Alaska Tea Party Candidate Joe Miller’s Website Calendar Did NOT Label Town Hall Meeting As A “Private Event”



Joe Miller’s press relations team checks reporter Tony Hopfinger’s credentials

 Redefining “Private Event!” Miller Style.  It’s been all over the media: the controversial “private” Town Hall Meeting of October 17, where Alaska Dispatch editor Tony Hopfinger was handcuffed and detained by candidate Joe Miller’s (TP-AK) DropZone security detail. The Miller campaign has consistently defended its detention of Mr. Miller using the “private event” gambit.  Let’s see how this holds up.

Do Drop In, And, Having Droped In, Then, Drop Out.

The Alaska Dispatch (the home base of the unfortunate Mr. Hopfinger) reported:

William Fulton from Dropzone Security Services said Hopfinger should have known from the “Joe Miller for Senate” signs outside Central Junior High School that the town hall meeting — to which Miller invited citizens on the internet sites Facebook and Twitter — was a private event.

“They leased it for a private event,” said Fulton. “It wasn’t a public place.” That, he said, gave him the legal authority to tell Hopfinger to leave, then grab him and handcuff him when he didn’t do as told.

So, after reading that – and despite my childlike innocence – I thought it might be helpful to see what was actually advertised at Mr. Miller’s own net site. Well, wonder of wonders, the event is not described as a private event. Here’s the announcement on the Miller for Congress website’s Calendar of Events.

I ask you, does this describe a “private” event?

Event:      Town Hall Anchorage


When:      Sun, October 17, 3:00pm – 4:30pm


Where:     1405 E Street – Central Middle School

Description  Why:

Because your friends, colleges, family, acquaintances, neighbors, need to be informed and hear Joe Miller speak for himself. Don’t let the media skew your views. Make the decision for yourself. Help send Joe to DC!      [Italics added]

What Does Private Mean . . . in Joe Miller Tea Party Terms?

Now, certainly, one can  interpret the intent of this invitation, and I’d enjoy hearing O’Reilly, or Beck, or Cavuto opine on it. It’ll surely test the Tea Party standards on interpreting, for example, the U.S. Constitution – you know, they’re “literalists, and “strict constructionalists.” They enjoying saying things like, “If ‘privacy’ is not specifically mentioned in the Constitution, it’s judicial meddling and downright illegal to suggest a right to ‘privacy.'” So, let’s see how they handle the actual wording of Miller’s event description, literally . . .

Also, how will they explain what Mr. Fulton of the DropZone security firm meant when he told the news services that the event was private, and advertised only to “citizens on the internet sites Facebook and Twitter.”  And who on the Miller campaign told Mr. Fulton that? Shouldn’t campaign staff be held to at least constructive knowledge of the way a campaign event is advertised to the public?  They would certainly require that of Lisa Murkowski, their pesky write-in opponent.

In any event, if I had been an Alaska voter interested in returning this country to the late 19th Century, and had nothing to do last Sunday afternoon, I ‘d have felt among the invited.  After all, a “Town Hall meeting” is rarely viewed by citizen voters as a private – black tie and tiara – shindig. Say “Town Hall meeting” within a hundred feet of me, and off I go, whether pajama clad or resplendent in my Teutonic Knights re-enactment uniform. From the information on Miller’s campaign website, for one to to have known the event was “private” would have required an insanely novel interpretation of the plain wording of the announcement.

Indeed, and closer to home, the Anchorage Daily News, saw it this way:

The 3 p.m. town hall was billed by the Miller campaign as a chance for voters to “hear Joe Miller speak for himself.” It was hardly a private gathering. In a Facebook message, the campaign urged Miller supporters to bring their “friends, colleagues, family, acquaintances, neighbors.” And continuing what has become its anti-media theme, the campaign added, “Don’t let the media skew your views.”    [Italics added]

First Amendment, Anyone?

Ultimately, the serious question remains:  Does the First Amendment include the right of a reporter to attend a public political event held in a public facility?  Generally, in legal cant, public school property is defined (annoyingly) as non-public-forum public property (property that  has not been generally open for general public use, like a school). Restraints on a reporter’s access are permissible when, for example, they are designed to reduce interference with normal school activities. This, exception, however, did not apply to Miller’s 3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. rally, an event after normal school hours.

Advancing the argument for Mr. Hopfinger, recall that at the Town Hall Meeting there was no guest list;  no one was “carded” at the door;  reporters were not required to apply for credentials. Further, according to Miller’s own website, and from the way in which the event unfolded until the altercation with Mr. Hopfinger, the event was conducted as a public event for a political purpose, and, importantly, on public property despite Miller’s protestation that he rented the facility.  The rental contract between the Miller campaign and the Anchorage School District does not temporarily “transfer ownership” of the public school to a private group like the Miller campaign organization;  the building remains public property.

