Some Colorado lawmakers want to have their cake and eat it, too.

They want to be able to block vitriolic constituents on their social media accounts despite the fact that courts have consistently ruled that social media pages of public officials are public forums where speech is constitutionally protected.

Readers may recall that former state Sen. Ray Scott reached a $25,000 taxpayer-funded settlement of a case in which he blocked constituents from his Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Scott raised some valid points about confusion in the law. When does a public official’s private social media account stray into the public sphere? The bipartisan House Bill 1306 aims to delineate between public and private accounts. It awaits a decision by Gov. Jared Polis to either sign it into law or let it die.

The governor should veto the bill; if not because it violates the spirit of the First Amendment, then because the issue needs more clarity than exists.

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Speaking before a committee hearing on the bill, Catherine Ordoñez, the ACLU of Colorado’s policy counsel, said the U.S. Supreme Court has acknowledged that “social media is an instrument for ‘speaking and listening in the modern public square,’ and that it affords ‘perhaps the most powerful mechanisms available to a private citizen to make his or her voice heard.’ “

“Legislators following the text of this bill will regularly violate the First Amendment rights of the individuals interacting with their social media accounts,” Ordoñez said in an Associated Press story earlier this month.

The Colorado bill is modeled off a 2022 federal court ruling that sided with the city manager of Port Huron, Michigan, who was sued for blocking someone and removing their posts from a Facebook page he used to communicate with the public. That case is now heading to the Supreme Court, which will not hear the case before fall.

The governor shouldn’t enact a law whose constitutionality won’t be determined until the Supreme Court’s review. But even more than that, we should hope that our public officials recognize the tremendous dodge they’re trying to effectuate.

They wanted the job. With the job comes responsibility. Either be OK with people criticizing you on your own social media account. Or don’t run. Or run and don’t have a private account.

Attempting to dice up the public square is simply an end-run around free speech. The Legislature should have bigger fish to fry than insulating themselves.

At least some lawmakers get it.

“I’m OK with not blocking anybody,” said Sen. Byron Pelton, R-Sterling, who voted against the bill. “As a former commissioner that went through COVID and all the stuff that I was accused of on social media, I’m OK with being criticized.”

Rep. William Lindstedt, D-Broomfield, added: “I signed up for this job and that just comes with the territory.”

Grand Junction Daily Sentinel Editorial Board

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