ANOTHER CASE OF GOVERNMENT TRYING TO SILENCE CRITICS OF ITS LAND USE POLICIES BY REGULATING THEIR SIGNS

Some time ago I wrote about a situation in St. Louis that involved that city trying to prohibit a sign that was critical of the city’s land use policies.  Now there’s a similar situation, this time in Walton County, Florida.  Once again, it’s an interesting combination of property law and sign regulation.  And once again, I don’t see how the government (in this case, the county) can win.  It looks to me like the county is trying to both take property without paying for it, and regulate signs based on the content of the messages on the signs.  Those are both things that the courts have repeatedly said the government can’t do under the first and fifth amendments to the Constitution.