face by treating certain signs differently based solely on what they say for example political signs maybe thirty two square feet may be unlimited in number and may be placed in the right away of the entire town for five months before the election but the church assigns can only be one fifth of that side size only placed in the dark of night the night before the church service one of the churches signs with directional content are only allowed up for fourteen hours signs with directional content are allowed up for much longer for example there's directional signs to harm cells events are allowed up to the entire allowed up the entire weekend and homeowners association of it signs are allowed to be maybe well but it's not allowed on the right of way and so that's a major factor in this case because political signs are allowed on the right away and so the treatment that we're seeking is merely equal treatment under the first amendment the same treatment as political signs that are allowed up in the right away that's right and ideological signs interestingly enough are still based into their own content category but they're not allowed on the right away yet they are allowed up for an unlimited period of time where you are you seeking unlimited placement we are not we are seeking the same placement that any other temporary signs get which is the category that we're talking about and in fact the city of the town here has freedom to regulate the amount of time signs can go up the size of the signs the number of signs or argument is that they do it across the board and not treat signs differently based on their content your argument does not turn on the fact that it's the church's sign does it i mean you are you might be the same if this was a temporary sign about where the soccer game is going to be but that's right and the church assigned merely adds additional components to it for example the town puts or the churches sign into a category called a directional sides but yet the churches sign has religious speech on it has obviously directional speech it has ideological speech but that's correct it's equal treatment for that type sawing and the category i ask about the category for political signs which is the most favorable because all  time this court says that political speech is the most valued kind of speech it's at the heart of the first amendment to get special first amendment protection so in a way why aren't you isn't the locality here basically adopting the same kind of category based understanding of political speech and special rule and first amendment analysis that this court has very frequently articulated but i think this court has also said for example that religious speech always also handles that category of course speech under the first amendment and the problem is what the what the town does here it's valuing speech and i think that's one of the problems it is saying that political speech in this case is more valuable than an invitation to church and so i think this court has made clear that the part of i'm sorry that was the significance of my prior question what what they're really saying is that political speech is more  valuable and speech about where the soccer game is in other words i thought you indicated that your argument did not depend on the fact that the signing was a sign for the church well that's right it doesn't depend on the fact i was merely referring to the facts of this case i cannot judge don't you think th political speech is more valuable than directions to the soccer game maybe in some people's eyes but the problem we have is this is should the government be deciding what speech is more valuable than others because that's exactly what it did in this case it has said that in fact your speech is not valuable and we can completely ban it and i think one of our habits slipped let's take a sign that in all other ways is equal except that it says no signs on residential property except properties that are being sold and so it's valued the homeowners right to sell its property that the contrary of the first amendment and if not why is that value any different than family doing political speech i think it will be i think this court this court case in lynn mark dealt with a similar circumstance where in that city it banned all residential signs except for effect was the reverse that it banned for sale signs and allowed some residential signs there were exceptions but this court said exactly that that the town shouldn't value different types of speech especially on private property when you have home owners rights that also comes into play in addition to speed what if it's commercial and relates to a one time for example for a yard sale if this if the state in the city allow election related signs to be put up and the white of why anybody who has a yard sale has an equal right well i think i think commercial speech under this court's jurisprudence can be treated differently and that's one of the important things the category here is narrow because government speech government can put up whatever it signs that it would like it doesn't trigger any problem of the first amendment we hear a lot in the other groups about warning signs and other types of signs the government is free to put up all the signs it would like without triggering this problem commercial speech is also in a different category or to this court so the narrow category that we're talking about is temporary signs not permanent signs that are put up in the right of way that can be regulated you think directional signs it's a valid category the reason i don't think it is is because here the direction is part of the invitation to come in worship or part of the information to come to a different event so the directional part of it is is in addition to the ideological speech deal of attention to come in and worship and serve although it appears to be a different category of directional it's important to this each of the church inviting the community in saying come worship with us and here's where we're located and what's interesting about that if the