EDMONDS—Bruce Guthrie, 21st LD Position 2 candidate, was arrested by Edmonds Police Officers in the Frances Anderson Play Field during the Edmonds Arts Festival on Friday, June 14, for refusing to leave the premises as he collected signatures for to qualify Libertarian Presidential Candidate Chase Oliver for the Washington state ballot.
Guthrie was gathering signatures from the public to add Libertarian Presidential Nominee Chase Oliver, an anti-war Millennial and Gun Rights/LGBTQ activist, onto the Washington State ballot this upcoming November. As required by the Washington Secretary of State’s office, Guthrie needs a total of 2,000 signatures for this goal—he and other volunteers have collected about 500 which they started collecting that weekend.
“Two thousand signatures is a lot, but we’re going to do it,” said Guthrie. “Washington State has a lot of Libertarians – who are socially liberal, for the free market, and ant-war.”
Guthrie was accompanied by two others on Friday at the Gaugin and O’Keefe streets (the streets were renamed after artists for the Edmonds Arts Festival, in this case Paul Gaugin and Georgia O’Keefe) when he was first approached by the Art Festival Manager who informed him he could not petition on Arts Festival grounds, requesting that he relocate to a nearby sidewalk. Guthrie politely declined, he informed the Lynnwood Times, arguing his First Amendment rights to petition on public property.
Guthrie suspects, although he has no evidence to support this suspicion, that an Arts Festival attendee, was either pro-Trump or pro-Biden, misinformed the event management that he was “harassing” people but Guthrie said this was not the case. He added all he would ask of pedestrians is if they were first registered voters, and then he would request that they sign his petition to add Libertarian candidate Oliver to the ballot.
After Guthrie refused to relocate his petition efforts, officers working with the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office promptly arrived again asking that Guthrie relocate to a nearby sidewalk.
“I said this is a public park and it’s my right to be here, if you arrest me, you’re violating my civil rights and they said it’s silly of you to be doing this when all you have to do is move over there to the sidewalk,” said Guthrie. “I said no, if you want me to leave this place you’re going to have to arrest me and they did.”
Guthrie added that the entire time he was conversing with the police officers he continued to ask passersby to sign his petition, including the two police officers who were unwilling.
At this point the two others accompanying Guthrie had listened to the officers and relocated across the street, but Guthrie remained. He was subsequently arrested, strip searched, and spent six hours in jail, four of which were in solitary confinement he said.
Mary Ellen O’Keefe, Co-President of the Edmonds Arts Festival Foundation, confirmed with the Lynnwood Times that the nonprofit does not allow any political activity, not even political booths, in its venue.
“Our procedure is to ask people [associated with political activity] to leave, we are apolitical,” O’Keefe said. “We want them [attendees] to come and enjoy the beautiful art and purchase it of course. Our whole mission is to provide beautiful art to the community.”
Guthrie argued a Washington State law which states that if you run a public mall, one needs to allow petition gatherers a space in a high-traffic area.
According to the Secretary of State’s Office: “gathering signatures for ballot measure petitions is a constitutionally guaranteed practice in the State of Washington. However, the right does not extend to all commercial private property open to the public. To what extent businesses and private property owners can exclude signature gatherers is not clearly spelled out in state law.”
The question of whether one has the right to petition on malls or retail areas has been famously argued in courts of law throughout Washington State’s history, most notably Initiative 172 v. Western Washington Fair Association (in 1997), Waremart Inc. v. Progressive Campaigns, Inc. (in 1999), Southcenter Joint Venture v. National Democratic Policy Committee (in 1989), and Alderwood Associates v. Washington Environmental Council (in 1981).
The courts’ decisions depended on several factors, but the most important factor was whether the business in question had a policy of permitting or welcoming non-commercial, community or political activities onto the property.
In Washington state, a private shopping center that functions as the equivalent of a “public forum” (a traditional free speech venue, such as a town square) must provide access to persons gathering signatures on state initiative petitions. The shopping center may impose “time, place, and manner” regulations that do not unreasonably restrict the access right, as argued in the case of Waremart Inc. v Progressive Committee.
