Virginia in 2024 Banned Petitioning on Department of Motor Vehicle Office Sidewalks and Parking Lots

Posted on by July 26, 2026

This is old news, but has only now come to the attention of Ballot Access News. In October 2024 a U.S. District Court allowed the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles to rescind its old policy of allowing petitioning in the department’s interior sidewalks that connect parking lots with the offices. Here is the order in National Democrataic Policy Committee v Lackey, e.d., 3:88cv-570. It is by U. S. District Court Judge David J. Novak, a Bush Jr. appointee.

In 1988 the Lyndon LaRouche campaign organization had sued Virginia over access to these interior sidewalks, and the state had not contested the lawsuit and had signed a consent decree allowing the petitioning. But in 2024, the Department asked a U.S. District Court judge to rescind the consent decree. The judge agreed, after finding that the original plaintiff no longer exists, and that the U.S. Supreme Court in 1990 had ruled in U.S. v Kokinda that postal sidewalks are not a public forum. However, there was no majority opinion in U.S. v Kokinda, and that decision did not deal with petitioning. In that case the government said that petitioning was not prohibited; it only prohibited transactions involving an exchange of money.

The new court order also says that either the U.S. Supreme Court, or the Fourth Circuit, or courts within the Fourth Circuit, had ruled that there is no public forum involving airport terminals, public library internet access, the interior of polling places, or candidate debates. But these are all very different from publicly-owned sidewalks with no limits on who can walk on those sidewalks.

It is true that the D.C. Circuit ruled in 2012 that postal sidewalks that link post office parking lots and the offices themselves are not public forums, but rulings of the D.C. Circuit are not binding on the Fourth Circuit.

Comments

Virginia in 2024 Banned Petitioning on Department of Motor Vehicle Office Sidewalks and Parking Lots — 11 Comments

  1. This is from the Virginia Constitution.

    ≈==≈==================================

    Article I. Bill of Rights

    Section 12. Freedom of speech and of the press; right peaceably to assemble, and to petition
    That the freedoms of speech and of the press are among the great bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained except by despotic governments; that any citizen may freely speak, write, and publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right; that the General Assembly shall not pass any law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, nor the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for the redress of grievances.

    ======================================

    So according to their own constitution they are acting in a despotic manner.

  5. Abolish all petition requirements for candidate ballot access. The problem goes away. The only reason petitions and fees are demanded to receive votes is so that such fees and petitioning can be obstructions to protect incumbents of the D & R parties.

  10. But if you go there and say you are doing a 1st Amendment audit you can do anything you want. The irony.

  11. It appears to me that they are violating US Code, Title 18, Section 595.

    “18 U.S. Code § 595 – Interference by administrative employees of Federal, State, or Territorial Governments
    U.S. Code
    Notes
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    Whoever, being a person employed in any administrative position by the United States, or by any department or agency thereof, or by the District of Columbia or any agency or instrumentality thereof, or by any State, Territory, or Possession of the United States, or any political subdivision, municipality, or agency thereof, or agency of such political subdivision or municipality (including any corporation owned or controlled by any State, Territory, or Possession of the United States or by any such political subdivision, municipality, or agency), in connection with any activity which is financed in whole or in part by loans or grants made by the United States, or any department or agency thereof, uses his official authority for the purpose of interfering with, or affecting, the nomination or the election of any candidate for the office of President, Vice President, Presidential elector, Member of the Senate, Member of the House of Representatives, Delegate from the District of Columbia, or Resident Commissioner, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.”

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