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Lawmaker told to take down tribute to fallen

A North Carolina congressman is bracing for a free-speech fight after images of fallen Marines were deemed a violation of the House’s new anti-clutter policy and removed from the hallway outside his office.

Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., whose district includes Camp Lejeune and Marine Corps air stations New River and Cherry Point, said he is “willing to go as far as I have to go to make sure the First Amendment right to display the faces of these Marines is protected.”

“It’s too easy for people not to think about the fact that men and women are dying for this country,” he said in an Aug. 26 interview with Military Times.

Building maintenance staff members twice have taken down Jones’ posters, each bearing 42 photos of North Carolina-based Marines who died supporting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

At first, it seemed to Jones that clear evacuation routes and public safety were the issue.

But now, he’s not so sure.

In April, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and leaders of both parties approved a nine-page edict that highlights several items now barred from the hallways adjoining congressional offices.

Pelosi’s “hallway policy” — signed by the House majority and minority leaders, Reps. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., and John Boehner, R-Ohio — cites numerous codes designed to ensure compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and Occupational Safety and Health Act.

It was implemented “on the strong recommendations of public safety and law enforcement officials,” said Nadeam Elshami, a spokesman for Pelosi, and is “entirely unrelated to content.”

The primary concern was eliminating any would-be obstructions to disabled visitors or to House members and staff in the event of a building evacuation, Elshami said.

The policy targets junked office equipment and garbage, in addition to “furnishings” such as rugs, artwork and flowers. Jones’ display, titled “Fallen Heroes from Camp Lejeune” and mounted on several easels lining the walls, was removed in July.

Jones petitioned Pelosi for an exception, but she said no.

“The heroes of Camp Lejeune and all of their colleagues who have fallen in Iraq and Afghanistan deserve our everlasting tribute,” Pelosi wrote Jones in July, adding later that the hallway policy is designed to “provide consistent application of signage and posting rules.”

Ditching the easels, Jones had his display made into adhesive posters and stuck them to the walls outside his office. Those were removed in early August.

“They told us the reason for this was because of ADA and some other laws, that they want people to have free access to movement in the hallway,” Jones said. “Well they got it with these screen posters. They don’t protrude.”

Jones was working out of his district office in Greenville, N.C., during the last week of August but vowed to restore the displays — along with a note declaring his perceived constitutional right to do so — upon his return to Washington.

“This is my humble way to say thank you to that Marine that never came home and to say thank you to that Marine’s family. ... We’re right on this.”

He has since consulted with Bruce Fein, a constitutional lawyer in Washington who was a legal adviser to Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, during Paul’s presidential bid. Fein wrote an op-ed piece that was published in the Aug. 22 San Francisco Chronicle, Pelosi’s hometown newspaper, in which he blasted her hallway policy as “censorship for the sake of censorship.”

“It is a flagrant violation of the First Amendment,” Fein said in an interview. “Why is it wrong for a member of Congress, outside of his office, in a discreet and respectful way, to communicate there are people who have died in his district for the [welfare of] the country?”

Before Congress adjourned for its August recess, Jones introduced a resolution asking Pelosi to set rules allowing the display of such tributes within hallways adjoining congressional offices. Again he wrote to the speaker, this time with fellow Republican congressman, Ted Poe of Texas, and two Democrats: Reps. Steve Cohen of Tennessee and Jim McDermott of Washington.

They noted that about 20 House members display some type of memorials outside their offices, and all had to remove them.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re for or against the war,” McDermott spokesman Mike DeCesare said. “It’s an honor to honor those who have fallen. ... Jim wanted people to know where he stands.”

Pelosi’s spokesman declined to comment on Jones’ resolution.

In her July response to Jones’ letters, Pelosi noted the inscription of fallen troops’ names in the lobby of the Rayburn House Office Building, where Jones moved after Democrats won control of the House in 2006, calling it “one measure of tribute.” She also thanked him for spearheading a House-wide monthly moment of silence.

“You know what? A name is not a face,” Jones said. “The least this Congress can do is to allow a face to be seen.”