Moreover, and countering an emphasis in Miller’s explanation, the contract does not specifically require that a private security firm be hired to “police” the event. The Anchorage School District contract reads:
Yes, the contract does require arrangements for ensuring proper “conduct and control,” but it does not specifically require the hiring of private security officers.  And we all know the Tea Party touts how literally it reads legal documents. For example, they ask of the Constitution, “Where precisely is the word ‘privacy’ in the document?”  Well, I’ll ask a bit facetiously, “Where –precisely – is the term that requires security officers in the school rental contract? Finally, if as Miller protests, the event was private and for FOM’s (Friends O’ Miller) only, why did he feel he needed a security force?

The First Amendnent: A Security Force For A Free and Open Society.

When on assignment, a journalist does not tour a jail simply for his own edification. He is there to gather information to be passed on to others, and his mission is protected by the Constitution for very specific reasons. “Enlightened choice by an informed citizenry is the basic ideal upon which an open society is premised. . . .” Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U. S. 665, 408 U. S. 726 (dissenting opinion). Our society depends heavily on the press for that enlightenment. Though not without its lapses, the press “has been a mighty catalyst in awakening public interest in governmental affairs, exposing corruption among public officers and employees and generally informing the citizenry of public events and occurrences. . . .” Estes v. Texas, 381 U. S. 532, 381 U. S. 539.  Justice Potter Stewart concurring in Houchins v. KQED, Inc., 438 U. S. 1, 17 (1978).

Some facts:  While courts provide no blanket of protection for the working press, or an unlimited right of access to events (particularly in “non-public-forum public property” like Central Middle School), it is agreed that the press, at times, has a wide range of rights to investigate and report on political events and governmental wrongdoing, and that government mat not exclude the press in many cases without a compelling reason.  In 1971, Justice Hugo Black wrote in the Pentagon Papers case:

“The Press was protected [by the First Amendment] so that it could bare the secrets of the government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people.” Justice Hugo Black, concurring in the 1971 Pentagon Papers case, New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713, 717 (1971).

Under this reasoning, to the extent that Mr. Hopfinger’s proposed questions to Joe Miller related to his alleged ethical or legal violations during his time at FNSB, Hopfinger’s presence at the Town Hall Meeting falls within Justice Black’s formulation. 

Now, I well know the risk of taking quotes out of their context – the Pentagon Papers case arose out of a different set of facts and it considered different questions than the facts surrounding Mr. Hopfinger.  Yet, Justice Black – despite his sometimes overly literal reading of the Constitution – expressed in his Pentagon Papers opinion a bedrock American value dating from our experiences of governmental abuse at the hands of King George III, and, in Europe, before that.  Government cannot, in a country hoping to remain free, actively prevent the press from reporting news, unless they absent a compelling reason. Would that not be particularly true as it relates to investigating malfeasance among public employees, including Mr. Miller’s? To some extent, Miller is a classic case.

Tea Partier mendacity aside, the facts remain. Mr. Hopfinger hoped to ask Mr. Miller to comment on reports that he misused FNSB computers for political purposes. Where are the Tea Party constitutional scholars now?  Where is their belief in holding governmental officials accountable (Miller was a public employee while at FNSB)? Where now is their belief that unethical or illegal behavior be rooted out and harshly punished?

State Action . . . Schmate Action . . .?

One of the principles of our enforcement of civil rights abuses such as the infringement of freedom of the press in Hopfinger’s case is a doctrine called “state action.”  This somewhat murky rule requires that for an alleged civil rights violation the perpetrator must be the “state,” operating through, for example, its police force.  Thus, it’s said that a private individual, in the constitutional sense, is incaple of violating anyone’s rights. The Constitution is replete with evidence that it was intended as a charter for the government, the state, not for mandating how individuals act toward each other, except, of course, the 13th Amendment. 
Columbia Journalism Review

A message to new-kids-on-the-block candidates thinking they can avoid a questioning press and get away with it: you probably can. For now. Take sanctuary at Fox and its like and follow the talking-point road to Congress. Frankly, campaigning politicians have been doing so for eons—though the refusal to even take the questions is something that feels new—and voters don’t seem to mind that the real press isn’t able to get in your way. I guess they trust us as little as they trust you.

But there will come a time when, if you win, your constituents will begin to expect results; they will expect you to deliver on the promises you made at highly staged, meticulously orchestrated press-free town halls all across your states. Just ask the president. Then, they will expect a vigorous press to push back, questioning you on the very past you’re creating for yourself this election cycle. You may wish you had had some practice now.