Political signs in town house and single family sections in Fairfax HOa

We chose not to get into that can of worms and simply adopted the following rule:

"Signs, Political: Signs supporting or opposing any candidate, party or issue are prohibited on the common area."

Michael,
No limit on the number of political signs?

Dave - We were contemplating either one or two.

By restricting them altogether, we are definately pushing the free speech issue. Thanks Tim!

Several years ago I worked on a couple of local political campaigns. I do not know whether political yard signs have any real influence on an election but candidates for office believe they do.

With political candidates believing that their yard signs are important, it comes as a surprise that elected officials have not done more to protect their turf (pun intended). There seems to be a scarcity of statutes protecting political signs from over-zealous HOA's.

Personally, I like the yard signs because they display an interest in not only a candidate or an issue but in the election itself. It helps break down voter apathy. The signs add color, something sorely lacking in most HOA communities. My recommendation is not only to allow political signs for public elections but also to allow them for HOA elections. It might help cure some of the member apathy every board member complains about.

If I am not mistaken, prohibiting or limiting political signs is a violation of first-amendment rights. They are definitely considered political speech and protected under the first amendment, so this makes sense to me. Of course, this would mean that a homeowner would have to know this and sue you, which is a lot of "ifs." While I find excessive political signs to be obnoxious, I don't know that I would want to chance it on the wrong side of the law, especially where civil liberties are concerned.

Oops, I hit the enter button too soon.

Additionally, and we have had discussions on this, the First amendment prohibits Congress from abridging the freedom of speech. It technically would not apply to private organizations (however, there may be other laws that apply which do the same thing).

John,

Actually the issue was more than that. We previously discussed the Farran case in this thread.

Here is a link to the opinion letter of that case: Case No. CL-2009-11786 .

In the Farran case, the issue was the size of the sign, not the right to display the sign. The Farrans, in my opinion, escalated the issue by choosing to cut the initial sign in half vs. simply getting a smaller sign when they received the violation letter. Yep, the Farrans were technically correct that the two halfs now met the size requirement. However, they simply could have gotten a smaller sign and not escalate the issue. Additionally, the Board could have responded to the Farrans action better than they did. However, the sign wasn't the only issue and it seems that nobody wanted to resolve the issue outside of the courts.

Personally, I believe that this was more of an issue of personality conflicts between someone/s on the Board and the Farrans. I mean, yes there was a violation (the sign was too large). However, why would anyone have taken a tape measure and measured the sign unless there was some sort of preexisting issues between the parties involved?

The Farrans did a podcast on the topic. Personally, I found the comments more interesting than the show.

In the past few years there have been a couple attempts in the Virginia Assembly to prevent HOAs from regulating political signs. The most recent was a proposed law by a delegate from the Loudoun County area. Like the others, it eventually came to naught.

I think the key is to treat all signs equally and let common sense prevail. OK, so a sign is a couple inches too big. Think about all the ramifications before you decide to push the issue. You can be absolutely right and still lose the war. Besides, it will be gone by mid-November anyhow.

Also consider seeking competent legal council. By 'component' I mean an attorney who specializes in HOA law. You may have to search a bit but they're out there. You probably don't want "Joe's Real Estate Law & Title Svc, ESQ" to handle this one (even if Joe is 'Emma's sister's boy').