Opinion ID: 199869
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Adequacy of the Standards.

Text: NERCC charges that the regulations afford Massport unbridled discretion to deny leafletting requests. It seems obvious, however, that certain provisions contained in the regulations, specifically, the notice and automatic permit provisions, are purely ministerial. Those provisions involve no affirmative action on Massport's part. The fact that permits issue automatically does not end our inquiry. The regulations do identify several instances in which either Massport officials or police officers may deny or revoke permits by acting affirmatively. We look closely at those provisions. Subparagraph E.2 allows Massport to revoke a permit based on particular conduct by leafletters. Because this proviso grants discretion to limit activity at the time when it occurs, it is not -28- a prior restraint on speech, but, rather, a means through which public safety personnel may terminate an activity that becomes dangerous or comes to violate the time, place, and manner restrictions contained in the regulations. As such, the proviso constitutes an unremarkable and ubiquitous safeguard, constitutional on its face. Whether the power that it vests in public officials may, at some future date, be applied in an unconstitutional manner is not now before us. Subparagraphs E.1 and E.3 are a different breed. Those provisions are prior restraints on speech because each of them envisions revocation of a permit before the leafletting event begins.8 Consequently, these rules may be sustained only if they contain narrow, objective, and definite criteria. Shuttlesworth, 394 U.S. at 151. We undertake that inquiry. Subparagraph E.1 gives the DPS power to deny or revoke a permit if the proposed activity would present a danger to public safety or would impede the convenient passage of pedestrian or vehicular traffic. Subparagraph E.3 authorizes Massport to bar access to an area for purposes of construction or to ensure safe and convenient travel to an event by issuing a specific written 8 To be sure, the automatic issuance of permits negates one potential concern about the regulations, namely, that officials could effectively deny permits by dragging their feet. See FW/PBS, 493 U.S. at 223-24. In all other respects, however, the power to revoke a permit prior to the event presents the same Shuttlesworth concerns as the power to deny it in the first place. -29- directive explaining the extent of, and justification for, the closure. Public safety and convenience are paradigmatically permissible considerations in the issuance of permits. See, e.g., Cox v. New Hampshire, 312 U.S. 569, 575-76 (1941). Nonetheless, a regulation adopted to serve these salutary ends may fail to pass constitutional muster if it also authorizes officials to make judgments on matters beyond their competence. See, e.g., Shuttlesworth, 394 U.S. at 149-50, 159 (striking down a permit ordinance that involved consideration of public morals and decency); DeBoer v. Village of Oak Park, 267 F.3d 558, 572-73 (7th Cir. 2001) (invalidating a regulation that empowered a local official to decide what benefits the public as a whole). That criticism has no application here, as the challenged regulations focus on judgments about public safety — the sort of judgments that are inherently within the competence of the DPS and the constabulary. A more difficult question is whether these regulations are sufficiently definite to limit official discretion. See Thomas, 122 S. Ct. at 780; see also City of Lakewood, 486 U.S. at 769-70 (holding that unfettered — and, therefore, impermissible — discretion may exist when a regulation is silent as to the criteria to be used by the official administering it). Once again, however, we must give weight to the agency's narrowing interpretation of its own regulations — especially since the record contains no evidence -30- that the regulations have been administered in an unfair or discriminatory fashion. See Cox, 312 U.S. at 577. In this instance, it is possible, as Massport argues, to construe the regulations to limit Massport's discretion to revoke permits to cases of substantial safety and access concerns. We honor that plausible interpretation. See City of Lakewood, 486 U.S. at 770 n.11 (directing courts to presume any narrowing construction or practice to which [a state] law is fairly susceptible) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). So interpreted, the regulations survive a facial challenge. See Thomas, 122 S. Ct. at 781 (warning against insisting upon a degree of rigidity that is found in few legal arrangements). If and when a pattern of abuse emerges, that will be the time to deal with infelicitous applications of the regulations. See id.