church for example says we're moving down at senior living center that's considered to be a directional sign because the safety in this that acts which are the two interest the government proposes if those have already been deemed to be less important than speech then i think speech should be allowed but internationally question whose happy birthday uncle fred can have as many sign private private privately owned well i think if it's allowing private speech then willing gauging the problem of valuing for example in that case we think that marker is more important than someone else's speech so i want to again under your view  happy birthday uncle fred and save your soul and birthplace of james madison component be up for the same length of time same size i think it can because otherwise i think we have a problem with content based discrimination what about so i assume that what you say about temporary scholars would apply equally to prove that it would but in a different category in other words are category that we're discussing is temporary sign so or is wouldn't effect permanent size i believe you could make that's a content neutral category but if you had a permanent sign i think it was then the permanent side category the answer is going to the bathroom inside category they will have to have the same i believe so because except commercial but especially if most of the permanent signs are commercial always meets in the same place and it wants to put up a sign that says every sunday this is the place to go another church moves around so wants to put up a temporary sign do they have to be treated the same i think they would if we're talking about the category of what goes on public property what goes on the right away on their own property is a different question but here the town has already decided to allow an unlimited number of political signs up to thirty square thirty two square feet  for nearly the entire year there are four elections in arizona so with this time limit of five months you have political signs in an unlimited number and those signs affect the safety in the interest the same way as the churches sign does the same or as an invitation how do you create a temporary category without reading the sign and so there is some force to the counter argument that when he's being regulated here is not the contents but the is merely a sign that both intended and constructed not to be permanent and so it doesn't matter what's on that side and that's why we think that category is content neutral because if there is it's a temporary sign it doesn't matter what the sign says a permanent sign is just duration and there can be duration requirements that can be sized requirements location requirements that the government so your point is if it's if it's stuck in the ground you know with a little stake in it's can be treated one way but if it's in congress but that's right i've been seems to me that you're trying to find a i don't know a difficult way to deal with an issue that could be readily addressed just by seeing if the sign is for a limited event now it's one of somebody every time every you know the stake in the ground these could last for three weeks so every three weeks they come along and stick the stake back in the ground you're saying the only way they can distinguish is by looking at whether it has a stake in the ground or whether it's in concrete and yet that seems to me that doesn't help that he doesn't answer the city's legitimate concern but i think what's important here is that the cities towns are already agreed that an election isn't a fit and so we have an election that's an event but yet that single event sign can be up for five months and yet we have an event where that single event can only be up over night and so it's already made that determination and allows those types of signs for what i think is a comparable use a single event till a single event the other thing i would say is if you allow signs to be up for one single event for five months certainly there should be some way to say well if we haven't a recurring event as we do here certainly the sign should be allowed up at least equal to the same time and when i wanted to say that all lect initiate the same discussion of on issues of the that are certainly of the same importance of not more so it it's seems to me you're forcing us into making a very wooden distinction that could result in a signs for birthday parties for every conceivable little bit of that could be up for five months but i think the problem is they're ready is that here because we have an unlimited number of political sides and so if the streets are already littered and  unlimited number of political science which they are then how serious is the town's interest to reduce clutter and i think that's the problem the way to reduce clutter is to say for example many different ways you can only have one sign per block five signs total it could only be a certain size but it's hard to take this year interest seriously every deuce in clutter when it allows political science to clutter the entire town in an unlimited number for the entire year the church's signs are an event signs are not the problem what we have here is  for political science to clutter the landscape unlimited number for the entire year and yet the concern is for maybe a few more signs that maybe the place and the town say that science relating to one time and an election or anything else  occurs on a particular date have to be taken down within a period of time after that event and if it can say that is in fact content based the way you define that concept i don't believe it is a fact washington d c musical regulations have that exact code and it's one that we would recommend to the court i believe it's thirteen sixty five and what it says is temporary signs should be treated the same period you can put you have to put your date on the sign for when you put it up every temporary sign can be up for one hundred eighty days if it's tied to an event after the event is over it needs to be down thirty days after the event i think it