Chris Seward - cseward@newsobserver.com
Adam Sotak, right, of Democracy North Carolina, tells his group of protesters on Thursday they have to leave the second floor of the Legislative Building. About three dozen protestors had gathered.
At the statehouse, North Carolina's people are prohibited from visiting the second floor - the floor where lobbyists lobby and lawmakers make laws.
The rule is posted on a concrete wall in the lobby, written in roughly 12-point font, behind glass and a black frame, tucked in a corner behind a leafy potted tree.
The language is nearly 25 years old, and few lawmakers knew it even existed until Thursday, when House Speaker Thom Tillis' office invoked it - for first time in anyone's memory - to clear a group of demonstrators from the hall outside his office.
It reads: "Individuals and groups of visitors who come to the state Legislative Building for the purpose of viewing the building and observing the sessions ... shall not visit the second floor of the building." The third paragraph in the second section further states that legislative staff can ask visitors on the second floor - where the House and Senate chambers and top lawmakers offices are located - to leave if requested.
Jeff Weaver, the General Assembly police chief, called the rule outdated and unenforced: "Visitors are always on the second floor." But he said the police intervened after Tillis' office expressed concern about the large group.
The demonstrators decried the action, citing fairness and free assembly concerns. A Democratic lawmaker called for its repeal. The local ACLU chapter called it unconstitutional. But more than anything, the incident left most of the legislative building puzzled.
Protesters ejected
The unscripted civics lesson began after the 50-member crowd ended its protest outside the legislative building on Jones Street against the special session Tillis engineered in January to override a veto at 1 a.m.
The protesters entered the building, forfeiting signs larger than 25 square inches, per the rules, and climbed the stairs to the second floor where they quietly lined the hallway from the speaker's office to the House chamber. They said they wanted to make their presence known after few people witnessed last month's impromptu late-night session.
Police greeted them on the second floor and cited the rule adopted Nov. 18, 1987, by the Legislative Services Commission, a now-defunct body. (The rule's purpose is "to make visitors feel welcome and at the same time make it possible for the General Assembly to function effectively.")
Adam Sotak, the demonstration's organizer, appeared baffled. "I've been coming here since 2000. I have never been told I can't walk around the second floor," he told the police officer.
A group of suited men with Time Warner Cable badges clustered in front of Tillis' door moments before the crowd arrived.
After a tense conversation between demonstrators and police, the crowd walked to the third floor and sat in the viewing gallery above the legislative chambers. Neither the House nor Senate took any votes, as Republicans promised, and adjourned.
But the complaints continued. "What was he afraid of?" asked Gerrick Brenner, the leader of Progress NC, a liberal advocacy group that took part in the protest. "When your politics are divisive you start to get paranoid."
"That's crazy," said state Rep. Larry Hall, a top Democrat from Durham. "So, if we don't like the looks of you, we can tell you to leave? We really need to change that."
"I think Speaker Tillis violated all those people's First Amendment rights," said Katy Parker, legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina.
Asked if he agreed with the rule, Tillis said he defers to police on security matters. "If you look at this building ... (it's) considered one of the most exposed legislatures in the United States," he said. "We have to take steps to protect them. That's ultimately my job."
