2024 RNC Milwaukee protest zone; Sen. Johnson, Secret Service meet

MILWAUKEE - The Republican push to keep protesters farther away from this summer's Republican National Convention is intensifying. U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson shared his worries directly with the head of the U.S. Secret Service in Washington on Tuesday, May 14. 

"I found it a little frustrating. We’re trying to be as cooperative as possible in pointing out an issue that we recognize as an area of concern," Johnson told FOX6 News after his meeting with U.S. Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle. "She basically said she does not have the authority to change their assessment. They based it on their criteria that they’ve been using for years. And as a result, doesn’t sound like she can change anything."

The Secret Service will reveal the boundaries of the hard security perimeter closer to the July convention. Huge security fences will go up around it and only people with special credentials from the Secret Service will be able to get in.

The Republican National Committee on April 26 wrote a letter to Cheatle which urged the Secret Service to include in the security perimeter a park the city has floated as a protest zone. Being inside the perimeter would then mean the city couldn't use Pere Marquette Park as the protest zone.

"I got more of the sense that it’s really based on precedent," said Sen. Johnson. "They’ve established criteria. They’ve done these assessments in the past, and they are afraid of being sued by potential protesters on First Amendment grounds," Johnson said.

A Secret Service spokesperson confirmed Cheatle briefed U.S. Senators on parts of the security plan for the RNC.

"The security perimeter for the 2024 Republican National Convention is based on security considerations, including protective intelligence, risk and threat assessments, and is developed to ensure the highest level of security, while minimizing impacts to the public," U.S. Secret Service Chief of Communications Anthony Gugliemi stated. "The U.S. Secret Service takes our duty to develop and execute the security plan for the 2024 Republican National Convention extremely seriously, and we look forward to continuing to work with our federal, state, and local partners to ensure a safe and secure convention. "

Rough plans suggested State Street and Kilbourn Avenue would be the main entrances for pedestrians; they are the same two streets bordering Pere Marquette Park, which is roughly one-and-a-half blocks from the convention's main events at Fiserv Forum.

While the original security plans are still under review, Sen. Johnson told FOX6 the Secret Service is now considering not using the two roads that border the park as pedestrian entrances. 

"They are looking at the original plan and recognizing that’s probably not the best thing, maybe we can mitigate it to this extent. I think it would be better off to come up with a different protest zone…further away from the convention."

Republicans warned the protest zone next to the entrances could create a conflict zone with protesters and convention-goers so close. 

On May 10, top Republican Senator Mitch McConnell sent a letter, shared with FOX6, outlining his concerns. "I am deeply concerned about reports that the security perimeter around the Republican Convention site in Milwaukee may be creating a likely—and preventable—area of conflict between protestors and Convention attendees and delegates. While I am a strong proponent of First Amendment rights to assemble and speak, time-place-and-manner restrictions exist for a reason."

Milwaukee has not officially said where it will place the protest zone, but the park was the planned location for a 2020 Democratic National Convention protest zone.

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"The DNC was a Democrat Convention in a largely Democrat city, so it’s just a completely different circumstance," said Johnson. "We’ve had the summer protest of 2020, we had January 6, we’ve had the pro-Hamas protests on dozens of campuses across the country. It’s different circumstances, and we need to look at it differently as a result."

Protesters in Milwaukee say Pere Marquette Park is too far away from the convention and they are considering legal options. 

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"They can’t come to our city unchecked, when so many people here don’t want them here," said Omar Flores, co-chair of Coalition to March on the RNC. "For us, it’s really our duty as citizens here in Milwaukee to have the chance to get right up there and let them know they’re not welcome."

In Chicago, the host of the 2024 Democratic National Convention, some protest groups have sued the city because they were told they would have to protest miles away from the United Center.

"Instead, the City, on information at the behest of the DNC, unilaterally decided to offer an alternative parade route approximately four (4) miles away buried on a tree lined street in an entirely other part of the City, clearly to protect President Biden and others from hearing the Plaintiffs’ political message," argued the suit filed by Chicago Alliance against Racist and Political Repression, Anti-War Coalition and Students for a Democratic Society at UIC.

Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson earlier this month said his city has been working for months on where to place the First Amendment zone.

"We’re going to make the right choice here, the right decision here," he said. "We, of course, will respect folks' First Amendment rights to protest and gather to do so. We’ll make the right decision here. We’re taking in all the information that’s coming in from both sides of this conversation."

With two months to go until the RNC, it is still unknown where the city will place the protest zone, and where the U.S. Secret Service will place the hard security perimeter.

"We’re going to be marching within sight and sound of the RNC no matter what. We’re going to see all legal options to be able to do this in good faith, to do this with a permit," Flores said. "Ultimately, if the city is not willing to allow us our permit. Our First Amendment rights, we’re just going to march anyway because the Republicans don’t have a right to tell us what we can and can’t do. This is still our city, it’s not theirs."

Sen. Johnson told FOX6 he is going to keep pushing the Secret Service to act; he said he is not accepting the answers he received Tuesday.

Former President Donald Trump told FOX6 earlier this month he wasn’t worried about protesters in Milwaukee for the convention.