is the reason that's content neutral is whenever something is over if your store is closed the event is done then the sign could be removed but the important part is every sign can be up for the same amount of time even if it is that event that's over now and i think that's the way you deal with these these only what you said the way you distinguish between temporary s signs is based on the nature of the sign not what it says so that gets you over the problem just the sort of my word mentioned about having to read the sign but if this if there's a rule that says the sign has to be down within a certain period of time after the date of the for you know for with the event as well i think so if somebody puts up a sign for a yard sale two days before the yard sale then they can that can stay up for forty eight days after the yard sale it has fifty days or whatever the period of time  yes according to the according to the code but what's interesting in that time period can be anything the town desires it doesn't need to be and we're not looking for signs all year long the town can say for example temporary signs can be up for seven days they can be a certain believe that the content neutral regulation would tie the hands of the town because as they say there are dozens and dozens of ways to regulate signs on a content neutral way for example and this has to do with permanent signs pages this is wall side project inside and on my point is look through their grief there are innumerable ways for the court excuse me for the town to regulate signs there is no reason to look at the content of the sign and the reason there is the content of the sign affects the government interest of safety in the statics in the same way if you have for example clutter whether it's the church's sign or political sign it's going to clutter the roadways the same way so the way to deal with clutter is an easy rule and in fact even the town can see that the content based test that this court has has used and that the majority of the circuits now use in the signed context the first circuit the second circuit the eighth circuit and the eleventh apply this test to sign codes and what they say it's actually easier for the town because you don't know if you would about your vast areas of the country where there is scenery people want to keep the scenery the same they don't want signs at all but they don't want to say no signs because someone wants to put up a sign that says drawn i'm always very defeat away from here now if they say ok we'll make an exception for that does that mean that they have to have an exception for everything and pretty soon the entire state of wyoming is just filled with clutter i want to say everything but what i would say is this is content neutral categories but they can say for example each person could you know it's not a content neutral category what it is is it is a category that says if you want to say you're on a mobile is buried here you can't because that will bring people to look at the grave and that's it we don't want anything else we're trying to keep the place looking nice and that's not a city cities are filled with clutter anyway least most parts but that's so so what is the i'm trying to drive it what is your definition of content neutral which is something that i wonder since i think the entire us code is filled with content distinctions all of crime is filled with content distinctions all of regulation has content distinctions so what is it precisely in respect to the content neutral rule that is consistent with the u s code and is consistent with the example if any that i gave the definition we would propose is the same one this court has used since the mosley case about what its content based and that is if there is the restriction or the regulation looks at the subject matter looks at home tried tried criminal code and solicitation were if you solicit for certain things you commit serious crimes and if you commit certain solicitor certain other things they're serious and so forth we all know that how does your definition apply their well i don't how does it apply i'm confused i understand the words right but i just have never been able to understand how they apply in many cases only limited here to two free speech questions not criminal laws i'm sorry this is three speech question under criminal law is if it's a combat related offense we don't get into free speech if there is a free speech offense even under the code i believe this court's cases say for example there are vegas cases where there are criminal laws this in fact is a criminal law if you continue to put up your signs you could actually get fined in jail time so i believe the first man would also apply speech related in answer to your hypothetical i think there are many ways for the locality to regulate those signs for example if it doesn't want many signs it can say one person can put up temporary sign or permanent sign or whatever have you but to say for example you could put up a private sign because you think this one location is interesting what if another person has a location they want people to come visit should govern people say well we think your location is important but your location is not in our responses the government could put up the sign if it if it wants to make that choice about historical landmarks or other types of signs or directional types of signs i'd like to reserve the remainder of time for rebuttal if i may  shipping again thank you mr chief justice and may please the court we agree with petitioners that respondents ordinance here is unconstitutional we think that a context pacific intermediate scrutiny approach should apply in evaluating speech permissive exceptions to assign ordinance or those exceptions are based on the same longstanding traditional rationale the justify the sign ordinance as a whole a written application of strict scrutiny in this context would suggest that it's presumptively unconstitutional for example for a town to limit signs on public property but have an exception if you want to paint your street number on your