Village of Slinger enforces, then walks back, political yard sign rule

In her front yard, Marian Nowak of Slinger has a sign with a simple message: God, Guns & Trump.

“We believe in God, my husband’s a hunter, he likes guns, and we support President Trump,” she explained.

She’s had it up for the last nine years with no issues.

Then, in February, she was one of several residents who got a letter from Slinger’s building inspector. It said she was violating the Washington County village’s sign ordinance.

“You get kind of, ‘What the heck?’” she described her reaction. “Because it was up for so long.”

After significant online attention and a threat of legal action by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, a conservative law firm, the village has since rescinded those violation letters.

The village’s board has sent its sign ordinance back to its Plan Commission to “revisit the language and the general rules” of the ordinance, according to Village President Scott Stortz.

Sign ordinance is complaint-based

Like many municipalities, Slinger regulates signs within village limits.

But Slinger’s ordinances say election signs can’t be up more than four days after an election, and that, generally, temporary signs can’t be up for more than seven days.

The village only enforces those rules in response to complaints, according to Stortz.

Someone had sent the village a list of several houses with Trump signs, Stortz said. He said the village followed its ordinance by inspecting the signs, concluding they’d been up too long and issuing violation letters.

It was the village’s first complaint since its sign ordinance written in 2022, he said.

“Our response is not politically motivated. I don’t care if the sign says ‘free cupcakes,’” he said.

Almost 70 percent of Slinger residents voted for President Donald Trump in last year’s election.

Political sign rules have been found unconstitutional

Similar municipal rules about political signs have been found unconstitutional, according to Nathalie Burmeister, an attorney with the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, known as WILL.

She said U.S. Supreme Court decisions have “long recognized that signage is a protected form of speech under the First Amendment.”

In its unanimous 2015 Reed v. Town of Gilbert decision, the court ruled that sign restrictions — even if they don’t target specific political views — are unconstitutional when they’re based on signs’ content.

“It’s regulating it differently based on what the sign says, not just, you know — it’s a 6-foot-by-4-foot sign that can be in place for 30 days,” Burmeister explained.

Her firm litigated a similar case in Neenah in 2023.

WILL represented a Slinger resident who received a violation letter from the village. After the firm sent the village a letter stating its ordinance was unconstitutional, the village rescinded its violation notices.

‘Disparaging’ rhetoric around ordinance, says village leader

Stortz said discussion of Slinger’s sign ordinance “exploded” online after the letters were sent.

Radio talk show host Vicki McKenna called them a “little piece of left wing petty tyranny” to hundreds of shares and comments on Facebook, and later posted a “Slinger sign n@zis update” on social media.

Stortz said he “made sure everybody knew” to come to the March 17 Village Board meeting to share their thoughts on the ordinance.

“And out of the thousands and thousands and thousands of comments, only one person showed up to that meeting,” he said. “So, very interesting.”

He called that “symptomatic of social media in general.”

“It is a little (discouraging) when you’ve got so many people who are willing to rip on their own community publicly, but yet not be part of the solution,” he said.

“We want them to show up, we want to see their faces, we want them to see our faces, we want to hear their comments, their concerns,” he said.

“If people don’t like the rule, fine,” he said. “Help us create one that everybody likes.”