Rep. Reisch sued over Twitter blocking
Missouri Representative Cheri Reisch (R-Hallsville) is being sued for blocking a constituent on Twitter.
Attorney Andy Hirth sued Reisch on behalf of Mike Campbell, a local attorney.
According to the lawsuit, Campbell re-tweeted Representative Kip Kendrick’s (D-Columbia) tweet criticizing Reisch for pointing out her Democratic opponent in the November election had put her hands behind her back during the Pledge of Allegiance.
{“url”:”https://twitter.com/Kip_Kendrick/status/1010525548605566976″,”author_name”:”Kip Kendrick”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/Kip_Kendrick”,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;Maren’s father was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army. &#lt;br&#gt;&#lt;br&#gt;Two of her brothers served in the military.&#lt;br&#gt;&#lt;br&#gt;I don’t question &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/docjones44?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;@docjones44&#lt;/a&#gt; patriotism. That’s a low blow and unacceptable from a member of the Boone County delegation. &#lt;a href=”https://t.co/eVoKhrvkQU”&#gt;https://t.co/eVoKhrvkQU&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/p&#gt;– Kip Kendrick (@Kip_Kendrick) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/Kip_Kendrick/status/1010525548605566976?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;June 23, 2018&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}
After he re-tweeted her, Campbell said Reisch permanently blocked him on Twitter.
The lawsuit aims to prevent Reisch and other representatives from blocking constituents from social media and claims Reisch violated the First Amendment and the 14th Amendment.
“Lately in Missouri, we’ve seen a lot of government secrecy and a lot of attempts to shut down discourse, shut down public debate,” said Hirth. “But that’s the only way we can have an open and honest exchange of ideas in this country. It’s more important than ever that we stand up for those principles and when people violate them, take them to court.”
Reisch said she was on her way out of town for a private family matter, but plans to release a statement Friday. She said the tweet was blown out of proportion and she wasn’t trying to “mudsling.”
