Wichita lawmaker wants to restore local oversight on campaign signs

Reversing course from two years ago, Rep. John Carmichael is proposing to repeal a law that stripped cities and counties of authority to regulate the placement of political signs.

Carmichael, D-Wichita, voted in favor of the law as part of House Bill 2183, a catch-all political campaign bill that passed late in the 2015 legislative session.

On Friday, he said he didn’t expect it to result in the “forests of signs along the major thoroughfares of Wichita” that sprouted during the 2016 elections.

“The more I looked at it, the more I thought what we did in 2015 was ill-advised,” Carmichael said.

He said he supports the right of citizens to put campaign signs in their yards to show their neighbors who they’re voting for and to boost their favorite candidates.

But, he said, the 2015 law went too far because it allows the campaigns to place signs pretty much anywhere on city street easements and on vacant lots. It also allows disproportionally large signs of up to 4 by 8 feet on residential lots, he said.

He said that went beyond the intent of the law, resulting in ugly visual clutter as candidates lined streets with dozens of signs seeking to boost their name recognition.

It also caused a constitutional clash between the Statehouse and city halls. Several cities, including Wichita and Haysville, continued to enforce their own campaign sign ordinances and seized signs when the public complained.

Wichita’s law department ruled that the state law violated court rulings that forbid government to regulate signs based on the content of the message, because it gave legal preference to campaign sign placement over garage sale, real estate and other commercial signs.

Under Wichita’s city ordinance, campaign signs are not allowed on private property that is also part of a city street easement. That usually comes into play when homeowners place signs on the grassy strip between the sidewalk and the street curb in their yard.

When HB 2183 was debated at the Statehouse, supporters said the rule infringed on the homeowners’ property rights, because the grass strip isn’t used for a city purpose and the homeowner is responsible for mowing and maintaining it.

Carmichael’s bill to undo the 2015 change is House Bill 2117.

This story was originally published January 22, 2017 at 5:29 PM with the headline "Wichita lawmaker wants to restore local oversight on campaign signs."