Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene at America First rally in Florida (YouTube screenshot)
A federal judge on Friday cleared the way for Republican Reps. Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene to sue two cities in California for canceling their 2021 political rallies, allegedly over disagreements with the congressional members’ “political views.”
However, the judge lambasted the duo for trying to sue a swath of civil rights groups they accused of conspiring with the two cities, calling such allegations a “conspiracy theory that relies purely on conjecture.”
The 22-page ruling from U.S. District Judge Hernan Vera, a President Joe Biden appointee, rejected motions from the cities of Anaheim and Riverside to have the lawsuit dismissed. The judge reasoned that Gaetz’s and Greene’s allegations were sufficient at the pleading stage to show the cancellations may have been based on the lawmakers’ political viewpoints.
“Plaintiffs adequately allege that the municipal defendants delegated to their respective agents the authority to cancel the rally (and/or ratified the relevant conduct after the fact) and that the event cancellations were expressly predicated on viewpoint discrimination,” the judge wrote.
Greene and Taylor filed the complaint against the cities in July 2023 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California after several venues canceled planned political rallies amid pressure from local politicians and civic groups.
Gaetz, who represents Florida’s 1st congressional district, and Greene, who represents Georgia’s 14th congressional district, are known as political provocateurs. They are staunch supporters of Donald Trump and have repeatedly pushed the debunked conspiracy theory that the former president was the real winner of the 2020 election.
Gaetz and Greene are represented in the suit by embattled conservative attorney John Eastman, who was at the forefront of Trump’s failed legal battles over the previous presidential election. Eastman is currently facing disbarment in California and is one of Trump’s co-defendants in the felony racketeering case currently taking place in Fulton County, Georgia.
While Vera’s order will allow the suit to move forward against Riverside and Anaheim, the judge had harsh words for the lawmakers over their attempt to sue the civil rights groups — which included the League of Women Voters, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) — saying the lawmakers’ claims suffer from “numerous fatal deficiencies.”
“The gravamen of plaintiffs’ claims against the nonprofit defendants is, both legally and literally, a conspiracy theory that relies purely on conjecture,” Vera wrote. “And without an unlawful conspiracy, 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. That is protected.” [emphasis included]
Vera continued to excoriate Gaetz and Greene, saying their attempt to sue the private organizations should “shock” people from both sides of the aisle.
“The effect of Plaintiffs’ unprecedented and stunningly deficient pleading — haling 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,” he wrote.
