PHOENIX — A congressional attorney is asking a federal judge to toss out a lawsuit demanding that U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar be barred from blocking people from his Facebook page.
Thomas Hungar, the general counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives, contends that the two people who filed suit have no legal standing.
Hungar did not dispute that the Republican congressman from Flagstaff previously blocked the two from commenting on his Facebook page. But he said Gosar now follows a new policy about his page that is “more protective of First Amendment rights.”
He said neither J’aime Morgaine of Kingman nor Paul Hamilton of Prescott is currently blocked, though both were before. Nor, he said, is anyone else at this point.
That, he argued, means they are not suffering any harm that gives U.S. District Court Judge David Campbell the right to tell Gosar what he must do with his Facebook page.
Campbell’s eventual ruling could set precedent for the ability of other Congress members to impose controls on their social media sites.
The legal fight is over the Facebook page that Gosar acknowledges he has as part of his official elected position and as a method of communicating with constituents.
Morgaine filed suit last year after she was blocked by Gosar, a move that Hungar said was taken because of “her use of profanity.” That led to her and others being unblocked and the lawsuit was dropped.
But attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union, in filing the latest lawsuit earlier this year, said Gosar still has far too much leeway in deciding who gets to comment and who does not. They want Campbell to block the congressman and his aides from restricting future posts.
If nothing else, the ACLU attorneys said people’s fear that something they say may end up getting them blocked “creates a hostile atmosphere for free expression” on the Facebook page and chills and deters them from speaking their minds.
Now, Hungar is telling the judge the prior decision to block postings was based on an old policy. The new policy, he said, spells out that the Facebook page is a “moderated online discussion site” and not a public forum.
“The First Amendment does not guarantee access to government property simply because it is owned or controlled by the government,” Hungar wrote.
