CLEVELAND, Ohio — A person is suing Cleveland Metropolis Council and President Blaine Griffin over council’s public remark guidelines, claiming his First Modification rights had been violated when Griffin lower him off on the microphone throughout public remark interval, as he recited council members’ marketing campaign donations.
Chris Martin, who’s represented by Case Western Reserve College’s First Modification Clinic, filed the swimsuit Monday in federal courtroom in Cleveland.
Martin seeks financial damages for the incident that occurred at Metropolis Council’s Sept. 25 assembly. However he’s additionally in search of an injunction to ban council from utilizing its present public remark guidelines, which he and his attorneys describe as unconstitutional.
The result of the lawsuit may influence how members of the general public are allowed to talk to their elected leaders at Monday evening council conferences – Cleveland’s solely routine public discussion board the place council members, the mayor and his directors are all gathered in a single place.
Cleveland.com has reached out to metropolis council for remark.
The lawsuit comes as Griffin and different council members mull new restrictions on public commenters – discussions which have heated up within the weeks since Martin was lower off on the microphone. That dialogue additionally comes after weeks of continued protests throughout public remark interval from Palestine supporters, who’ve come to council chambers en masse to criticize council and the mayor’s response to the conflict in Gaza.
Martin’s free-speech issues precede the pro-Palestinian protests.
When Martin provided public remark Sept. 25, Martin began to recite marketing campaign contributions made to particular person council members from a political motion committee managed by Griffin.
Griffin instructed Martin he’d lower his microphone if he talked about any extra council members by title.
Martin requested Griffin how he was impugning anybody. Griffin didn’t reply and instructed him to proceed talking with out mentioning any council individual’s title. Martin continued to recite the donations. Griffin ordered workers to chop his microphone, and instructed Martin he needed to observe the foundations.
Martin’s lawsuit says his feedback had been “political speech clearly protected by the First Modification.” Reducing him off amounted to unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination, the swimsuit says.
Council’s present guidelines embrace no written prohibitions towards “impugning” anybody’s character, which is an unconstitutional restriction on free speech, the lawsuit states. On Sept. 25 and at different conferences, Griffin had enforced an unwritten rule that audio system had been prohibited from “impugning” the character of council members.
As for the precise public remark guidelines that had been formally adopted by the physique — these additionally quantity to “illegal deprivation of free speech,” the lawsuit states.
These guidelines embrace prohibitions towards addressing particular person council members or different people, selling providers or merchandise, or electioneering in favor of a candidate or poll problem. In addition they prohibit “indecent or discriminatory language,” and ban audio system from carrying promotional materials, together with clothes with “seen logos, slogans, messages, phrases.”
Martin’s lawsuit says council’s public remark insurance policies are “invalid beneath the First Modification to the U.S. Structure as a result of they’re impermissibly imprecise, they don’t seem to be supported by legitimate governmental pursuits, they usually unlawfully discriminate primarily based on the speaker’s viewpoint.,” the lawsuit states.
Martin’s lawsuit additionally describes how he and his attorneys this fall have tried to work with council on an answer for the free-speech issues. They met as soon as and exchanged letters concerning the coverage.
However after that back-and-forth, Griffin on Nov. 13 proposed a number of doable modifications to the general public remark coverage. Andy Geronimo, director of the First Modification Clinic and certainly one of Martin’s attorneys, instructed cleveland.com on the time that he was “disenchanted” as a result of Griffin’s “new revised coverage doesn’t appear to include any suggestions we’ve given them.”
“Defendants Metropolis Council and Metropolis Council President Griffin haven’t solely unconstitutionally censored Mr. Martin, however they proceed to threaten to implement unconstitutional insurance policies, and have proposed revisions to these insurance policies which are seemingly motivated by impermissible viewpoint discrimination,” the lawsuit states.
Metropolis Council didn’t enable public remark at its council conferences for years. That modified in 2021 after advocates pushed for council to permit them.
Griffin beforehand stated he supposed to make modifications to the general public remark coverage earlier than the tip of 2023, however these modifications aren’t slated to occur earlier than Monday evening, which is council’s final assembly of the 12 months, a council spokeswoman instructed cleveland.com early on Monday, earlier than the lawsuit was filed. She had stated Griffin supposed to revisit doable modifications in 2024.