curb now that doesn't make a great deal of practical sense and that's not an example i just made up that's essentially the ordinance this court upheld obey without specifically addressing this particular issue in taxpayers for vincent on a theoretical level the normal reasons for deep judicial skepticism of exceptions to regulation of speech don't apply in the context of that street address exception exceptions for danger safety signs or other types of exceptions the track the normal safety and nonproliferation rationales for assign regulation those kinds of exceptions don't create any inference that the government is attempting to favor one viewpoint or another but it's trying to limit the set of ideas that are going to come into the public marketplace or that it doesn't truly believe in the safety and nonproliferation rationales that underlie the sign regulation as a whole well i mean you you obviously know the difficulty with that which is how does the government decide when there should be an exception how does a court decide when the should be an exception when there shouldn't be i mean i understood the whole point of the strict scrutiny for content based restrictions is to find out which are the types of speech or the particular types of regulation that should be given an exception rather than starting with saying well you don't apply the scrutiny because there ought to be an exception well i think the main problem with strict scrutiny in this context is it sends a signal to legislatures that they're on safer ground if they enact a broad undifferentiated restriction on signs than if they try to tailor it only to those types of signs that actually cause the problems they're trying to prevent and i think the way that the court can manage the situation is to see whether under intermediate scrutiny there really are safety and or nonproliferation rationales to track onto whatever exception is being drawn so if i could use for example just a certain way or is example of the for sale signs a town might permissibly have an ordinance that limits the number of signs you can have on your lawn to two two signs of any type but it might also say you know we're not going to count for sale signs against your quota of two and the reason is that for sale signs are only up on a very small percentage of properties at any given time they're up for a very limited purpose when the you shouldn't to allow or disallow on the basis of the message we're on it's a simple rule but it's i think it's an extremely impractical rule that is going to foreclose experimentation and local solutions to local problems let me give you another example of a town that has some sort of sign restriction but it doesn't apply that sign restriction to safety signs like children at play or hidden driveway ahead if you're going to apply strict scrutiny to those kinds of exceptions they're probably not going to pass muster unless it's a really watered down version of strict scrutiny that i think is unfamiliar to the courts there's actually a fairly robust and whether it's well that's the problem you make you make your sign limits big enough that those signs will will attract legitimately should not have to be put to the choice if they want to prevent the proliferation of signs that would cause safety problem right now the term put up the sites in which case they can be as big as the wants we're just talking about private sites here you're not you're saying every private individual has to have a big sign children to play well i don't want to resist too hard the idea that the government can put up any signs it wants but i think the reason we think the government to put up signs here is not because the government can say that it can speak on certain topics and private citizens can't but because of the nature of the signs that are being put out which means that some work has to be done here by the fact that the types of signs i described are safety s to have to make a one size fits all conclusion about whether the state of the evidence which right now is fairly equivocal justifies that sort of exception a counsellor i'm not sure i'm not sure your whole approach is not precluded by our decision in  the there we said that a facial neutral law does not become content based simply because it may disproportionately affect certain types of certain topics and we said the question in such a case in other words when you're dealing with officially neutral whether the law is justified without reference to the content so it seems to me that you've got to get over the content neutrality your argument only applies when it's content neutral and yet here we're dealing with the situation where you're saying it's an exception to the content based rule well you don't i think the court can deal with a competing interest in this case more easily not by getting bogged down in the definition of content based on content neutral which i can address in a second but by focusing more on the bottom line question of whether this is an appropriate case for the application of strict scrutiny or intermediate scrutiny when you throw the name both in the text of the first amendment did then with thinking that they mean amendment tickler i think here we'd be urging something more like a reasonable fit test which we think would give us a palette is enough room to draw the kinds of distinctions that i think they reasonably should be able to make between painting your street number and your curb so people can more easily find your house and restrictions on you know particular types of speech that are much more likely to be motivated by disagreement with that speech we do think that intermediate scrutiny has a fair amount of teeth in the circumstance i mean and we're putting our money where our mouth is because we think that the particular ordinance at issue here fails intermediate scrutiny but into me a scrutiny would give mr pelly has enough room to draw these kinds of distinctions and to draw in particular the kinds of distinctions that are drawn in the highway beautification act which allows certain types of signs that