Driving home from work tonight I spotted a couple of “Jon Golnik for Congress” signs and one “Chris Doherty for State Senate.” For those of us who’ve been involved in Lowell politics for a while, it may seem early for lawn signs, but that’s because the city used to have an ordinance that prohibited their placement until 17 days before the election. A few years ago on this site we had a vigorous discussion about that rule (a discussion that’s temporarily unreachable) but the conclusion was that an intervening US Supreme Court case held that such prohibitions on political signs infringed on the First Amendment, so you can put up your signs whenever you want. So let the sign-spotting begin.