision by the Supreme Court wreaks havoc on the ability of local governments to implement sign code regulations that are responsive to the needs of their communities," League CEO Clarence Anthony said. "Common sense sign codes, like those in Gilbert, are commonly used to protect the safety, attractiveness and economic vitality of a community."

The Supreme Court's decision vacates previous rulings by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which had sided with Gilbert. The case is now remanded back to the circuit court in a process of "judicial hot potato," said attorney Joshua Carden, a partner with Davis Miles McGuire Gardner in Tempe.

The 9th circuit court will send the case back to the Arizona district court, which will take action in line with the Supreme Court's decision, Carden said.

Carden expressed surprise not necessarily at the ruling but the fact it was unanimous.

"The 9th circuit got it so wrong that they offended the sensibilities of all nine justices," Carden said. "It takes a lot of work to do that."

A three-member panel for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year sided with Gilbert, although the decision was not unanimous and one dissenting judge argued that the town's law is unconstitutional.

Gilbert's code prohibits non-commercial event signs, including the church signs advertising worship services, from going up more than 12 hours beforehand in public rights-of-way.

In contrast, political signs can be placed 60 days before an election. Ideological signs, which are meant to convey a non-commercial message or idea, can be posted in any zoning district and left up indefinitely. This could be a message touting world peace, for example.

Alliance Defending Freedom, representing Good News pastor Clyde Reed, last year asked the Supreme Court to clarify how judges should determine whether an ordinance discriminates based on content, citing disagreement among circuit courts on the issue.

The notion of content-neutral law could apply to a wide range of issues, including public events, for example. A law forbidding all parades down Main Street would be neutral, while a law that bans an immigration rally would not.

Alliance Defending Freedom, based in Scottsdale, is a conservative organization launched in 1994. It litigates cases tied to religion, abortion and gay marriage. The group claims more than three dozen U.S. Supreme Court victories.

Good News Presbyterian Church's congregation consists of a few dozen members who meet weekly at a Gilbert elementary school.

Gilbert's dispute with the church began in 2005, when the town's code-compliance department cited the church for posting signs too early in the public right-of-way.

The church responded by reducing the number of signs and the amount of time they were out, but Gilbert notified church officials again in 2007 that they were in violation.

Good News filed a lawsuit in March 2007 alleging that the code regulating signs discriminated against religious groups by violating free-speech rights.

Gilbert suspended the code while the case made its way through court, but that changed in 2008, when Gilbert adopted a sign-code amendment.

The changes allowed churches and other groups to post bigger signs, placed no limit on the number of signs and allowed more time for them to be up. Town officials also lumped charitable, community-service, educational and other non-profits into the same category as churches for restrictions.

Reed and his congregation won the support of a number of religious groups, including the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represented Hobby Lobby last summer in a landmark case that struck down the Affordable Care Act's contraceptive mandate.

Gilbert also had several proponents, including the National League of Cities, an advocacy group that supports municipalities nationwide.

Reed gave the invocation at a Town Council meeting in December 2014, just weeks before the Supreme Court oral arguments began.

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