Told you so.

On Tuesday, we at Various Things & Stuff predicted that a local government and the American Civil Liberties Union would end up in court over some ordinance that does violence to the First Amendment.

Little did we know how right we were. The ACLU filed a lawsuit Tuesday on behalf of two street preachers who were arrested for violating a rule that says protest signs must be no larger than the width of the human body.

(In our case, we could pretty much get away with a Mobile Billboard-sized sign, but that’s not important right now.)

The preachers, who condemn sin and pornography, had signs that were larger than the allowable dimensions. And even though the charges were dropped against them, the ACLU is moving forward to have the ordinance declared unconstitutional.

And it will be. Oh, it will be.

Clark County has a history of passing rules that they know — or have reason to know — are unconstitutional. But commissioners simply don’t care; they want to erase any sign of dissent, incongruity or unpleasantness from the face of Las Vegas (or at least the Strip and the area around the convention center). Anti-handbilling rules have been struck down in the past, as well as claims that the hotels “own” the sidewalks in front of their properties. (We’re still waiting for some poor sap arrested for watching an illegal street race to challenge the law that makes that a crime.)

In any case, we hope this case is resolved soon, and we hope Clark County has to pay the ACLU’s fees, much like the Fremont Street Experience had to pay $86,000 in fees to the ACLU on another First Amendment case downtown. (Then again, commissioners don’t care about the expense, since they’re taxpayer dollars; maybe if they were held personally liable, things would be different.)