While the Washington Supreme Court has yet to consider the validity of particular time, place, and manner regulations, the Washington Court of Appeals has held that a property owner may restrict petitioning activity to a designated free-speech area, the court ruled during Initiative 172 v. Western Washington Fair Association.
“I think of this as a public park that has been rented to a private event manager. Should the city of Edmonds be able to delegate a power that it does not possess the city of Edmonds may not violate the bill of rights. It does not have the power to violate our right to liberty or the first amendment,” said Guthrie. “Just because this event organizer paid a lot of money does that mean that that person can violate a peaceful person’s rights?”
Guthrie now believes he has a civil case against the city of Edmonds, the Edmonds PD, the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office, and the organizer of the Edmonds Arts Festival.
He feels he’s being “cancelled” or his political voice is being silenced by those who oppose the Libertarian Party ideology.
“I think Washingtonians are very sensitive. When you disagree with them in a reasonable way they get really offended but the first amendment defends offensive speech so long as it’s peaceful speech. That’s the whole point of having free and open dialogue,” Guthrie told the Lynnwood Times. “Too many people are using the law to silence their political opponents. I know the Republicans think that’s happening with Trump and I think this is an example of that. We need to learn to talk about difficult issues again instead of being offended.”
Bruce Guthrie is running against Representative Lilian Ortiz-Self (D-Mukilteo). His platform revolves around tax cuts—property tax cuts, sales tax cuts and avoiding a state income tax—school vouchers, and reducing spending on public transit.
“There needs to be radical change [in the education system]. The worst government school outcomes are in the poor, urban areas where Blacks and Hispanics predominately live. The effect of this system is racist. I don’t think it’s intentionally racist, I think the intention is to not be racist, but the affect of this system, not having school choice, is racist and that needs to change,” said Guthrie. “If we have Olympia set our curriculum, as we currently do, well Olympia is full of politicians and they’re going to set the curriculum according to their political needs, not the needs of the kids.”
The solution, Guthrie added, is to limit the amount of power of government in Olympia and Washington D.C.
This is the sixth time Bruce Guthrie has run for office as a Libertarian, once in 2002 against Second District Congressman Rick Larsen (D), again in 2004 against Larsen, and in 2006 he received the Libertarian nomination for Senate against Senator Maria Cantwell (D). That year he participated in the King 5 debates which had a requirement to raise 10% of what the last Gubernatorial candidate won with – in this case $1 million. Guthrie did this by mortgaging his $350 thousand home in Bellingham and pledged his $650 thousand investment portfolio.
Guthrie also ran for Representative in the 21st District in 2016 and in 2019 for the School Board.
Guthrie has an MBA in Marketing Strategy from Northwestern University and a master’s in teaching from Seattle University. He has over 1,000 hours teaching in Washington State.
Author: Kienan Briscoe
4 Responses
This is a BAD arrest AND the persons forced to leave have claims against the City of Edmonds , Snohomish County as well as the festival. :(US Ninth Circuit): to bring a First Amendment retaliation claim, the plaintiff must allege that (1) it engaged in constitutionally protected activity; (2) the defendant’s actions would ‘chill a person of ordinary firmness’ from continuing to engage in the protected activity; and (3) the protected activity was a substantial or motivating …..https://www.ce9.uscourts.gov/jury-instructions/node/149#:~:text=“To%20bring%20a%20First%20Amendment,was%20a%20substantial%20or%20motivating. Gathright v. City of Portland, or, 439 F.3d 573 (9th Cir. 2006)
Shame on the Edmonds Arts Festival organizers for trying to suppress free speech and shut down grassroots participation in the political process. And all because what, they were afraid that someone peacefully collecting signatures to get a candidate on the ballot might distract customers from buying their art? Get your priorities straight, people! This kind of self-serving, anti-democratic operation does not deserve the community’s support.
There’s a Karen in the woodpile, somewhere. Perhaps all the Edmonds Council are Karens.
This is NOT a private business. It is a public park that has been rented for an arts festival. IF THERE IS NO ADMISSION CHARGED, they cannot trespass you for free speech. There are many court precedents to this exact point. They were brought by street preachers that were trespassed from just such events, and they haven’t lost a single case in court yet. This is no different. Do better investigation before reporting such drivel.