Cleveland City Council members pointed to the rules for public comment after they cut residents鈥� mics for making homophobic and anti-Semitic comments and criticizing council members by name during Monday鈥檚 council meeting.
Now, some residents are arguing those rules are not constitutional.
The rules posted on city council鈥檚 website bar derogatory language and calling out individual members during public comment periods.
After the first commenter raised her voice and hurled insults at council members and Mayor Justin Bibb, calling them 鈥減ompous鈥� and 鈥渁rrogant,鈥� Council President Blaine Griffin reiterated those rules to the crowd gathered in council chambers.
When Chris Martin took the podium a few minutes later, his time was cut short after he named specific council members who he says received funding from the political action committee Council Leadership Fund.
鈥淣ow I have questions about whether that prohibition on addressing individual council members is constitutional in the first place, but even if it is, I wasn鈥檛 doing it,鈥� Martin said. 鈥淚 was addressing the body as a whole.鈥�
Tensions came to a head when the final commenter was silenced for condemning the LGBTQ and Jewish communities.
鈥淲e are not going to allow this platform to be utilized for people to insult or impugn the character of individuals in this body, nor are we going to allow you to impugn race and gender and sexual orientation or anything else,鈥� Griffin said Monday. 鈥淪o those things will swiftly be eliminated.鈥�
But Andy Geronimo, the director of the First Amendment Clinic at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law, said according to the U.S. Supreme Court, if a government body allows a public forum, citizens must be guaranteed full First Amendment rights.
鈥淐riticism of government, like petitioning government for redress of grievances is directly in the First Amendment,鈥� Geronimo said. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e not obligated to maintain this forum, but once they do, they can鈥檛 say you鈥檙e not allowed to criticize us in this forum.鈥�
Those protections extend to bigoted speech, Geronimo said.
鈥淪ome of these things are really offensive, like slurs, derogatory terms鈥� fall within the scope of the First Amendment and can鈥檛 be censored on that basis,鈥� he said.
Some council members, like Kerry McCormack, who is gay, and Rebecca Maurer, who is queer and Jewish, used the end of the meeting to condemn the comments made earlier in the night.
Councilmember Kevin Conwell suggested exploring the possibility of banning repeat offenders.
Geronimo said that he is concerned about that proposal, but Griffin told Ideastream that is not something City Council is considering at this time.
鈥淧eople have to use a sense of decorum,鈥� he said. 鈥淛ust because you have a microphone don鈥檛 mean you can be abusive and make wild accusations about people.鈥�
Cleveland City Council first opened up public comment in October 2021. Geronimo said if council did not want to adhere to the First Amendment protections, they could close the public forum.
鈥淚 have concerns about what that would say about responsive government in Cleveland and the willingness of Cleveland city council members to hear from constituents,鈥� Geronimo said.
