The Los Angeles City Council approved new rules Wednesday banning speakers from using a racial slur and an obscene term for a woman during council and committee meetings.
In a 14-0 vote, council members finalized a proposal introduced by Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson earlier this year to curtail such language. Councilman Bob Blumenfield was absent during the vote.
In recent years, the City Council and its committees have been plagued by foul-mouthed gadflies. A deputy city attorney often explains that City Council members do not condone the remarks, but must adhere to the First Amendment.
Some of these speakers have attacked elected officials based on their weight, sexual orientation, gender and race.
The ban prohibits speakers from using the so-called N-word and C-word.
If speakers use either word or any variations of the words, they will receive a verbal warning. Further violations of the rules could prompt city officials to ask police officers in the room to remove them. These individuals could face a possible ban from future meetings as well.
According to the motion, the city must adhere to the First Amendment but also to the California Brown Act, which regulates open meetings for local government bodies.
“These duties come into conflict when some members of the public in their comments to council and its committees use certain offensive epithets,” the motion reads. “At their worst, these members of the public refer to Black members of the public, city staff and council members using the `N-word’ and to female members of the public, city staff, and council members using the `C-word.”’
Council members contend individuals who use these offensive words are doing so with the aim of “offense and injury itself.”
Council members argued they can take action, citing a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1942, Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire. The landmark case established the “fighting words” doctrine, limiting the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech. It set a precedent for regulating speech that incites violence or provokes a breach of peace.
David Loy, legal director of the First Amendment Coalition, in a letter to the City Council previously warned that the new rule could lead to lawsuits. He also contended that the new rules cannot be justified on the grounds that members of the public might believe elected officials condone offensive terms said during council and committee meetings.
Loy provided several legal examples that could challenge the city’s position, saying the city could use a disclaimer to reinforce its disagreement with offensive epithets.
“But the First Amendment prohibits the government from censoring speech because it disapproves of that speech,” Loy wrote in the letter. “FAC respectfully urges the City Council to reject the proposed rule.”
In an interview with City News Service in April, Loy said he understands the council’s concerns and the impact of offensive language, adding that he does not condone the use of such epithets.
“But the problem is that the First Amendment does not allow the government to censor speech just because people don’t like what it says, and that’s just as true whether the speech is highly offensive or not.”
He also argued against the council members’ claim that they had a case to prohibit the use of two specific epithets. Loy said the so-called “fighting words doctrine” established by Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire is “very narrow, very limited.”
“Free speech is the oxygen of civil society and the oxygen of democracy, and if we start setting a precedent to censure or silence speech, that road is very hard to stop going down,” Loy said.
What a bunch of sissy ass fucking ex-con.
SINCE MY WHOLE FAMILY DIED AT THE HAND OF THE FBI OF ORLANDO IT GIVES ME
“GRANDFATHER CLAUSE” !!!!
THE EGG TELLING THE HUMAN WHAT HIS LAW IS!
HATE GREED INCOMPETENCE STUPIDITY ARROGANTNESS
You have the uniform code & the code of ethnics that everybody violates..
Then I hear West Coast law group of California is paying these contractors to come out and do this stupid shit on a daily basis to me.
GPS should prove every bit of them stalking me for the last 3 years from Ventura boulevard at Cane’s restaurant opening over there. The one that showed me his ideas the one that tried to get me for a concealed weapon when his cocksucker in the pickup truck was in a Land Rover talking about how he had virtual land on the property.
These charges consist of FEDERAL AGGRAVATED HARASSMENT, FEDERAL AGGRAVATED STALKING, FEDERAL AGGRAVATED INTIMIDATION, FEDERAL AGGRAVATED BRUTALITY, FEDERAL AGGRAVATED CORRUPTION, and FEDERAL AGGRAVATED GREED & FEDERAL AGGRAVATED HATATRED, EVENTUALLY AGGRAVATED TAKING A BRIBE ! IN EVERY OFFICER THERE’S AN OFFSHORE BANK ACCOUNT FOR EVERYBODY IN THE WORLD.
My perception says this is all due to Aryan brotherhood on the D block at San Mateo County Jail where all the murders and everything happened at. right under Christina Corpus deputy Lovejoy.
It’s like every cock sucking coward in the nation had to come out and cause as much shit as they could because they got to suck the man’s dick when they get there.
That’s the reason they have so many offshore bank accounts with everyone at that San Mateo County jail as well as the prison system as well and across the United States of America. Minimum 5 million to $500 billion and every offshore bank account cross the United States of America at every sheriff and police department fire department how everybody that was a celebrity is now dead and they paid every one of your corrupt trustees to go to work for you because how they were just to trainee.
Then you have this arrogant cop over here. On Sunday he comes over here and starts all this shit and has somebody called in from Santa Cruz to come down for an outreach program with a loaded fucking handgun under his goddamn arm both of them had loaded guns on him but yet they’re standing on fucking public property telling me where the fucking go right but when the sheriff’s department gets here they just let the motherfuckers run away right what an incompetent fucking agency. And this chief of police is HARBORING A FUGITIVE FROM JUSTICE ( WILLIAM MORRELL ) while working for the Department with him smoking His crack cocaine and drinking his whiskey. No clue about vehicular homicide as a drunk mother fucker driving his car with a loaded FIREARM as attempted murder right why your FEDUALLY AGGRAVATED BANK ARMED ROBBERY. Just to get to me on public land you have to go through a public Bank Shopping Center.
Where at in the law does it state that law enforcement has a right to invade in the public business areas doing business with the public we’re at in the law does it state that you have a right to invade in the public?
Then you have them go into Google and tell them that I can’t complain and can’t have a comment on any part of Google or anywhere on the fucking internet anymore because my public rights have been violated by this piece of shit. But this is the kind of education you give your law enforcement in the community right.
In my intuitiveness leads me to believe that the Bakersfield Police Department send some Yahoo’s down here and had your Yahoo in this fucking Community Chase my dick around the whole time because how I caught the Bakersfield Police Department chief of police buying crack cocaine from someone in the fucking City and put it on a video for the Bakersfield Police Department of you and they’ve never done anything but yet they could send these jackasses down here though.
There’s $75 million in a offshore bank account
There’s 75 million different reasons for him to come out here and do this stupid shit everyday
5754 Lindero Canyon Rd, Westlake Village, CA 91362
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