Clothes Lines Be Hanged

Connecticut Bill 7259, submitted in the 2009 legislative session, titled Right to Dry, offers us an opportunity to dry our laundry outside in the same sunshine and air of open government. There are rational reasons to dry your wash on a drying rack, line, or tree (?). The bill makes no mention of washed or unwashed, but then it would not be laundry needing a right to dry. You only need a right to dry if you are wet, I guess. The rights then accrue to the laundry. You, of course, can hang from a tree to dry if you are wet I guess without this law.


While seemingly benign, the bill is an overt attempt to circumvent the Constitution's explicit prohibition against any ex post facto law as well as its protection of contracts. When you live in some closed communities, like a condo association or coop, you purchased your property and have a deed, a contract, a mortgage, a legal entitlement that makes reference to published rules to which property owners must abide.

Your contract for a loan, your property's assessment, and the market value, your taxes, your property rights all make reference and consideration for such locally administered practices usually conducted by an elected committee. Presumably you read these before signing anything and understand the connection of these rules to your property and to your own lifestyle preferences.

These rules are guidelines and can usually be changed as the affected community can vote amendments under the administrative conditions set forth. It is fair to think of this as taxation with representation. Don't buy this property or live there unless you can live with the rule requirements.

The US Constitution does not allow a preemption of law unilaterally and protects the sanctity of the contracted conditions and property rights in your association, the value of your investment and the "rule of law" to support the contract. Passing a new "right to dry" law should grandfather existing condominium contracts or, perhaps, mandate a going forward proposition to impose the desired mandate on new associations to accommodate the Constitution.

Pushing a green "clothesline agenda" on unwitting and perhaps unwilling groups who cannot protect themselves from government intervention of dubious value, if not outright invasion of personal freedom and privacy, to say nothing of the impact on property values, is not good democracy.

Eminent domain comes to mind as an extreme interpretation of this murky bill.

To protest this usurpation of our Constitutional rights, we propose that you:
1. Air your dirty laundry.
2. Fly clean white sheets with "No Surrender" written on them.
3. Clean this protest with your participation.

While the green advocates insist on a "right to dry", you could easily hose down your protest banner on a daily basis to maintain a posture/position statement with your laundry as a voice (free speech) proxy. Cluttering the landscape with a sea of laundry is after all the outcome from passage of the bill.

This action will make your neighbors aware of this attempt by government to take over your chosen private way of life and to continue to express your desires with Free Bleach (ooops, Speech)!!!