GOP reps can sue cities over canceled rallies — but judge notes 'fatal deficiencies' in their claims

A judge has allowed US Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Matt Gaetz (R-FL) to move forward in suing two California cities for canceling a political rally they planned to host three years ago. However, Judge Hernán Vera criticized some claims in the GOP lawmakers' lawsuit.

The Daily Beast reports, "The event in question was an 'America First' rally in 2021 where Gaetz and Greene pushed Donald Trump’s stolen-election lies and peddled conspiracy theories against COVID vaccines. Their event was moved from Laguna Hills to Riverside and then to Anaheim as the cities pulled out, facing protests from the civil-rights groups in question and local residents."

Per the report, "Vera wrote that Greene and Gaetz had adequately convinced the court that the cities of Anaheim and Riverside plausibly canceled their 2021 event based on 'viewpoint discrimination.'"

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However, Vera added "their claims that several civil-rights groups, including the NAACP and the League of Women Voters, conspired with the cities against them were full of 'numerous fatal deficiencies,'" the Beast reports.

According to MSNBC's Clarissa-Jan Lim, "The groups named as co-defendants in the lawsuit alongside the cities include the League of Women Voters, the NAACP, the League of United Latin American Citizens, Unidos for La Causa, Women’s March Action, the Riverside County Democratic Party, Antiracist Riverside and Occupy Democrats."

Lim noted the MAGA House members "had alleged in their complaint that the organizations violated the duo’s First Amendment rights by mobilizing their supporters to speak out against the event. But Vera pointed out that the groups had simply 'exercised their own First Amendment rights to lobby for the cancellation of the event.'"

Vera wrote, “That is protected."

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Politico notes, Vera also emphasized, "Gaetz and Greene had attempted with their lawsuit what they accused the groups of doing to them: seeking to punish political rivals for speaking out against them."