In a deeply divided Colorado legislature, lawmakers from either wing of the political spectrum found common ground Thursday: limiting the abuse they weather on social media.
A bipartisan bill that would allow elected officials to block people and delete their comments on officials’ personal social media accounts cleared its first legislative hurdle Thursday, passing the House’s State, Civic, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee unanimously. That’s no mean feat: The committee’s composed of some of the most ideologically distant legislators — and the most prolific tweeters — in the Capitol. But they united, for the moment, around HB23-1306, which would be the first such law in the nation, said Delta Republican Rep. Matt Soper, who’s sponsoring the bill with Denver Democratic Rep. Leslie Herod.
“Make no mistake, social media is the wild, wild West,” said Herod, who has more than 20,000 followers on Twitter. “It wasn’t contemplated by the Founding Fathers. If someone comes into the (House) gallery and yells obscenities, we can ask them to leave. If they come to our town halls, we can do the same. So social media — we have to figure out how to manage that.”
The bill, which will now go before the full House, would apply only to officials’ personal social media accounts, meaning those not attached to a particular political office. Think of Gov. Jared Polis’s personal Twitter page versus the official one linked explicitly to his office. Under the bill, Polis — a prolific tweeter who didn’t respond to a request for comment about this bill Thursday — could theoretically block someone from his personal account, which predates his time as governor. But he couldn’t do so from his @GovOfCO page, Herod and Soper said.
The distinction, they said, is the use of public resources — like a state-affiliated email address — or the direct attachment to a public office. Personal accounts often pre-date elections and stay in the officials’ possession beyond them, they said, and their bill clarifies that no official is required to maintain an account. Soper and Herod also cast the bill as a way to protect well-meaning social media users looking to engage with their representatives from the trolls that prowl comment sections and Twitter replies.
The measure, which has already drawn opposition from the American Civil Liberties Union and concern from First Amendment activists, wades into a thorny national debate about public officials’ digital presence and their ability to block the public from engaging with them. The ACLU has argued that social media blocks violate the First Amendment, and Colorado taxpayers have already footed the bill for two lawsuits against legislators who blocked critics on Facebook and Twitter. U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert won a suit brought by a former state lawmaker whom she had blocked from her personal Twitter page. But then-President Donald Trump lost a lawsuit in 2019 after he blocked a critic on the website.
Those weren’t the only such lawsuits brought by a user against an elected official who blocked them in the United States, and courts across the country have arrived at different conclusions. The conflicting litigation, including a federal appellate court ruling that Soper and Herod based their bill upon, is set to be settled before the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court on Monday agreed to hear two cases — including the one that underpins the Colorado bill — about whether elected officials violate the First Amendment by blocking people on social media.
The ACLU argues that they do violate the First Amendment and that Herod and Soper’s bill would, too. While Herod and Soper say their bill fits with federal court ruling, ACLU attorney Catherine Ordoñez told lawmakers Thursday that court rulings elsewhere have found elected officials can’t block people and that the bill wouldn’t pass constitutional muster.
“Courts nationwide recognize that social media is a powerful tool for social and political discourse,” she said. “The Supreme Court acknowledged social media as an instrument for speaking and listening in the modern public square, and it (represents) perhaps the most powerful mechanism available to a private citizen to make his or her voice heard.”
Jeffrey Roberts, the executive director of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, said he also was concerned about the bill. The measure’s too broad, he said, and would give elected officials wide latitude to block people.
“All those things about bullying and all that stuff are good reasons, but what about point of view?” Roberts said. “(The bill) doesn’t really go into that.”
Rep. Kyle Brown, a Louisville Democrat on the House committee that approved the bill Thursday, said he had some concerns about legislators having “carte blanche” to block people. But he, like others, said he was satisfied — at least for now — with the bill’s attempt to split personal accounts manned by public officials from public accounts attached to public office.
Rep. Scott Bottoms, a Colorado Springs Republican, said he recognized that comments on social media “can cross the line.” Rep. Steven Woodrow, a Denver Democrat who boasts a 21,000-follower-strong Twitter account, echoed that sentiment.
“Online discourse is awful, and I have not contributed positively to it,” he said, referring to his hobby of blasting Republicans on his personal Twitter account (including Soper; he replied to his Republican colleague earlier this year after Soper tweeted an allusion to a civil war over gun reform legislation). “I also agree with Rep. Bottoms, running for office takes thick skin. … At the same time, often (comments do) cross a line, especially when it is fraudulent or can mislead constituents or has the appearance of being something you endorse. That’s something we need to take a harder look at.”
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