A Utah lawmaker is looking to ban campaign signs from locations such as highway ramps and freeway overpasses.
Sen. Mike McKell has reportedly opened a bill file threatening to ban the placement of campaign signs in places of heavy traffic, believing that they create vehicle safety hazards. McKell was pushed to propose the bill after driving through Utah County only to see large campaign signs in medians.
McKell says that he’s become more and more concerned about the issue moving into this campaign season, calling the placement of these campaign signs “extremely, extremely, extremely dangerous.” He says that he would like to prohibit the placement of these signs from government properties including highways, roads, and overpasses.
McKell says that his bill won’t make it a criminal offense to place these political campaign signs, as they are protected by the First Amendment, but he proposes that the state could charge a fee to the campaigns and have the Utah Department of Transportation remove any of those offending the bill.
According to McKell, the bill will be introduced in the 2023 legislative session.
