Two Republican members of Congress are suing the California cities of Anaheim and Riverside for allegedly conspiring to suppress and shut down their political rallies, infringing on their constitutional rights to free speech.
In addition, the lawsuit alleges these groups conspired to prevent would-be rally attendees from legally giving their support and advocacy to the Republican duo and conspired to violate their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights as well as those of their supporters in 2021 when they toured Southern California to speak at “Put America First” rallies.
The groups allegedly acted with “malice, oppression, and wanton disregard for the law in engaging in political viewpoint discrimination and conspiracy,” according to the lawsuit.
The California branch of the League of United Latin American Citizens, which is based in Salinas, Calif., and bills itself as the largest and oldest Hispanic organization in the U.S., allegedly threatened economic reprisal as well as statewide and national boycotts of the Riverside Convention Center if government officials refused to shut down a scheduled rally, the lawsuit states.
“NAACP encouraged people to fraudulently reserve multiple tickets for the rally and then not attend ... to deprive others of the opportunity to attend,” the lawsuit states.
Janice Rooths of Antiracist Riverside then urged “friends and allies” to act on the NAACP suggestion and forwarded it to Riverside City Councilwoman Gaby Plascentia who thanked Ms. Rooths for her advocacy in getting the event canceled, according to the lawsuit.
City officials in both Riverside and Anaheim indicated the rallies were canceled because of the speakers’ political views—a “clear violation of well-settled law” concerning freedom of speech and freedom of association guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, the lawsuit alleges.
Phil Pitchford, a public information officer for the City of Riverside, said in an email to The Epoch Times that “the city does not comment on pending litigation.”
Raincross Hospitality Management Corp., acting as agent for the City of Riverside, and the owner of The Grand Theater, a banquet facility acting at the behest of the City of Anaheim, allegedly conspired to cancel the political rallies at their respective venues because of pressure from groups opposed to the political views of Mr. Gaetz and Ms. Greene, the lawsuit states.
The Grand Theater canceled the event after Oscar Ochoa, a code enforcement officer for the City of Anaheim, allegedly threatened the owner of the facility that its conditional use permit would be “in jeopardy” if he did not shut down the event, the lawsuit alleges.
It further alleges that Anaheim City Councilor Jose Moreno praised Mr. Ochoa for “communicating with the owner” of The Grand Theater and helping the venue “avert a nightmare.”
Mike Lyster, chief communications officer for the City of Anaheim who is named in the lawsuit, did not respond to requests for comment.
The lawsuit alleges that Mr. Lyster confirmed in a post on Twitter on July 17, 2021, that Anaheim officials pushed for the event to be canceled because of the viewpoints of Mr. Gaetz and Ms. Greene.
“As a city we respect free speech but also have a duty to call out speech that does not reflect our city and its values,” Mr. Lyster wrote on the city’s official Twitter page.
John Eastman, the lead counsel for the plaintiffs, told The Epoch Times that free speech for those with whom one agrees but not others “is not freedom of speech.”
The case highlights a pattern of cancel culture that’s happening across the nation and is important for establishing culpability when people and organizations try to shut down the speech of their political opponents, Mr. Eastman said.
“There is a concerted effort around the country to prevent conservatives from speaking, and this lawsuit is a major pushback against that,” he told The Epoch Times. “We didn’t just name the government officials, but we named private organizations that conspired with each other and the government to prevent the exercise of First Amendment rights and ban people from lending support to candidates for federal office. That’s a violation of the Civil War-era Ku Klux Klan Act.”
Another rally was planned at a private venue in Laguna Beach, Calif., but the contract was canceled by the venue owners, who weren’t sued because there was no apparent evidence of government involvement, he said.
“But when the [Anaheim] city code inspector threatened to revoke their conditional use permit, if they didn’t cancel the event, that made it government action,” Mr. Eastman said.
Last month, the State Bar of California opened a case against Mr. Eastman—a former Chapman University law dean who represented Mr. Trump after the 2020 election amid widespread rumors of election fraud—to potentially revoke his law license, arguing that he spread false allegations of voter fraud to overturn the election results.
The case is pending in the courts, and Mr. Eastman doesn’t expect a ruling until fall.
“This is an egregiously political hack job brought by organizations whose stated mission is to prevent conservative lawyers from representing conservative clients so that we don’t have election challenges from that side of the political aisle ever again,” he said in the interview.
