May the government require demonstrators to obtain insurance before allowing them to speak?
The question of whether insurance requirements are constitutional remains unsettled. If an insurance requirement forecloses a group’s ability to speak, courts likely will rule that the requirement is invalid. Courts, however, have allowed governments to maintain insurance requirements that are designed to accomplish a “significant government interest” and that do not discriminate based on the content of the speaker’s message. For example, a court upheld a regulation that required protestors to post an insurance bond when using an expensive sound system provided by a public park.
