-Caveat Lector- Please send as far and wide as possible. Thanks, Robert Sterling Editor, The Konformist http://www.konformist.com Monday, August 20, 2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY-THANKS! Giuliani To Challenge 1st Amendment in NYC by Robert Lederman As Monday's NY Times editorial (see below) notes, the announcement by the Mayor, the NYC Corporation Council and the Parks Department that they will appeal the ruling in Lederman et al v Giuliani (the Parks Department artist permit case) is part of a consistent eight year long effort to eliminate artists' rights which began in 1994 when Giuliani became Mayor. However, it's not just artists who need to be concerned about an appeal. This case is essentially not about the right of street artists to sell their works without obtaining a permit or license. If the City were to successfully appeal this ruling or change the 1982 NYC permit exemption law it is based on, all First Amendment freedom on New York City streets would be effectively ended. In order to meet the 14th Amendment's requirement of equal protection, the City's permit requirement would have to be applied equally to artists, book and newspaper vendors, newspaper vending boxes, handing out leaflets, making a speech or holding a press conference anywhere on public property. If you doubt that Mayor Giuliani could have such a draconian restriction in mind, examine his previous efforts to require a permit for press conferences at City Hall and for all gatherings of 20 or more people in a park. Most of the 2001 candidates for mayor, public advocate and city council have assured us that if elected they would advocate taking down the gates at City Hall and would otherwise act to loosen the Mayor's attempts to stifle freedom of speech. However, despite most of these candidates having been an integral part of the NYC government during eight years of daily artist arrests and despite the millions of dollars the City has wasted on legal costs and police overtime to carry them out, none have issued any public statement on this issue. It's not that they are unaware of it or have no opinion. The powerful real estate interests and elite groups including the Central Park Conservancy (now directed by the Mayor's first wife and cousin, Reginna Perrugia) who are behind the permit agenda, don't want them to take a position. The NY Times certainly understands the implications of what it would mean if Giuliani were to win this appeal or get the 1982 law changed. A few months ago the Mayor had the sidewalk newspaper vendors who sold the Times, Post Daily News and Newsday immediately around NY City Hall removed after I repeatedly publicized that they were free to sell without a permit or license under NYC law while artists were not. Since the first street artist Federal ruling in 1996 artists are subject to the exact same rights as newspaper publishers and book vendors. The ruling applied to creating, displaying or selling paintings, prints, photographs and sculptures. Thousands of newspaper vending boxes around the City - whether dispensing their material for free or offering them for sale - would also be required to submit to any permit applied to artists. If as threatened the City were to change the 1982 law exempting literature vendors from any license or permit, handing out a leaflet about Jesus, registering people to vote or simply holding up a cardboard sign would require a permit. The purpose of the First Amendment's guarantee of unabridged freedom of speech is to keep the government from being in a position to decide who can speak and who can not speak. A system of permits for free speech guarantees that the government will have all the power it needs to do exactly that. While many think a permit is about getting or giving permission, the exact opposite is true. The only purpose of a permit is to be able to deny permission, as Mayor Giuliani has demonstrated on countless occasions. Freedom of speech can only exist if we are free to speak without getting permission from anyone, least of all from the very government officials we are likely to find ourselves criticizing. Can one imagine Giuliani granting me a permit to sell my portraits of him outside City Hall? Can reporters doubt that the Mayor who banned them from press conferences might not ban their newspaper from obtaining a permit to set up vending boxes on the street or that having denied elected officials the right to hold a press conference on the steps of City Hall he would hesitate to deny freedom of speech to those with no media access or political power? Giuliani will be leaving office shortly, but his so-called legacy will continue to be debated and disputed for many years to come. In order for that debate to even be possible the full First Amendment right's guaranteed by the U.S. and NY State Constitution's and reinforced by the 1982 free speech exemption from all permits and licenses must be upheld. Lederman v Giuliani did exactly that and that is why The Mayor and Commissioner Stern are so anxious to have it overturned. Please use your freedom of speech to help us keep them from doing that. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/20/opinion/20MON2.html NY Times Editorial August 20, 2001 New York's Art Wars Continue "By now it should be transparently clear to the Giuliani administration that it is not going to win the battle to require street artists to obtain permits before selling their wares on the streets or in certain park spaces. It has lost this fight at nearly every court level and usually for the same reasons - that licenses are inconsistent with city law and with the broader purposes of the First Amendment. Mr. Giuliani, stubborn as usual, plans to appeal. He would be much better advised to let the artists go about their business while exercising the city's uncontested, legitimate right to decide where and when the vendors operate so that they do not pose crowding or public safety problems. In the latest ruling, a federal judge, Lawrence McKenna, found that requiring artists to get permits violates a city code prohibiting mandatory licensing of people who sell art or books. His ruling is consistent with several others handed down since 1996, when the United States Court of Appeals criticized the city for a permit process aimed mainly at street artists occupying the plaza abutting Central Park near the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Artists