Free speech on lawns

On first blush, the case of Peter and Peg Jasinski of Queensbury seems straightforward. The Jasinkis voluntarily bought a house in the Hudson Pointe development, where a homeowners association sets rules all homeowners must agree to follow. One of those rules bans the public display of signs in windows or on lawns or doors or anywhere else on the property.

The Jasinkis didn’t have to buy the house, and if they objected to the association’s rules, they could have gone elsewhere. Most neighborhoods in Queensbury don’t ban political signs, which is what the Jasinkis have been periodically planting in front of their house.

In June, the New Jersey Supreme Court (the top court in New Jersey) decided a homeowners association rule banning the display of political signs “violates the free speech clause of the State Constitution.”

It didn’t matter the homeowner, Wasim Khan, voluntarily bought his house within the development and agreed to the rules of the Mazdabrook Commons Homeowners’ Association. Since those rules were unconstitutional in New Jersey, he was under no obligation to follow them.

In 1994, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Ladue vs. Gilleo that a ban on lawn and home signs in Ladue, Mo., was unconstitutional. That case involved a municipality, not a homeowners association

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