New York City Councilor Rosie Mendez (District 2, Manhattan), with Council Members Gale Brewer and Alan Gerson, is introducing a bill today to redefine NYC's parade permit rules. If enacted into law, the bill will override the parade permit rules created by the NYPD a year ago; the NYPD's parade permit rules were created without City Council oversight and require any group of 50 or more to obtain a permit (whether the group is violating any laws or not). Currently, anyone in such a group without a permit is subject to arrest. The legislation being introduced today, known as the First Amendment Assembly Act, would decriminalize parading without a permit. It is based on legislation put forward by Assemble For Rights NYC.

There is lots of good stuff in this bill which I will get to in a second. First however, lets review where this is in the process. There will now be a bill in City Council, and it is to be assigned to the Public Safety Committee. That committee is run by Peter Vallone. Bad news. The bill could simply die there. What it needs next is a hearing, which can happen at the request of the Committee chair Vallone, by clamoring from Committee members, or the fastest way to a hearing is by request from the City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. Ms. Quinn has a great opportunity now before her to make up for past apathy on this issue and shepherd this good bill into law.

So its going to be very important for people who care about this issue to start calling their city councilors and the Speaker and let her know how important this is to you. You can look up your city councilor here.

On to the stuff about this bill that is good...

The First Amendment Assembly Act is based on legislation drafted by the civil rights advocacy group Assemble For Rights NYC. So right there you know it is quality. The First Amendment Assembly Act reverts the role of a permit from the legal gotcha game we have come to enjoy the past year, back to a means for groups that need exceptions to various laws, such as traffic laws, to obtain such for their events.

A parade permit will NOT be required when:

• A group believes their proposed assembly will not prevent other lawful uses of the same city public space and the expected attendance of the assembly will be less than 100, or
• The assembly is an immediate and spontaneous response to an event.

The Act also sets forth guidelines for the NYPD to facilitate peaceful assemblies even when a group should have obtained a permit but does not. Furthermore The Act also encourages calmer resolutions to assemblies which become too difficult for the NYPD to facilitate: these guidelines include providing clearly communicated dispersal orders and reasonably opportunities to disperse before making any arrests.

This is the genius of this bill and why it is good for activists and the police. The rank and file police have been put in a horrible position by Ray Kelly and the top brass - forced to engage peaceful protesters under the most hostile terms. This bill would get everyone to just chill the hell out.

Don't think such a law is reasonable? For those who think this means Osama Bin Ladin will be holding marches in the streets of Manhattan I refer them to nothing less than Washington D.C. In DC, the city council passed very similar legislation in 2004. Its laws brought an end to violent clashes between police and protesters and has reduced that cities exposure to expensive wrongful arrest lawsuits. And yet, no terrists. Who'd a thunk.