Court Supports Least-Restrictive Access to Mall for Politicking

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday let stand a California court ruling that a Pasadena shopping mall must impose the “least-restrictive” rules possible in regulating the distribution of leaflets and other political activity at the 125-store complex.

The case stems from an attempt by the Citizens for a Responsible Government to distribute leaflets and circulate petitions on Dec. 23, 1985, at the Plaza Pasadena. The petitions and leaflets reportedly involved issues pertaining to the form of the city’s municipal government.

The downtown Pasadena mall, arguing that the politicking would interfere with last-minute Christmas shopping, sought and obtained an injunction that effectively barred such activities during the holiday season. The citizens’ group appealed the ruling, which was upheld by a state Court of Appeals.

However, the appeals court said the mall’s rules and policies about expressive activities were too subjective, and it said the mall’s owners must use the least-restrictive means possible in regulating the political activities on its property.

The mall appealed that ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, contending that the “least-restrictive” standard--used for regulating expressive activities on public property--should not be applied to the privately owned shopping center. The mall contended that the appeals court ruling, because it treats private property like public property, amounts to an unconstitutional taking of the property without just compensation.

In 1972, the Supreme Court had ruled that the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment guarantees of free speech do not require mall owners to allow expressive activities on their property.

But eight years later, the justices ruled that a California constitutional right of access to shopping centers for such activities does not violate a mall owner’s rights. In that 1980 decision, now-Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote that the owners had failed to show that their right to exclude others was so essential that it amounted to the taking of their property without just compensation.

Attorney Tom Leanse, who represented the mall, said Monday that he had yet to receive confirmation of the latest Supreme Court action and it thus was too early to comment on it.