The SPLC and ACLU of Mississippi Say the State’s Safe Solicitation Act Makes People Pay for Their First Amendment Rights
Last summer, Mississippi’s Safe Solicitation Act went into effect, preventing people from panhandling without a permit. The permit, which comes with a fee of up to $25 and lasts for one day, allows its holders to legally ask for money at a specified street corner.
Cities and counties had until January 1, 2026, to opt out, and some did. Where the law remains in effect, anyone else asking for help, whether verbally or in writing, faces a fine of up to $500, six months in jail, or both.
Now, the Southern Poverty Law Center is pushing back with a lawsuit that challenges the act as a violation of First Amendment rights.
The Safe Solicitation Act
Panhandling bans have been gaining popularity across the Southern states and beyond. Mississippi’s law casts a wider net than most, prohibiting anyone “to request money or anything of value as a donation or contribution, or to request any other thing of value in exchange for any goods, wares, merchandise, or thing of value while standing, sitting, or positioned in any manner on any road, street, highway median, traffic island, or highway intersection.”
Speaking to WCBI, Lowndes County Sheriff Eddie Hawkins explained how the permit process works:
“The permit is good for one day, and it has to be for a particular intersection,” he said. “They have to designate an area where they will be out panhandling. While they’re panhandling, they have to do it in the hour of 9 am until one hour before sunset.”
These timing restrictions mean that even a permitted panhandler will miss out on the morning rush hour all year long and the evening rush hour for several months of the year. The law also allows only one permit per intersection per day, issued on a first-come, first-served basis.
Concerning what happens if a person is caught panhandling without a permit, he went on:
“We’re gonna check to see if they have applied for a permit…If they haven’t, then we’re going to stop them from panhandling, and we can fine them. If they’re found guilty of this charge, the fine can be up to $500 or six months in jail, or both, depending on the severity of the crime.”
As far as how all of this makes solicitation safer, Hawkins claimed that the intent behind the law is to stop people from being harassed, a potential downstream effect of panhandling that is already a crime.
“If someone is denied during a solicitation, and they continue to harass that person asking them for money, they can be charged with a crime, be arrested, and taken to jail,” Hawkins said.
Supporters of the law have also said the permitting process will better help them identify people living in poverty and connect them with the help and resources they need. However, the law is written broadly enough to include not just homeless panhandlers but also farmers and other vendors who regularly operate roadside stands selling their wares to make a living.
It stands to reason that vendors running profitable businesses can better afford daily permit fees than people who rely on others to meet basic needs, so identifying people in poverty in a pile of permit paperwork may quickly become like finding a needle in a haystack.
The Legal Challenge
The core issue at the heart of the Southern Poverty Law Center and ACLU of Mississippi’s joint legal challenge to the Safe Solicitation Act is free speech.
As it stands, they argue, the law unduly limits First Amendment rights by restricting what Mississippians can say or write on a sign, requiring them to seek permission before saying it, and insisting they pay the government for the privilege of exercising their protected right to solicit charity. The 14th Amendment prevents states from infringing on these federally defined civil rights of all citizens.
As the SPLC explains it, “the SPLC and ACLU-MS lawsuit claims the act is unconstitutional because it violates the plaintiffs’ First and 14th Amendment rights to request help because of hunger, poverty, and homelessness without having to first pay the government to get permission to make those requests. It alleges that the Capitol Police charge people $25 a day for a solicitation permit, which allows people to solicit charitable donations by holding signs such as ‘hungry, homeless, anything helps.’ Anyone who does not have a solicitation permit (or cannot afford one) faces prosecution under the act.”
The lawsuit also details the difficulty plaintiffs have had securing permits. Rachel Wright has been approached by police officers on numerous occasions while holding her sign.
According to court documents, she has been told to leave, threatened with arrest, yelled at over police loudspeakers, and told to get a job. Police officers also told her that she could obtain a solicitation permit at any police station. Yet when she traveled downtown to get one, she was turned away with the excuse that they had none available.
The complaint alleges that the act had been in effect and police in Jackson had been moving solicitors along for 5 months before any permitting process was put in place.
Similar Legal Battles Won
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court declined to hear Alabama’s appeal in Singleton v. Secretary of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, a decision the homeless community and their advocates celebrated. By refusing the appeal, the court left its ruling in place, protecting the issue at the heart of this Mississippi case: the First Amendment right to ask for help.
The Singleton case began in 2020, when SPLC lawyers challenged Alabama’s anti-panhandling laws as a violation of the First Amendment. The 11th Circuit agreed, and the Supreme Court’s refusal to take up the case let that ruling stand. Because Mississippi falls under a different federal appeals court, the ruling isn’t binding there, but it gives the SPLC a strong, recent argument that asking for help is protected speech.
