Ruling Lets Beilenson’s Opponent Campaign at Town Hall Meetings

A federal judge settled a squabble between U.S. Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Los Angeles) and his Republican opponent Tuesday, ruling that the opponent can hand out campaign literature outside the congressman’s local “town hall” meetings.

But a Beilenson spokesman charged that GOP candidate Jim Salomon, who lost badly to Beilenson in 1988, sought the judge’s order only as a publicity stunt to “attract attention to a faltering campaign.”

U.S. District Judge James M. Ideman issued a temporary restraining order forbidding Beilenson to prevent Salomon from handing out campaign literature at town hall meetings the congressman holds with constituents, usually at local schools.

Within hours of the judge’s decision Tuesday, Salomon and two campaign workers appeared outside another Beilenson meeting at a Woodland Hills school, passing out brochures and chatting with residents.

Salomon asked Ideman for the order after a Los Angeles school police officer, alerted by Beilenson’s staff, ordered three Salomon campaign workers away from a Canoga Park school where Beilenson was talking with local voters Saturday.

Salomon, a Beverly hills trade consultant, said school grounds are public property and Beilenson’s action violated his free speech rights.

Craig Miller, a Beilenson assistant, said he called school police Saturday after Salomon workers set up an information table and placed campaign posters on the walls at Welby Way Elementary School in Canoga Park.

Miller said he did so only because he was worried that school officials might refuse to give Beilenson permits for future meetings if they thought campaign activity was taking place there. Miller said a school police official confirmed that campaigning was not allowed on school grounds.

Miller said Beilenson did not even send a lawyer to contest Salomon’s request at the court hearing and that the judge’s order helps Beilenson by ensuring that Salomon’s campaigning will not jeopardize the congressman’s ability to hold the town hall get-togethers at schools.

The two camps also clashed Tuesday over what took place at another town hall parley last month in Tarzana.

According to Salomon spokesman Richard Mahan, a wary Beilenson tried to persuade a local TV news crew to leave the meeting, but crew members refused. When the cameraman later left the room briefly, a Beilenson staffer removed the TV crew’s microphone from the speaker’s podium, Mahan charged.

But Miller said Beilenson merely asked constituents if they minded the TV crew being present. He said he had no knowledge of anyone from Beilenson’s staff moving the crew’s microphone.