Hate all those campaign signs on streets? This proposal's for you

PHOENIX — A state senator has introduced legislation that could make him a hero of Arizona motorists — assuming it gets approved and survives a likely court challenge.

Sen. Steve Kaiser, a Phoenix Republican, wants campaign signs gone from street corners, medians and other public rights of way. Kaiser said his Senate Bill 1116 would simply do what his constituents want.

“They hate those things,’’ he said.

“They cause a ton of bad traffic because you can’t see around them, people put them in the wrong spot,’’ Kaiser said. “It creates a ton of trash.’’

And then they can get defaced “and everybody freaks out.”

They’re also unnecessary, Kaiser contends.

“It’s the least effective way to reach voters,’’ he said, adding that text messaging and digital ads are more effective and cheaper.

Yet Kaiser, in his 2020 and 2022 election campaigns, put up signs around his district.

“If my competitor’s going to do it, of course I’m going to do it,’’ he explained. Of course, that war of escalation only increases the number of signs that pop up along the roads.

Kaiser also denied that banning these signs would become an incumbency protection act, denying challengers the ability to create the same name ID that those in office may already have. Instead, he said, the effect would be the opposite.

“Incumbents usually have the most signs and have better funding to carpet bomb an area,’’ Kaiser said. “They also are better organized and know exactly when to place and where to place, and usually have professionals doing it for hire.’’

While it may not seem like it to the average motorist, there already are state laws designed to deal with the biennial crop of campaign signs.

They cannot be placed in a location that is hazardous to public safety, obstructs clear vision in the area or interferes with the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act not to to block access.

Signs are limited to 32 square feet, or half that size in areas zoned for residential use.

They can be erected no earlier than 71 days before the August primary and must be taken down 15 days after the election.

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And they can’t be placed along state highways or overpasses.

Kaiser, for his part, believes the simpler solution would be to ban them all.

Nothing in SB1116 would keep residents and businesses from putting signs on their own private property. But it still might run afoul of the First Amendment.

The key is the fact that, as Kaiser acknowledges, his legislation outlaws only political signs on public rights of way. But signs still could be erected at those same intersections to advertise everything from new subdivisions to yard sales and church services.

The town of Gilbert found out the hard way that picking and choosing what signs are acceptable is not legally allowed.

That case involved the Good News Community Church which, like many small congregations, had no buildings of its own. Instead, it met at various rental spaces including public schools and a senior living center.

Church officials put up signs directing would-be worshipers to the sites.

Only thing is, Gilbert said the signs could not be erected earlier than 12 hours before the event and had to be removed one hour after services ended. The rules also limited the signs to no more than six square feet.

By contrast, political signs could be 32 square feet and remain in place for months. And even what the town called “ideological signs’’ could be permanent and up to 20 square feet.

Town officials argued there were legitimate reasons for the time limits on church signs, ranging from public safety to blight. But Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court in 2015, called that legally irrelevant.

“Innocent motives do not eliminate the danger of censorship presented by a facially content-based statute, as future government officials may one day wield such statutes to suppress disfavored speech,’’ Thomas said. “That is why the First Amendment expressly targets the operation of the laws — abridgment of speech — rather than merely the motives of those who enacted them.’’

Kaiser called it “an interesting question’’ of whether the state could do what he proposes and single out only campaign signs for special treatment. But, for the moment, he has no interest in expanding the scope of his measure to impose similar prohibitions on other signs at street corners and in public rights of way.

“I really just want to focus it on political signs because it gets out of hand, it gets crazy,’’ Kaiser said.

His legislation has not yet been assigned to a committee for a hearing.