who ignored the permits were arrested and their work was confiscated. The artists brought suit, and suffered their one and only legal setback when a state court upheld the arrests. When the appeals court overruled that decision, it said "visual art is as wide-ranging in its depiction of ideas, concepts and emotions as any book, treatise, pamphlet or other writing, and is similarly entitled to First Amendment protection." The United States Supreme Court refused to hear the city's appeal. Earlier this month, a state appeals court affirmed a lower-court decision dismissing criminal charges against two artists who were given summonses for selling artwork without a permit. Judge McKenna's opinion avoided First amendment issues but pointed out at that the city code specifically prohibits mandatory licensing of people who sell art or books. The judge cited a 1982 law in which the City Council said: "It is consistent with the principles of free speech and freedom of the press to eliminate as many restrictions on the vending of written matter as is consistent with the public health, safety and welfare." The Giuliani administration complains that Judge McKenna misunderstood city law - specifically, that he confused permits, which are simple to get, with full-blown licenses, which require an onerous application process. Yet if Judge McKenna was confused on this issue, so were previous courts that addressed it. The courts have noted all along that the city can legally say when and where vendors can work as long as restrictions are reasonable and as long as the city balances safety and crowd control concerns with the right of vendors to find an audience. But once the city decides that an area is open to vending, it cannot arbitrarily pick and choose whom it allows in." NY Times August 11, 2001 Judge Bars Permit Requirement for Art Vendors By KATHERINE E. FINKELSTEIN Photo/Nancy Siesel/The New York Times Robert Lederman, at the microphone, is among the artists who sued to challenge the city's rule requiring permits to sell works outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art. "A federal judge has ruled that the Giuliani administration's requirement that art vendors in parks have permits is a violation of the city code, which unconditionally prohibits mandatory licensing for those who sell art and books. The decision, issued Aug. 7 by Judge Lawrence M. McKenna of United States District Court in Manhattan, did not delve into whether the city's actions violated the artists' constitutional right to free speech. But in multiple lawsuits and legal motions that the artists have won in state and federal courts, they have argued that their rights to free speech were being restricted. The decision, which the city vowed yesterday to appeal, affects street artists who display their work in parks or on adjacent sidewalks, including those at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which are part of Central Park. Their legal battle began in 1998 after the police began issuing summonses to those without permits. The conflict escalated into street protests and arrests, and the police confiscated some artwork. Yesterday, a group of the artists gathered outside the Metropolitan Museum to celebrate the decision. Holding an unflattering painting of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, Robert Lederman, one of the artists, said that the legal victory protected the rights of everyone from leafleteers to media magnates whose papers are sold in vending boxes, which require no permits. "Our efforts continue to make this city a place where artists can enjoy the freedom to create, display and sell their works," he said, "and this most essential of human freedoms can continue to be enjoyed by all New Yorkers." The federal decision came on the heels of a state decision last week that also favored the artists. A state appeals court affirmed the decision of a judge in State Supreme Court in Manhattan who dismissed criminal charges against two artists who were given summonses for selling artwork without a permit. The Manhattan district attorney's office has decided to appeal that decision also, according to city officials. The officials acknowledged that after the state decision last week they told the police and the Parks Department, which has jurisdiction over the space, to stop issuing summonses to the artists. Yesterday, city officials characterized the defeats in state and federal courts as the result of confusion over the interpretation of the city code. The parks commissioner, Henry J. Stern, called the case "a highly technical decision dealing with effect of administrative code on park-related matters." But he said that the Parks Department hoped to impose "reasonable regulations" either through legal remedy or some amendment to the city code. Currently, he said, "the unregulated commercial sale of art in public parks is inappropriate and intrusive." A lawyer for the city, Robin Binder, said last night, "The city thinks the decision is wrong and intends to appeal." The city can appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and beyond that to the United States Supreme Court. Both sides seemed poised for further legal fighting yesterday. At the Metropolitan Museum, one of the artists, Wei Zhang, said that he had come from China, a country without human rights or free speech. After getting here, he said, the Giuliani administration had him arrested and confiscated his paintings. "I come to the wrong place again,' " he said. The discord began in March 1998, when the city began to try to regulate the cluster of street artists outside the Metropolitan Museum and began issuing 24 permits a month - at $25 each - to those selling their work there. The fine for those selling works without permits was $1,000. When the artists organized protests, singing and likening Mr. Giuliani to a dictator, the police started arresting them, leading a number of them away in handcuffs. Officials from the Metropolitan Museum said at the time that they did not have any complaints with the artists. The artists organized a group, Artist, an acronym for Artists' Response to Illegal State Tactics, and demanded that the state abide by a 1996 federal court decision that was the first to reject the city's efforts to license artists. Their protests and the arrests continued, and the lawsuits began as they fought what they called restrictions on their freedom. In August 1998, Judge Lucy