united-states freedom-of-speech remedies
What is the remedy in First Ammendment cases involving city councils?
<p>City councils in the United States routinely try to ban or censure criticism of other individuals (&quot;personal attacks&quot;) during their deliberations. For example, in some cases chairs have gavelled down council members who attempted to criticize some person or other, or even set up &quot;ethics committees&quot; to make formal censures of council members who criticize or make &quot;personal attacks&quot; on other people such as town employees, other council members or whomever. In general, all these kinds of actions are <a href="https://www.aclu-wa.org/file/103133/download?token=3790YyK2#:%7E:text=Can%20a%20local%20government%20body%20allow%20some%20members%20of%20the,manner%20of%20the%20challenged%20speech." rel="nofollow noreferrer">First Ammendment violations, at least according to the ACLU</a>. (You can do a web search to find news of various lawsuits the ACLU has filed against town councils for doing such things.)</p>
<p>However, it is not clear to me what the remedy is in the cases. The news articles just say things like &quot;last week the ACLU sued the City Council of Podunkville for restricting public speech blah blah&quot; without explaining what the outcome sought was.</p>
<p>In such lawsuits what is the typical remedy the petitioner seeks? A court order enjoining the City Council from &quot;doing that again&quot;? Does not seem practical. Money? What exactly do they ask of the judge?</p>

<p><a href="https://mysouthborough.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/2020-7-28-Barron-First-Amended-Complaint.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Here</a> is a concrete example of such a petition. The demands, at the bottom of the petition, are</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a) Find that the Defendants deprived Ms. Barron of her state
constitutional rights; b) Enter an award against the Town and the
Board for compensatory damages for the injuries Ms. Barron suffered as
the result of those deprivations; c) Find that Mr. Kolenda defamed Ms.
Barron and inflicted emotional distress upon her, either intentionally
or negligently and award Ms. Barron compensatory and punitive damages;
d) Find that the Board violated the Open Meeting Law; e) Enter
injunctive relief requiring the Board to amend its meeting minutes to
reflect Mr. Kolenda’s abusive comments and the Board’s failure to
properly adjourn the meeting; f) Enter a Declaration that the Board’s
public participation policy is unconstitutional to the extent that it
disallows the criticism of Board members or decisions; g) Award Ms.
Barron her reasonable attorneys’ fees for violation of her
constitutional rights; and h) Grant such further and other relief as
this Honorable Court deems just and proper.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In other words, money, injunction, and a finding of having violated the law. This kind of information is not generally contained in published appeals, so it is difficult to provide any meaningful statistics beyond these three general categories.</p>
