Gov. Andrew Cuomo seems determined to set a new record for awful policy mishaps in one year.
First, he mandated that nursing homes expose their vulnerable populations by accepting patients with COVID-19, leading to thousands of additional deaths. Then, after writing a book and gloating about his amazing pandemic response despite his state having horrible numbers, Cuomo imposed more arbitrary and glaringly contradictory COVID-19 restrictions on New Yorkers. Most recently, he closed down New York City’s struggling restaurant industry, again, despite only 1.4% of the state’s cases being tracked back to restaurants and bars, according to his own data.
Now, Cuomo has decided to trample all over the First Amendment. On Tuesday, he signed a bill banning the Confederate Flag from being sold on public grounds and strictly limiting its display.
“The new law — effective immediately — prohibits the sale of hate symbols on public grounds including state and local fairs, and also severely limits their display unless deemed relevant to serving an educational or historical purpose,” the New York Post reports.
“This country faces a pervasive, growing attitude of intolerance and hate — what I have referred to in the body politic as an American cancer,” Cuomo said. “By limiting the display and sale of the confederate flag, Nazi swastika, and other symbols of hatred from being displayed or sold on state property, including the state fairgrounds, this will help safeguard New Yorkers from the fear-instilling effects of these abhorrent symbols.”
This is a blatant violation of free speech in the name of woke racial progress. It is the most basic principle of free speech that other people’s desire to avoid offense can never justify depriving someone of the right to speak or symbolically express their ideas — yes, even when those ideas are hateful or bigoted.
To be clear, Cuomo’s policy is not an all-out ban on selling or displaying Confederate flags statewide. It only applies on public properties such as state fairs or public parks. Yet, this does not mean the restriction passes constitutional muster.
“The bill Gov. Cuomo signed into law is an exercise in bad legislative drafting and wanton disregard for the First Amendment,” First Amendment lawyer Ari Cohn told me. “Putting aside the fact that ‘symbols of hate’ aren’t defined in a remotely ascertainable way, the government may not ban certain expression from state fairs because it considers it hateful.”
Even the governor himself admitted changes are needed to make the law comply with the Constitution. Yet, he signed it anyway!
The Confederate flag is, in my view, not worth celebrating or displaying. For millions of black people, it represents slavery, bigotry, and hatred.
But whether you love the Confederate flag or hate it, you should oppose Cuomo’s heavy-handed overreach. The right to make our own judgments is fundamental to who we are. A government that can ban the symbols you hate can also ban the symbols and speech you love the next time an election doesn’t go your way.
Cuomo claims he’s banning the symbol in the name of racial justice. But limiting free speech actually disempowers the marginalized because it enshrines the status quo. The abolition of slavery and desegregation were both once radical, fringe ideas that a majority, if unbound by the First Amendment, would have squashed out with censorious laws. It’s no wonder that famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass called free speech the “great moral renovator of society and government.”
Cuomo must have skipped his history lessons. Or, he simply saw an opportunity for political gain.
Signing such a horrible bill that blatantly violates the rights of his constituents is just the latest in a litany of incompetent and arrogant displays from Cuomo. At some point, the liberal media will have to stop drowning the Democratic governor in fawning coverage — he literally got awarded an Emmy — and start holding him accountable for his many mistakes.
Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a Washington Examiner contributor.
