When public bodies forget they are servants and begin to treat the people as petitioners before a throne, liberty is already in danger. The rights of free speech, peaceable assembly, petition for redress, equal access to meetings, and equal access to advance notice are not favors. They are public rights secured by constitutions, statutes, and the plain obligations of republican government.
A free people must never be taught to regard unlawful power as lawful merely because it was exercised by vote, title or office. Thomas Jefferson warned that when government assumes powers not delegated, its acts are unauthoritative and void, and that nullification is the rightful remedy in principle.
In modern Ohio, the peaceful method of honoring that principle is to ask the courts to declare ultra vires acts void, to compel officials to perform clear legal duties, and to restore the people to rights of which they were unlawfully deprived.
The controversy in Stark County case 2025CV02571 presents exactly such a question. Canton City Council is alleged to have abolished “public speaks” and rewritten its rules on notice and participation by informal resolution, email, and internal memo rather than lawful procedure.
If so, the injury does not belong to one man. It falls upon every resident whose right to petition has been chilled, every speaker whose criticism has been disfavored, and every citizen whose government has forgotten that public chambers are held in trust for the people.
The answer of a free people must be clear: Public power stops where law stops. What is done without lawful authority is no law at all. Public meetings and notice belong to the public, and public criticism is not a threat to government, but proof that it remains answerable to the governed.
Daniel Dale Gates, Canton
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Canton City Council shouldn’t restrict ‘public speaks’ | Letter
Reporting by The Repository / The Repository
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