| | | Issue | Petitioners challenge, on free speech and free exercise grounds, a local ordinance that requires all “canvassers, solicitors, peddlers, or hawkers” that go onto private residential properties to first register with the mayor. The ordinance applies to all such persons who go onto residential property for the purposes of “advertising, promoting, selling, and/or explaining any product, service, organization, or cause.” Petitioners argue that the ordinance is overbroad and vague. They also argued that the registration requirements ran afoul of the holding in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission (1995) (protecting anonymous political speech). This case raises the question of the level of judicial scrutiny, i.e. intermediate scrutiny or strict scrutiny (re the latter: petitioners relied on Employment Division v. Smith (1990)). | |
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