Two Sacramento residents have sued Gov. Gavin Newsom in federal court, alleging he and other state officials have used the COVID-19 outbreak to grossly abuse power and expand their authority.
Filed by Ron Givens and Christine Bish, the lawsuit, filed in the Eastern District of California, complains that in prohibiting all protests in California for potentially months or years or until the threat of the pandemic has subsided, Gov. Newsom, Attorney General Xavier Becerra and two other state officials are depriving them of their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
“Requiring Plaintiffs to abstain from political rallies and demonstrations to satisfy the public health interests at stake, violates Plaintiffs’ liberty of speech rights under the California Constitution as well,” wrote plaintiff’s attornies D. Gill Sperlein and Harmeet K. Dhillon, who is also the CEO of the Center for American Liberty.
The plaintiffs blame Executive Order N-33-20 signed by Gov. Newsome on March 19.
“Based on the State Order, and at the direction of Governor Newsom, the California Highway Patrol has refused to allow any gatherings on the grounds of the state capitol for the purpose of protesting or petitioning the government,” state attorneys Sperlein and Dhillon in the opening brief.
The lawsuit comes at a time when Gov. Newsom is reporting that social distancing is working to flatten the curve in the number of statewide coronavirus cases however thousands of people swarmed Newport and Orange County beaches on Saturday, April 25, despite the stay-at-home orders, according to media reports.
"If the data continues to be as stable as it has been over the course of the last few weeks, the only thing that can stop us from making the kind of modifications that all of us are eager to make is more images like we saw over this weekend,” Gov. Newsom told journalists at an online remote press conference. “So, I'm looking forward to working with those local government agencies and working much more aggressively on the enforcement side as I continue to believe that we have the remarkable capacity in this state to stabilize this curve.”
As of April 28, 2020, there were 45,031 positive cases and 1,809 fatalities, according to the Department of Health.
In addition to Gov. Newsom and Attorney General Becerra, California Highway Patrol Commissioner Warren Stanley and State Public Health Officer Sonia Y. Angell are named as defendants.
Eleventh Amendment immunity, a constitutional concept, will not come into play to bar the action, according to legal experts.
"With respect to qualified immunity there is no prayer for damages," said Attorney Shawn McMillan, a plaintiff's lawyer in San Diego. "So, qualified immunity is unlikely to apply either. The government will have to come up with some other defense."
The complaint includes a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction, requesting that the court issue an order permitting safe and peaceful protests.
“At a time when Californians are rightfully questioning the duration and extent of the stay at home orders, which are unevenly enforced and which have resulted in other Constitutional challenges, Governor Newsom has reacted to citizen protests not by addressing widespread concern, but simply by shutting down protests at the Capitol altogether, making no reasonable accommodations for this fundamental function in a free society,” Dillon said in a press release.