do enhanced safety and aesthetics but generally doesn't allow the ground on the sides of freeways to become a breeding ground for signs which would preferable to little books and it so happens that the books are costly books and little books tend to be mostly political so we're going to put all the political books in the basement and all the big books on the main floor is that a distinction that the first amendment permits i think a court might be reasonably fairly skeptical of that kind of distinction but i think signs around our present particular first amendment problems that the court had to grapple with been didn't quite resolved in metro media and city it would do one distinct problem with with signs is that the it's very difficult for legislatures to tailor sign regulations and describe types of signs that it doesn't think it needs to regulate to advance its interests thereby allowing more speech without describing those types of signs in a manner that could be viewed as content based and that's what makes sign regulation very difficult and why we think some need to get people's attention will get people's attention and i think you know what would you say about science i assume applies to noise as well right if the city has a noise ordinance it can distinguish between noise is for various that would be permissible your honor i think one key here is that the types of exceptions we're talking about the only types we think should be subject to intermediate scrutiny are ones that track the safety and nonproliferation rationales for the sign ordinance as a whole if the city is advancing a distinction based on the fact that they think political speech or ideological speech is more valuable than say religious speech we think that would be subject to strict scrutiny thank you thank you counsel cities well and that one size fits all in order to do that as the dishes council indicated there need to be limitations on the number of signs on the duration of time the signs would have to be all large enough to accommodate the largest message that needs to be communicated and in order to pass strict scrutiny the legislatures in these towns and cities across this country would be inclined to ban all sides except those that the first amendment absolutely allow you can make that argument in all kinds of context i don't know where it gets you suppose the question is whether whether the town is going wow anybody to speak in a park and the town the town council says well you know we would like to have people be able to speak on subjects that we like but there are some subjects we really don't like we don't want people to speak on those so we have the choice we allow everybody to speak or we allow nobody to speak so you can make exactly that same argument and lots of other contexts where i don't think the distinction c and they perform different functions one thing that we would like to emphasize in this case is that the temporary directional sign provision is limited to in science or intended to guide travelers along a route from point a to point b if they have expressed of content on them then they are no longer a directional sign but it then an expressive sign and there's a different provision that i believe the way that this code has been interpreted justice ginsburg is that that would not be a directional sign because it's not saying turn right turn left go straight a few miles it's not giving directions about how to get there so i believe that that type of sign would be permitted in under this ordinance as a ideological sign or not be limited to the terms of the temporary recklessness where you could i ask what the justification is for  these specially generous provisions on illogical signs and putting aside the level of scrutiny just why do you have these very generous rules for it in your logical signs as compared to others well specifically on the other logical the first amendment right of anyone to speak on any topic at any time the difference in the so you're not even purporting to have a content neutral justification for this you're essentially saying yes we generally dislike of applying strict scrutiny that the distinction is permissible here without relation to the content or in terms of favoring or censoring certain viewpoints or ideas if you cause discrimination is quite  different from rome discrimination and you're trying to reduce our rules against discriminating on the basis of content to a rule against few point discrimination green or whatever else is there no first amendment right to give somebody directions justice scalia would say that the the they perform different functions that certainly sure do but is is their first amendment right for  other messages are good i think they they good have a right to speak and i think that they do have that right to speak and that intermediate scrutiny applies to regulations about how speech can be communicated as opposed to what can i think that it will always say offend the first amendment i think you'd have to apply the intermediate scrutiny analysis that our position would be that it would could survive that analysis if i could return to justice kagan's question about interest that served its different directional sign there needs to be more of them in order to direct travelers along a route so when that justifies a perhaps a smaller size there's no contention in the record  fact the four of appeals found that they function as intended as far as the duration is concerned there's no travellers going to an event that is not presently occurring in fact the town of gilbert expanded the time frame from two hours to twelve hours and i our question is whether or not that's something that implicates first amendment jurisprudence on suppose we're talking about the context of song it's say well let's look to the purpose of forbidding any for any prohibition and i guess it has to do safety or beautification yes so first question would be is there some category that you don't allow to put up signs answer no everybody can put up signs so what about applying strict scrutiny to th if you're going to use