Milwaukee protest group announces new RNC march route, drops legal fight with city

The Milwaukee protest group prepared to march on the Republican National Convention next week announced a new route Tuesday that complies with the U.S. Secret Service’s security perimeter.

The announcement came a day after a federal judge ruled against the group in its court fight over the march route.

Though parties had 48 hours to respond to the ruling, the Coalition to March on the RNC 2024 is no longer participating in legal action against the City of Milwaukee and the Secret Service, Coalition Co-Chair Omar Flores said at a Tuesday news conference outside the Federal Courthouse in Milwaukee.

The ACLU represented the Coalition in a lawsuit filed against the city in early June.

The new route comes after U.S. District Judge Brett Ludwig ruled that the Coalition could not cross into the “hard” security zone surrounding the main sites of the RNC. The lawsuit had alleged the city’s RNC demonstration plans violated the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

“While the courts have decided exactly a week out that the city is not infringing on our First Amendment rights, we are firm in our demand to march within sight and sound of the front doors of the Fiserv Forum,” Flores said.

City spokesperson Jeff Fleming that the city officials “entirely respect the decision that was reached.”

The Coalition’s original route had the group marching directly next to Fiserv Forum, where delegates are expected to officially name former President Donald Trump as their nominee for the November election. After the security perimeter was officially announced, the group moved the route, but it still crossed into the security perimeter at Kilbourn Avenue.

The revised route avoids the crossing, starting at Red Arrow Park and crossing the Milwaukee River four times to approach the main sites of the RNC while avoiding the security perimeter surrounding Pere Marquette Park.

The group plans to gather in Red Arrow Park at 10 a.m. on July 15, the first day of the convention. Flores said there would be a rally at 11 a.m. and the march would begin at noon.

While the ACLU was not successful in the main parts of its lawsuit, Ludwig ruled in the organization’s favor that the Commissioner of Public Works could not deny speaker and demonstration platforms on the basis of a prior criminal history.

Flores said that the ruling was an “extremely weak win” and that it should not have been the case to begin with.

Fleming said that nobody who applied for a demonstration slot was turned away.

Alison Dirr of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this story.

Tristan Hernandez can be reached at thernandez@gannett.com.