UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO

The Complaint asserts that the Defendants – chairs of the Colorado House and Senate Judiciary Committees, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, and the House prime sponsor and one of the Senate prime sponsors of a pending legislative bill – collectively deprived the Plaintiffs of their First Amendment rights during public testimony sessions regarding the bill before both the House and Senate. [...] As recited in detail in the Plaintiffs’ Complaint, everything occurred wholly within the context of two formal legislative committee meetings convened specifically and exclusively for the purpose of obtaining public comment on the merits of a piece of pending legislation – and for no other purpose. [...] 1:24-cv-00913-RMR Document 19 filed 05/14/24 USDC Colorado pg 6 of 12 Per the Plaintiffs’ Complaint, in the House committee meeting, the prime sponsor of the legislation requested participants to “engage in respectful discourse and share their perspectives and opinions on the bill by not disparaging other members of our community or other witnesses.” Compl. [...] “[I]n determining whether the State is acting to preserve the limits of the forum it has created so that the exclusion of a class of speech is legitimate, we have created a distinction between, on the one hand, content discrimination, which may be permissible if it serves the purposes of that limited forum, and, on the other hand, viewpoint discrimination, 4 It is not clear from the Complaint whet. [...] 2024) – in which the Plaintiffs similarly refused to comply with minimal “decorum” and “germane” standards adopted by the Board of City Commissioners for the City of Lawrence, Kansas, insulted and talked over Board members, insulted transgender individuals, disrupted the Board meeting, and declined multiple opportunities to de-escalate the situation – resulting in the Court’s denial of their reque.