Two California cities may soon discover that there’s a price to pay for the censorship of political speech after a federal judge gave two GOP lawmakers the green light to sue after their events were canceled.
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Hernan Vera ruled that Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) can proceed with their lawsuit alleging that they were discriminated against because of their political views.
In July 2021, venues that were to have hosted the “Put America First” rallies that were headlined by the two allies of former President Donald J. Trump pulled out, claiming that the events were too divisive to take place.
The two then pursued legal action against the Southern California cities of Anaheim and Riverside which can now move forward after Vera’s ruling that they had “adequately” shown evidence of a legitimate claim of viewpoint discrimination to sue, rejecting a series of motions to dismiss the First Amendment suit which was filed in July 2023.
But Judge Vera, a Biden appointee, dealt the lawmakers a blow by rejecting a second lawsuit against several left-wing activist organizations including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the League of Women Voters who the accused of conspiring with locals to cancel the events.
He said that Gaetz and Green’s complaint was “utterly devoid of any specifics plausibly alleging such an agreement” and that it’s “both legally and literally a conspiracy theory that relies purely on conjecture,” calling the attempt to sue the groups a “misguided effort to settle political scores.”
“The effect of Plaintiffs’ unprecedented and stunningly deficient pleading — having nine civil rights groups into federal court for speaking out against an event — should shock in equal measure civic members from across the political spectrum,” Vera said in his 22-page ruling.
“All that is left to aver against the Nonprofit Defendants are the unremarkable allegations that they exercised their own First Amendment rights to lobby for the cancellation of the event,” the judge wrote. “That is protected.”
Additional groups that Gaetz and Greene sought action against are: The League of United Latin American Citizens, Unidos for La Causa, Women’s March Action, the Riverside County Democratic Party, Antiracist Riverside, and Occupy Democrats.
“This ruling allows the plaintiffs to proceed against the California liberal city governments who attempted to violate the First Amendment by constraining free speech,” Rep. Gaetz told Fox News Digital on Friday after Vera’s ruling.
“These quotes are going to make great exhibits in the lawsuit @RepMTG and I will be filing. Meanwhile, join us today at our alternate location,” Gaetz said on Twitter, since renamed as X, after being cancelled in July 2021.
These quotes are going to make great exhibits in the lawsuit @RepMTG and I will be filing.
Meanwhile, join us today at our alternate location.
Sign up at https://t.co/i6hvga79kU https://t.co/jGeup9oZ1Z
— Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) July 17, 2021
“We won’t back down,” Greene said at a July 17, 2021, Free Speech Peaceful Protest” outside of Riverside City Hall, according to the Press-Enterprise.
“The radical left wants to threaten you, they want to harass you, they want to target you, and they want to cancel you,” the fiery congresswoman added.
“These folks, they try to cancel our venues, but they can never cancel our patriotism or our American spirit,” Gaetz said in a July 2021 video.
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