english on the basis of what the sign says you have to have an awfully good reason if your decision is you can't put one up at all it next you put them up but you have broken into and all kinds of distinctions how how long etc now in respect to that maybe you should have more leeway leeway depending upon the purpose of the s so if for example it's about an open air municipal movie you could say put up signs about movies or something i mean you know you maybe have more leeway there but still are saying you'd plonk even that test here because there isn't really a very good reason at all in this case for making the sun smaller or for putting it there for such a short topic  how do you react to the three parts one very tough if you're going to say you can't put it up at all sometimes called strict scrutiny to some not more lenient if it gets up but you're trying to distinguish among how and under what circumstances how long and then three do you even satisfy that one that's called time place and manner the second ok well with respect to the first don't believe that that would meet the definition of a compelling interest so that it's automatically presumptively and conclusively unconstitutional if the strict scrutiny is applied and that's the and there's no compelling interest with respect to the the interest set at stake here we again believe that directional signs are functionally different from an ideological sign or even from political signs that the directional signs do not need to be larger and also that there are more of them and so if there are more them the trade off is at least the legislature in this town has decided the trade off is that they need to be small and spinach i want ideology i would like ideological signs on the right of way you say i'm sorry you are we think politics is more important because we're politicians council have two responses that has the scalia first one is that there is a statute in arizona that this ordinance complies with in terms of the placement the duration and the size of the political signs of the town doesn't have any  because we need to comply with the statute and it doesn't make sense that as a result all signs need to be meet those provisions for purposes of preserving our beauty reducing clutter so a so for example out of search if you believe in the first amendment well the state nor the city is entitled to say politics is really important in the close to music the the other consideration here justice scalia is that we're talking about public property and one of the issues that has not been developed certainly in the record in this at this court is the extent to which the government can select subject matter for what is a nontraditional a public forum so there are issues as well that would need to be developed further before any application up into me to scrutiny we say could  resolve that issue but i believe that would be a question of arizona law but again that we have not developed and that issue has not been developed in this at this in this court and i think the reason is really directional signs because they can only be within the residential community they're not directing travelers offsite in a generic sense to a location there's also a permit requirement  suppose petitioners want to put up a sign that says we're having a church service at ten o'clock on sunday morning under your code when can they put that up and when do they have to take it down they could put it up twelve hours before so there would be ten o'clock pm and they could take it and they get down a believe it's an hour afterwards so they can put it up after dark on saturday and then they have to take it down within an hour after when the commencement of the service or the end of the of at the end of the story end of the event if that really gives them an opportunity to invite people to come to their service it's purpose of the signs is not supposed to be invitational it's supposed to be directional if the event was occurring at ten o'clock at night at six o'clock in the evening it could be up during the day if the event occurs all weekend long it could be up all weekend long it's it's tied to the event so in that sense it absolutely serves its purpose for having on the twelve hours before because they want to invite pub members of the public to the services they can and do have many other opportunities and and alternatives including science including the ideological sign that they can use so they could put up a quote unquote ideological sign that says come to our service on sunday morning but no arrow and then they put up another sign that says this is the hour of where they need to they put up on the first sign come to our service on sunday morning we can't tell you now where it will be because the town won't let us but if you come if you drive by here tomorrow morning time you will see the sign could say your honor where it is taking place but if intending to guide travellers to that location then it would need to comply with with the street right and front it it is the same function is that we would say yes and what is this about this argument i mean you agree they can put up a big sign can they put up a big sign to be a logical saying come to the church service next tuesday fourth in a streets three blocks right and two blocks left right or are you saying they can't say three blocks right in two blocks flat and that's what this argument is about that's what it comes down to my goodness i mean what i mean on that it does sound as if the town's being a little unreasonable that we would say that that has that the sign has and what this court has termed an incidental effect on the  expression of the petitioners that certainly they can have the ideological sign the information they want to include i suppose he said this that we are in fact the argument is of this nature we are in fact there are you can have a big sign and have everything on it except an arrow and the purpose of the sign is in fact to tell people both what's happening in way here that there is no good under any test reason for requiring them to have this