The decision comes after a months-long pressure campaign by prominent Republicans who had raised safety concerns about holding demonstrations in Pere Marquette Park, a large outdoor area close to Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum.
Both Republican and Democratic Party officials are expecting large protests for their conventions this summer, and GOP officials expressed fear that demonstrators and convention attendees could clash if they were in proximity.
At a news conference in Milwaukee on Friday, city and federal authorities displayed a map showing that Pere Marquette Park would be located within the convention’s inner security perimeter — meaning that only individuals with a documented need to enter, such as convention attendees and volunteers, will be allowed through.
The authorities said that the protest zones would be located at two sites on opposite ends of the convention’s outer security perimeter, an area where vehicles must be screened but that generally remains accessible to the public.
One of the zones, Haymarket Square Park, is just northeast of Fiserv Forum. Another zone, Zeidler Union Square, is five blocks south of Fiserv Forum.
The fight over the location of the convention’s “First Amendment zone” has stretched for several months among top Republican Party officials, Secret Service officials and local officials in Wisconsin.
City leaders have said they are required to have a designated area within “sight and sound” of the convention area, and they wanted to use Pere Marquette Park. They also said they were going to use the same park for the Democratic National Convention in 2020, which was scuttled because of the pandemic.
The ACLU of Wisconsin filed a lawsuit against the city of Milwaukee earlier this month over demonstrators being denied an area within “sight and sound” of the convention area. Although parties attempted to mediate, ACLU of Wisconsin staff attorney Tim Muth said in a statement on Friday that “the divide was too great to bridge” and they’re proceeding with their case.
“We were surprised and disappointed to see how many blocks of Downtown Milwaukee the Secret Service has declared off limits to anyone but convention attendees. The large size of this zone makes it more critical than ever that the City take steps to allow for effective opportunities for expression and assembly by those with differing viewpoints,” Muth said in his statement, later adding that the “expansion of the credentialed zone all the way to the Milwaukee River and including Pere Marquette Park cannot be justified.”
In a tense 45-minute meeting last month, U.S. Secret Service officials said they were aware of no “unrest” related to the protests in the park. Many local activists have said they fear Republicans just want to move protesters farther away from the GOP’s presidential nominee, Donald Trump, and believe they should be closer than Pere Marquette Park, not farther away.
In his statement on Friday, Muth called the security perimeter’s expansion “an impermissible concession to the Republican National Committee, which did not want to see or hear demonstrators near its convention.”
At the two demonstration zones, the city of Milwaukee will provide speaker’s platforms with audio equipment and a podium. There have been more than 100 applications filed by individuals wanting to speak at the designated platforms, the officials said at Friday’s news conference.
A parade for demonstrators is also expected to take place around Zeidler Union Square for the four days of the convention.
Josh Dawsey contributed to this report.