Billings of State Supreme Court in Manhattan dismissed the charges against several of the artists, ruling that city law prevented the licensing of book and art vendors. She quoted a 1982 City Council law that said, "It is consistent with the principles of free speech and freedom of the press to eliminate as many restrictions on the vending of written matter as is consistent with the public health, safety and welfare." While the city appeals, one of the lawyers for the artists, Robert Perry, said his clients might go to trial to get damages for the restriction on their livelihood. Meanwhile, the artists seemed to be doing a brisk business selling postcards that depicted Mr. Giuliani in various monstrous guises." NY Times August 17, 2001 PUBLIC LIVES End Draws Near for Mayor's Artful Adversary By ROBIN FINN Photo: Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times Robert Lederman "Evidently a first-rate muse is, like beauty, in the eye of the beholder. Picasso had his mistresses. Warhol had a soup can. Robert Lederman, a canny street artist who has waged three federal lawsuits for his First Amendment rights to display his art and opinions in the public eye, has Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. But only for four more months. Come December, Mr. Lederman, whose best- known works (caustic caricatures of a vampire- like mayor in dictatorial guise) hang outdoors on the sidewalks adjacent to the Metropolitan Museum of Art rather than inside, will lose his muse of eight years to term limits. What a mundane way to go. Mr. Lederman, with a group of 400 artists he has led since March 1998, successfully sued the city in State Supreme Court that August - after Mr. Giuliani tried to shrink their Met marketplace by issuing only 24 permits, imposing a monthly fee and arresting scofflaws. The latest chapter in street artists vs. Giuliani, a battle that Mr. Lederman claims has cost city taxpayers millions in legal fees, was decided Aug. 7 in United States District Court in Manhattan; again, the artists prevailed, and again, the city vowed to appeal. "I'm using art as a weapon against a tyrant, and when this is all over, I'm probably going to have a hard time going back to making the nice picture to go over somebody's couch," says Mr. Lederman, 50, very much the bohemian in his paint-splashed sandals, T-shirt and shiny synthetic track pants that will never come close to running track. He has no time for hobbies; when he is not dashing off Giuliani caricatures in the oppressive clutter of his Brighton Beach studio or on the hood of his car, he is in court. So he is not sure whether it pains or pleases him to soon lose a mayor whose visage has inspired a thousand paintings and earned him thousands in sales. Rudy postcards go for $1 apiece, Rudy posters for $10, and Rudy originals, except for the hundred or so Mr. Lederman says were confiscated by the Police Department acting on orders from his nemesis, command up to $1,000. Who buys them? Everybody. Tourists, lawyers, left-wing types, off-duty police officers, even fans of Mr. Giuliani (the artist's favorite customers because they're potential converts). Speaking of the police, he is certain he won't miss those scary sleepovers in the Tombs after being arrested. But Mr. Lederman admits that he goes out of his way to attract the mayor's ire, often displaying his wares next to Mr. Giuliani's entrance at City Hall. The artist seems to share his muse's knack for self-aggrandizement. With a mix of spite and admiration, he calls Mr. Giuliani a public relations genius, but he is not so bad at playing the game himself. So what if his masterly works aren't in the Met. His art has appeared in People magazine three times; talk about exposure. He says Mr. Giuliani has taken the bait and dispatched the police to arrest him 41 times, which does not include the hundred or so summonses that he has been issued since the mayor, as part of his quality-of-life campaign, tried to lump street artists with hot-dog vendors and squeegee wielders, and censor their squatter's rights to a niche in the urban landscape. "It's been a war since 1994," says Mr. Lederman, slender and strident with a graying beard and a glib speaking manner. "He made it a war. I never sued anybody before Giuliani. I had no real interest in politicians. The ironic thing is that now, thanks to Giuliani, my art has been seen by half the world. I've got a cable show, a Web site, radio and TV spots, articles everywhere, and I've become a recognized expert on First Amendment rights. I've written my own court appeals. How did I learn to do all this? I went to Giuliani U." In a crumbling Brighton Beach apartment crammed with Giuliani canvases and monster figurines, Mr. Lederman lives with his companion of eight years and their young son, both of whom he refuses to identify because of his having cultivated "a lot of enemies" during contretemps with Mr. Giuliani. He recollects being spit on, and being threatened by a man with a screwdriver who took exception to his art on a SoHo sidewalk in 1999. Altercations like this didn't happen back when he was homeless in the East Village in the 1980's selling street scenes and a self-published pamphlet of poems and woodcuts, "Urban Archtypes." He says he was evicted from his previous home in Park Slope after taping a poster of Mr. Giuliani to a front window to protest malathion spraying during the 1999 mosquito scare - he contends that the spray gave him asthma, even blames it for the mayor's prostate cancer, and he is a litigant against the city in the No Spray Coalition. He marvels that his graduating class at Tilden High School in Brooklyn produced two such lively activists as himself and the Rev. Al Sharpton. The Brooklyn-born Mr. Lederman was 12 when he sold his first art, portraits of movie stars, outside Dubrow's deli on Kings Highway; he used the proceeds to buy monster movies on 8-millimeter film (he wanted to be a director). His father, Paul, was a commercial artist whose unsigned work appeared everywhere from cigarette ads to Elvis posters; when Mr. Lederman left home at 17 to be a street artist, his father disapproved. Mr. Lederman has long had dicey relations with authority figures. But he is saving all his Giuliani art, and not out of sentiment: "I figure he'll be back in 2005, just like Schwarzenegger." Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T. 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