Public Citizen just filed a lawsuit in federal court to stop the Trump regime
from violating the free speech rights of federal workers.
This is our 19th lawsuit against the administration since Trump returned to
power.
Public Citizen and Democracy Forward are representing the American Federation of
Government Employees (AFGE) — the country’s largest federal worker union — in
this lawsuit.
Here’s more about the case:
* As a result of a government shutdown brought about by Donald Trump and
congressional Republicans, hundreds of thousands of government employees are
currently not working.
* Naturally, many of these workers set up an “out-of-office” auto-reply email
before being furloughed. (We’re guessing just about everyone reading this has
received an “out-of-office” email or two, or thousand, over the years.)
* But at Trump’s Department of Education — which, remember, is being run by the
billionaire former professional wrestling magnate and MAGA extremist Linda
McMahon — employees’ “out-of-office” replies were replaced with a partisan
message blaming Democrats for the shutdown.
* The change was made without consent from the employees and without notice
that partisan messages were being sent in their names. In essence, these
workers are being forced to make a political statement, whether they agree
with it or not.
The government putting words in your mouth that you don’t want to speak violates
the First Amendment.
As Cormac Early, the lead Public Citizen lawyer on the case, told the national
media: “It is profoundly offensive for the government to commandeer federal
employees’ voices for partisan purposes. Government workers have a First
Amendment right not to be conscripted as political mouthpieces against their
will.”
Inserting partisan messaging into employees’ work emails would also appear to be
a blatant violation of a law called the Hatch Act, which makes it illegal for
government workers to use government resources to espouse political viewpoints.
The regime is doing something similar by posting messages on numerous agency
websites blaming the shutdown on Democrats. Public Citizen has filed 11
complaints (so far) with federal officials over these violations of the Hatch
Act.
The Trump regime’s egregious violations of federal workers’ free speech rights
and the Hatch Act are getting widespread media coverage — from ABC, CNN, Fox
News, The Guardian, The Independent, NBC, The New York Times, NPR, Politico, USA
Today, Wired, and many, many others.
MORE ABOUT TAKING THE TRUMP REGIME TO COURT
The Trump administration is unilaterally, unconstitutionally, and unlawfully
dismantling the federal government — our government — from Cabinet-level departments that have their own stately
buildings here in Washington, D.C., to smaller agencies that go largely
unnoticed as they do the routine, unheralded work that makes for a functioning
country.
Public Citizen is doing everything we can — within our modest means — to fight
back at every turn. It’s David and Goliath for sure, but we will never back
down. Even where we haven’t (yet) notched definitive victories in court, we are
slowing down the regime and making it work a lot harder in pursuit of its desire
for absolute power.
This “out-of-office” email case is just one of the 19 lawsuits we have filed (so
far) against the administration since Trump returned to power. Are these
lawsuits alone enough to fully defeat Trump and MAGA? Of course not. But are
they a meaningful part of the pushback needed to collectively save our country?
No doubt about it.
What you and Public Citizen are doing together matters. What hundreds of other
organizations, big and small, are doing matters. What millions upon millions of
our fellow Americans are doing matters. We believe that to our core. We take
solace in that. And we draw inspiration from that. We hope you do, too.
If you can, please donate today to support Public Citizen’s work standing up to
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If you’ve donated to Public Citizen already, thank you. If a donation is not
right, we understand. Either way, thank you for being part of Public Citizen.
For progress,
- Lisa Gilbert & Robert Weissman, Co-Presidents of Public Citizen
Public Citizen | 1600 20th Street NW | Washington DC 20009 | Unsubscribe
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