little dinky thing well into the case you're on about with our response that your honor is that the directional signs in order to work need to guide travellers along the route so there's going to be a lot of these signs in order for them to function as intended i can be a mile away could be two miles away so having just one sign perhaps under the the course hypothetical it seems rather silly but if you're thinking about having a bunch of these signs over a i believe the numbers fifteen but i'm not one hundred percent sure of it i know that they have quite a few can you see the car when you can you see that sign into law when you pass i'm sorry can you see that those are the kind of decisions as far as size to ration are ones that should be the father of legislative deliberation and as long as it meets the intermediate scrutiny applying strict scrutiny to these types of regulations will result in sign ordinances being struck down uniformly just of health and the only speech that what and that will be allowed are will be speech that is constitutional required everything else will not be i think the problem with there is one that dilbert has gotten into is that it allows a lot of speech that a lot of other oranges might not in a lot of different formats but just again if i could understand it's even assumed that intermediate scrutiny applies in just focusing on this special provision for any unlogical speech which allows very large signs to stay up as long as possible and you would say we're making that exception if you will to the general rule that there shouldn't be creditor and there shouldn't be a lot of these signs because why because directional signs no no no i just asked you where the exemption for india logical sign especially generous provision for any illogical science writer in the illogical science gets such generous treatment because beef to protect the first amendment right to speak ok so that is  content based rationale and then you know on on one theory you regardless of what the standard of review is if the n r a justifying it on the grounds of safety or on the grounds of clutter you're saying this is a special kind of speech that we think there ought to be more off with respect to the ideological song yeah yeah the purpose of that is is it is content neutral in terms of anything can be on that's all and it's worth noting that goes back to what justice scalia said point neutral but you know it's content based and maybe you're just saying that we've run amok on this content based distinction and there would be an argument there but i mean it is content based to say what's an ideology and what's not and i would read that that's what we're arguing your honor that what we're saying is that the first amendment is god's against the abridgement of speech and having a rigid content definition to be the on off switch for whether strict scrutiny or into media scrutiny applies this is not workable all are does not achieve common sense results it handicaps the legislators and their ability to be flexible but the guy who doesn't like politics and likes ideology doesn't think that well speech or whatever else well i don't want to do that i don't think you should want any governmental official even even a judge to do stuff like that you're i think for purposes of a ruling in this case i think the question is whether or not the temporary directional sign is subject to its content based on a constitutional sense such that it would be subject to strict scrutiny i would believe that that would be improper we think that it would be against the jurisprudence content boost in a constitutional sense as opposed to content based in and my own constitution sets whether it puts the finger on a scale of ideas or the federal government is indicated so that it guides that the content test is a guide for courts to determine which level of scrutiny applies and if someone avel if content is the on off switch then such distinctions as temporary and and prominent commercial and noncommercial even on sign off site are going to be content and we don't believe that that in of itself justify strict scrutiny thank  quatermain you have four minutes remaining thank you mr chief justice just a few quick points in response if i may clarification point under state statute first of all when this case began the state statute was not in effect and political signs were actually allowed up for longer than the period of time when the states that it was enacted actually less than that time so it's not the states doing that the town decided to allow political signs and it's in its right of way that even with the state statute the if the state has decided that its interest in free speech and political signs outweighs the interest in say in a statics then the town should basically adopt an ordinance that abide by that and the simple way to do that is to treat it as a constitutional floor if the state has decided that we're going to allow political signs up for that period of time and by the way the statute doesn't mention other signs so it's not a restriction like this town  code is all it says is we deemed it important enough for political signs to be up for six just for mission for political that's right and so that the response by the town is ok if that's the case and the state has decided that political s outweigh our interest in safety in a statics the way we deal with that is treating other similar signs the same i think a couple other points the noise ordinance is a perfect example whether it's the side case of the kovacs case  this ordinance would be akin to allowing for example political speech to be much louder in decibels and for longer periods of time and someone on the street corner inviting someone to church must be quieter and for less periods of time and quickly no relationship to the government interest the distinctions don't advance those interests and as to being under inclusive i think it's similar to what this court found in discovery network when their town wanted to prohibit sixty two movies racks sites thank you thank you counsel the case is submitted