No Politicking Allowed In Bristol, Va., Housing Complex

BRISTOL, Va. – Door-to-door politics is off limits at public housing on the Virginia side of Bristol.

The Bristol Virginia Redevelopment and Housing Authority shooed away Barack Obama supporters who were canvassing public housing units along West Mary Street a week ago.

Why they were ordered to leave remains unclear, however.

When asked about the incident, BRHA Executive Director David Baldwin initially told the Bristol Herald Courier that federal law bans politics from public housing.

“We have federal regulations that we can’t have anybody campaigning on our development,” Baldwin said Tuesday. “We can’t have partisan activity on the site.”

Housing authority agents had the anti-campaign law in mind when booting away the Obama supporters, Baldwin said.

But the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which oversees and partially funds the nation’s public housing, says no such federal laws exist.

Baldwin, when queried in a follow-up interview later Tuesday about HUD’s legal stance, said he “mis-spoke” when claiming a federal ban.

“In my recollection, I thought it was federal law,” he said. “I can say that it’s our practice not to allow partisan activity on our site.”

He also said that signs on the property forbid soliciting. The Herald Courier spotted only signs warning against parking in public housing lots and signs declaring the area protected by a neighborhood watch.

Baldwin, when asked why the signs could not be found, replied: “The signs that I was referring to don’t say specifically what I thought they said. They say no parking for non-tenants.”

Local volunteers of Obama’s Virginia canvassing group, Virginia Campaign for Change, would not discuss the incident and directed all questions to Obama’s media coordinators.

Obama spokesman Clark Stevens confirmed that BRHA agents cited federal law when ordering the volunteers off the property.

“They were told they were breaking a law by canvassing there,” Stevens said.

The volunteers, having already knocked on several doors, then left.

If such an anti-campaign law existed, it might be unconstitutional, legal experts said.

“If there is such a regulation, it raises obvious constitutional concerns. Campaigning is protected by the First Amendment,” said Rebecca Glenbert, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union chapter in Virginia.

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects speech, religion and the press, and gives the freedom for people to assemble and to ask the government to correct wrongs without fear of punishment.

Though a federal anti-campaign regulation does not exist, local housing authorities do have the right to bar from its properties solicitations of any kind, according to HUD.

“Property management can prohibit federal campaigning,” HUD spokeswoman Donna White said. “It can have its own policy, rules and guidelines.”

Baldwin said the authority has had a no-soliciting policy for more than 20 years.

It remains unclear on what day the Obama canvassers were told to leave. They were going door to door to register people to vote. Canvassers by law must register voters regardless of their party preferences; in other words, Obama canvassers would have been forced to register Republicans and independents had they encountered them.

Whether the canvassers, who wore Obama buttons and other clothing proclaiming their partisan allegiance, made any political spiels could not be determined.

“Obviously, in some cases, we’re informing people as to why Obama is the best person to help them with their problems in Virginia,” said Stevens, the Obama spokesman.

The canvassers introduced themselves as Obama supporters when spotted by a BRHA agent, confirmed both Stevens and Baldwin.

Baldwin said the canvassers would have been allowed to register residents as long as support for a political candidate had not been the goal.

In fact, officials at the Bristol Virginia Voter Registrar’s Office, a non-partisan constitutional agency, confirmed it is slated to have a registration booth at an upcoming public housing festival sponsored by the BRHA, and it has been at the annual event for many years.

Even though the BRHA can bar such solicitors as salespeople, some legal experts question whether it includes campaigning.

“In the courts’ view, political speech has a higher value than commercial speech,” said John Conover of the Charlottesville, Va.-based Legal Aid Justice Center.

mowens@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2549