A: Seattle is one of the few jurisdictions that does consider political ideology a "protected class," confirms Elliott Bronstein, spokesman for Seattle's Office for Civil Rights. However that's not an automatic free pass to display campaign signs.

As Bronstein explains, "landlords and property managers have the right to impose a reasonable across-the-board standard based on their business needs. They have considerable latitude in setting those policies. But the standard must be reasonable and equitable."

This means a Seattle landlord can ban signs, or restrict their size or placement. But those conditions must apply to all tenants and all signs. Not OK would be saying "yes" to Candidate A's signs and "no" to candidate B's. Or permitting some tenants but not others to display signage.

Tenants living in jurisdictions that don't have an ordinance protecting political ideology "should be able to express their viewpoints by having signs in their windows, but that hasn't been litigated" in court, says Doug Honig, communications director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington.

The ACLU considers this a free-speech issue, Honig says, but also agrees that landlords have the right to set reasonable and equitable standards.