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We've entered a strange political moment where blocking a highway can either get you labeled a civil rights hero or a civil terrorist, depending entirely on who is holding the sign.
The Manhattan Institute, a prominent conservative think tank, released model legislation called the "Combatting Civil Terrorism Act." The proposal targets organized groups that use low-level misdemeanors—like blocking traffic or shutting down public thoroughfares—to coerce or intimidate a population into adopting a political agenda. The group wants to upgrade these traditional misdemeanors, such as disorderly conduct or mass trespassing, into full-blown felonies if they're committed in groups of three or more.
Legal experts and civil liberties advocates are alarmed. They warn that upscaling these offenses will create a massive chilling effect, sweeping up peaceful demonstrators alongside bad actors.
But the mainstream media coverage of this battle completely misses the real mechanics of how criminal law works on the ground. Both sides are playing a theatrical game that ignores the practical realities of policing, prosecuting, and constitutional law. Upgrading misdemeanors to felonies isn't just a simple tweak to punish disruptive activists. It fundamentally alters the machinery of the justice system, and honestly, it won't work the way its proponents think it will.
The Strategy Behind the Push to Create Felony Protesters
Protest tactics have shifted dramatically. Activists aren't just standing on sidewalks with megaphones anymore. Modern mass movements—from environmental blockades to intense campus demonstrations—rely on calculated, high-impact disruption. They deliberately shut down bridges, paralyze commuter traffic, and occupy private property to force their message into the public consciousness.
Under current laws, these actions are almost always classified as misdemeanors. Think disorderly conduct, failure to disperse, or criminal trespass. The Manhattan Institute argues that the legal system treats these offenses as if they're committed by isolated, erratic individuals rather than tightly coordinated networks. Because misdemeanors carry light penalties and require significant administrative effort to process, prosecutors frequently drop the charges entirely.
The think tank's proposed "Combatting Civil Terrorism Act" seeks to change that dynamic by raising the stakes. Under their model framework, if three or more people intentionally block a public road or restrict access to a house of worship, the charge automatically elevates to felony disorderly conduct. Furthermore, the act targets the infrastructure of modern activism. Anyone who knowingly funds, organizes, or facilitates these blockades can be charged with a felony conspiracy.
The logic here relies on basic deterrence theory. Proponents believe that if you increase the legal and financial costs of participating in a disruptive protest, you will break the organizational spine of these movements. If a college student faces a felony conviction—which carries a permanent criminal record, the loss of voting rights, and real prison time—they will think twice before locking arms across an interstate highway.
Why Felony Upgrades Backfire in the Real World
The idea that harsher penalties automatically lead to safer streets looks clean on paper, but it ignores how the criminal justice system actually functions. When you upgrade a low-level offense to a felony, you don't automatically get more convictions. In fact, you often get the exact opposite.
Felony charges require a much higher burden of proof and trigger a far more complex legal process than misdemeanors. They require grand jury indictments, involve intensive discovery phases, and dramatically increase the likelihood that a defendant will demand a full jury trial.
Most local prosecutors' offices are already drowning in backlogs of violent crimes, carjackings, and major thefts. They simply don't have the manpower, time, or budget to run dozens of resource-heavy felony trials against non-violent political demonstrators. If a DA is forced to choose between allocating staff to prosecute an armed robbery or a group of college students who blocked a downtown intersection, the robbery wins every single time. By demanding felony charges for assembly line arrests, conservative lawmakers will likely inadvertently force overwhelmed prosecutors to decline cases altogether.
We've already seen this exact dynamic play out with existing anti-protest laws passed in states like Florida, Texas, and Tennessee. While those states successfully increased penalties for blocking highways, local authorities haven't unleashed a wave of massive felony prosecutions. Instead, police use the enhanced laws primarily as a tool for immediate crowd clearance. Once the streets are open, the complex felony cases often dissolve into quiet plea deals for reduced misdemeanors because the system can't handle the friction of a trial.
The Real Threat to Free Speech Isn't Prison Time
Civil liberties groups are right to sound the alarm about a chilling effect, but they're focusing on the wrong part of the equation. The deepest danger of this model legislation isn't that thousands of peaceful citizens will end up serving long sentences in state prisons. The true threat lies in the raw power of the pre-trial process and the weaponization of the financial system.
A felony arrest changes everything the moment the handcuffs click into place. In many jurisdictions, a misdemeanor citation means you get handed a ticket and a court date, and you go home. A felony charge means you're booked into a county jail, forced to post a substantial cash bail, and required to hire an expensive criminal defense attorney.
Even if the prosecutor eventually drops the charges months later, the damage is already done. You've spent thousands of dollars on legal fees, missed days of work, and had your mugshot plastered across the internet. For the vast majority of regular citizens who want to march for a cause they care about, the risk of facing that financial and personal meat grinder is an absolute deterrent. It completely silences legitimate, protected dissent by making the cost of entry too high.
Furthermore, by extending felony liability to anyone who "funds or facilitates" an unpermitted assembly, the proposed legislation creates a dangerous dragnet for political donors and non-profit organizations. If a civil rights group provides water bottles, first-aid kits, or legal aid coordinates to a demonstration that eventually spills out into a public street, they could suddenly find themselves facing felony conspiracy or state-level racketeering charges. This effectively criminalizes the logistical support structure of American civic activism.
How to Protect Public Order Without Dismantling Civil Liberties
You don't have to choose between chaotic, lawless streets and an authoritarian crackdown on free speech. The tension between public order and the right to protest is an old American problem, and our legal system already possesses the tools to handle it without inventing new felony categories.
Instead of expanding the criminal code to create heavy-handed political felonies, local governments should focus on the consistent, fair enforcement of existing municipal codes and misdemeanor laws. The core tenet of effective policing isn't the severity of the punishment—it's the certainty of enforcement.
If activists know that blocking an intersection will result in an immediate arrest, a night in jail, a meaningful fine, and a mandatory community service sentence, that certainty acts as a powerful, measured deterrent. It penalizes the disruptive behavior without destroying the individual's future or overloading the court system with unprosecutable felony cases.
If you want to take action on this issue, stop focusing on the sensationalized national headlines and start paying attention to your local municipal codes and state legislative dockets:
- Track Local Precedents: Monitor how your city council handles parade and assembly permits. Balanced local ordinances that clearly define when and where demonstrations can occur protect both commuters and protesters.
- Advocate for Proportionality: Contact your state representatives and urge them to reject sweeping "civil terrorism" definitions that combine non-violent civil disobedience with actual political violence.
- Support Structural Reform: Push for municipal frameworks that mandate swift, non-felony penalties for infrastructural disruption, ensuring public safety without creating permanent criminal records for expressive conduct.
The right to make people uncomfortable is baked directly into the First Amendment. The moment we allow the state to convert minor public nuisances into major felonies, we hand the government a tool that will eventually be used against everyone, regardless of their political allegiance.
