If Bob Ehrlich thinks this is a violation of his free speech, he must not have attended law school. He clearly does not understand the law!

I don't see how the county has a right to say whether you build a tree fort, post a political sign or otherwise decide to paint your grass pink. That's your business. Have there been any complaints about O'Malley signs? I saw a 4x8 one the other day although I'm not sure if it was residential or commercial.

Also, why did you guys write a 32 square foot sign, do you mean a by 4x8? That was such a weird way to right it. You write the square footage of say a deck, but nobody refers to signs or even the lumber around by their square footage.

Maybe Mr. Ehrlich paid attention during his classes on the Constitution, where he likely learned that not all laws (especially zoning laws/statutes) pass Constitutional muster. I suppose a court will decide if the sign restriction is kosher or not. Mr. Ehrlich may not understand the law, but this case is not evidence of that.

I saw another one of these oversized Ehrlich signs in a front yard on Pot Spring Rd. north of Ridgely Rd. last night. With all of the press around the sign on Dulaney Valley Rd., these folks must be spoiling for a fight.

I wonder if these folks have ever heard of the idea that reasonable content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions on speech do not offend the First Amendment. It's pretty basic first year Con Law black letter law.

Just an FYI AmericanForProperity - Gov. Ehrlich did attend, and graduate law school - undergrad at Princeton, then law school at Wake Forest...
I am not sure what law you THINK is misunderstood? It seems to me the law that you don't seem to understand is the right to free speech - you know, the 1st Amendment of the United States Constitution...?

As an aside, has anyone ever looked at one of these signs, of whatever size, and though, "Hey, that's right! I'm going to vote for X!"? I'm not saying the county doesn't have an interest in keeping residential lawns from becoming masses of advertising, but really, this is one of the most banal and content-less forms of speech.

Michael,
Even free speech has its limits. In the simplest of terms, the government is allowed to regulate speech, even political speech which is considered high value, as long as it doesn't prevent the message from getting out. As Tim said above, the regulation of the size of a sign would be considered a permitted regulation.

There is a Brochin sign just as big at 7300 York Road and a few others down to the city line

Who are we really electing?

On June 18, 2010, I attended the Towson Area Citizens on Patrol sponsored "Feet on the Street." As in past years, the organization recognized numerous law enforcement personnel that have gone above and beyond the call of duty to serve Towson neighborhoods. A change for this year was the added attendance of almost every local elected official– scratch that, all the local officials that are up for reelection. One of those people was Senator Brochin.

I was compelled to write because I feel you can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat others. When standing in line at a store to pay, I am constantly appalled by the way customers treat workers. I believe this is a strong barometer of that person's character; how they interact when there are no consequences (after all they do not socialize with the customer service employee) tells volumes about their character.

Back to Feet on the Street. It was a sweltering day and I was asked to get someone a bottle of water. As is common for Feet on the Street, there were numerous sidewalk stands set up in front of the restaurants on Allegany Avenue. One of them was manned by a young lady (I would guess a high schooler) and had a large tub of ice cold water bottles. As I approached the table, I noticed Senator Brochin approaching as well. I let him go ahead of me.

"How much?" Senator Brochin asked abruptly. "One Dollar," answered the young lady. As she was answering, Senator Brochin tossed a crumpled dollar bill on the table (not even remotely close to where the young lady was standing) and exited without saying a word. The young lady was visibly offended; I tried to lighten the mood by commenting on how rude people can be and said no problem as she had to duck into the store to get my change. I even fended off some unsupervised children that seemed to think the water was free.

Now that I see the Senator's oversized signs popping up all over town (aren't those big signs banned?), I wonder if people know what he is like when he thinks no one is paying attention. I interact with politicians and public servants on a daily basis; I am constantly amazed at how disingenuous so many of them can be. If a candidate stands around at Artscape (surrounded by his brainwashed minions) texting on his crackberry or an incumbent disrespects customer service employees, what type of public service representative will they be?