July 15th, 2006 7:22 PM
By Tommy Witherspoon / Tribune-Herald staff writer
The battleground changed Friday, but peace activist Cindy Sheehan is still pursuing her lawsuit against McLennan County ordinances that ban parking and camping along roads leading to President Bush’s ranch.
Mike Dixon, a Waco attorney who represents McLennan County, filed motions Friday that removed Sheehan’s lawsuit from Waco’s 19th State District Court and transferred it to Waco’s federal court.
“It is not that I don’t have faith in state court, because I really do,” Dixon said. “It is just that they don’t deal with First Amendment questions that often. And when you have those types of issues, we feel it is better suited to federal court, because they deal with it all the time.”
Sheehan and four other anti-war activists filed the suit June 30, seeking to block McLennan County officials from enforcing ordinances that block parking, camping or erecting portable toilets or tents in ditches along at least 13 roads around Bush’s Prairie Chapel Road ranch near Crawford in western McLennan County.
Sheriff Larry Lynch, County Judge Jim Lewis and county commissioners Wendall Crunk, Lester Gibson, Joe Mashek and Ray Meadows were named as defendants in the Sheehan lawsuit. Dixon on Friday also filed a motion asking U.S. District Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. to dismiss the lawsuit.
The protesters claim the county’s ordinances, passed in September, prevent them from exercising their First Amendment rights to free speech and assembly by limiting their proximity to Bush.
Fort Worth attorney David Broiles, who represents Sheehan’s group, said the group is just eager to try their case, no matter what court it is in.
“I have not seen the documents filed today, but I guess that is their choice,” Broiles said. “We have been trying to get a trial in state court and have not succeeded. If we can get that done in federal court, that is where it will be.”
Sheehan’s peace activists have mounted occasional war protests near the Bush ranch since last August, when many of them camped in a ditch during the president’s monthlong vacation. Some area residents lambasted the roadside protest because of traffic congestion, dust and unsanitary conditions.
Dixon said the county ordinances do not prevent anyone from protesting.
“What it really boils down to is the orders don’t prevent people from being there,” he said. “They only prohibit erecting shelters or tents or parking on those little narrow roads out there. There is nothing that says you can’t protest or express yourself. You can wear a big floppy hat or carry an umbrella. You just can’t camp out.”
Broiles said he will ask the judge to set a hearing on his request for a preliminary injunction to keep the county from enforcing the ordinances. He said he hopes to get into court before Sheehan and other protesters return to the Crawford area Aug. 16.
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