Meriden City Council Warned About Violating Free Speech Rights

The Meriden City Council has been discussing a new rule that would prohibit members of the public "from using offensive or abusive language and personally attacking any public officials" at council meetings, a prohibition that the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut warned would be "blatantly unconstitutional."

In a letter dated Jan. 31, 2014, ACLU of Connecticut Legal Director Sandra Staub and cooperating attorney Martin Margulies told council members that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits the government from practicing "viewpoint discrimination" by, for example, allowing speakers to praise public officials but denying their right to "attack" them.

"It is bedrock law that 'attacks on government and public officials' are protected even when 'vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp,'" they wrote, citing several U.S. Supreme Court cases. If the council wishes to maintain decorum at public meetings, it must use viewpoint-neutral regulations, the letter said, suggesting that a ban on vulgarity or profanity could be acceptable. The letter pointed out that any official who feels defamed by a comment could sue the person who made it, after the fact, under existing defamation law.

The letter is intended to guide the council and to help it avoid a lawsuit over a violation of free speech rights, Staub said.

"It's our understanding that the proposed rule is part of an effort to expand the opportunities for the public to speak before the Meriden City Council, and we applaud that initiative," Staub said. "But it must not come with unconstitutional restrictions on what people may say and how they may say it."

The ACLU of Connecticut has sent similar letters to the Waterbury Board of Aldermen, which imposed and then rescinded a ban on "ad hominem, personal, malicious, slanderous or libelous remarks” in December 2013, and the Winchester Board of Selectmen, which abandoned its prohibition on “personal complaints or defamatory comments” in August 2013.