Protesters Toe the Line for GOP Convention

They assembled outside the Police Department’s storefront office in the downtown Gaslamp Quarter, their sleeping bags and political convictions in tow.

The earliest arrived more than 76 hours in advance: members of Voices ‘96, a coalition of groups concerned with issues involving lesbians and gays and people who are bisexual or transsexual. Next in line were local Democrats, arriving a mere 15 minutes after Voices ’96.

The storefront door opened as scheduled at 8 a.m. Thursday, and those who had camped out for a cause received their reward: prime-time protesting hours at the official protesting spot outside the Republican National Convention come August.

Gone are the days when San Diego authorities hustled organizers from the International Workers of the World union out of town and cracked down on anti-Vietnam War protesters with a vengeance.

Protests are now an officially sanctioned, minutely regulated part of national political conventions.

Indeed, for the GOP gathering, protesters with permits will get police protection, sound equipment and a small stage. To get one of the 65 time slots to use the “special events” zone during the four-day convention, protesters need only promise to arrive on cue, leave on time, not bring any oversized signs and not harass, hector or bullyrag anyone.

It’s a bargain the groups had no trouble accepting in exchange for their allotted 70 minutes in the spotlight, even as a squabble continues about exactly where the protesting site will be located.

“Personally, I don’t think it would serve any purpose for me to break the rules and spend the week of the Republican Convention in jail,” said Alex Garner, a member of Brothers in Action Against AIDS.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether all activists will be as peaceful. Leaders of Operation Rescue, an anti-abortion group, for example, did not request a permit and have refused to rule out disruption as a tactic.

When it comes to the permitted protesters, the San Diego police have been instructed by their superiors to treat them like guests.

“You plan for demonstrations from Day 1,” said Assistant Police Chief Keith Enerson, who began such planning a year ago. “You want to plan things so everybody wins.”

After weeks of anticipation, last week’s permitting process proceeded in an orderly fashion. Groups were allowed to pick their protest times on a first-come, first-served basis.

Yet the sight of protesters in a tidy queue with applications in hand was not one to gladden the hearts of unreconstructed street radicals.

“The ‘60s are dead,” said Larry Remer, an anti-Vietnam War protester turned San Diego political consultant. “This is a sanitized, TV-ized convention, and protests are being treated as sound bites for CNN rather than as something substantive.”

The permit process evolved in the aftermath of the bloody confrontation outside the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago.

“The planning and meticulous allocation of time represents an evolution of an intelligent government response that recognizes that demonstrations are something a lot of people want to do these days,” said Todd Gitlin, professor of culture, journalism and society at New York University.

“What’s remarkable is how what was fresh and uncontrollable in the 1960s has become routine,” said Gitlin, who was among the protesters in Chicago.

Even with the smoothness of last week’s permit process, a dispute remains over where the protests will occur.

The police, Secret Service and city government had agreed on a parking lot about 400 feet from the convention entrance so delegates could see and hear the protesters. Courts have held that protesters have a 1st Amendment right to be seen and heard.

But the Republicans vetoed that idea, saying the site was needed as a drop-off spot for handicapped people attending the convention. The GOP preferred a site about 1,200 feet from the center.

San Diego City Manager Jack McGrory thought he had found a compromise, a gravelly three-acre lot about 625 feet from the convention center. But the site is barely visible from the center, and last week the ACLU and three other groups filed a lawsuit seeking a better location.

“If the 1st Amendment means nothing more than the right to stand hundreds of yards away on a dirt lot, unseen and irrelevant behind a line of trees,” said ACLU attorney Jordan Budd, “it means very little.”