Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T05:01:35.928Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

7 - Why Assembly and Petition Still Matter

from Part II - The Democratic First Amendment in the Age of Twitter

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2020

Ashutosh Bhagwat
Affiliation:
University of California at Davis School of Law
Get access

Summary

Chapter 7 discusses the continuing relevance and importance of the assembly and petition rights in the modern, online era. Regarding assembly, it notes that large gatherings of citizens such as the 2017 Women’s March (modeled on the 1963 March on Washington lead by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.) continue to play a critical role in enabling ordinary citizens to participate in democratic governance. Even in the Internet era, physical assemblies have a unique ability to express the strength and popularity of political positions, as well as to galvanize the participants in such events. The Internet has for that reason not displaced physical assembly, though it has simplified the organizing of such assemblies and permitted individuals who cannot physically assemble to jointly develop and express shared views. The chapter also explores and criticizes legal barriers to the exercise of assembly rights. Finally, the chapter argues in favor of reviving the traditional right of petition, and in particular the use of physical, hand-delivered petitions as a means to restore contact between citizens and public officials. It closes by demonstrating how the 1965 Selma March illustrates the continuing value of assembly and petition in our democracy.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×