February 13, 2009 06:20 PM UTC

Garco "Gag Order" Panned As "Blatantly Undemocratic"

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• by: Colorado Pols

The conservative Grand Junction Sentinel editorial board writes:

New Garfield County Commissioner Mike Samson may have a chance to do something important: stand up for the free speech rights of himself and his colleagues.

Trouble is, he may have to challenge fellow commissioner and fellow Republican John Martin to do so.

Martin last month proposed that the Garfield County Commissioners adopt a resolution to require commissioners serving on outside boards or committees to express only the majority view of the board of commissioners. So a Garfield County commissioner serving on the board of say, Club 20 or Colorado Counties Inc., would be prohibited from expressing his or her personal opinion at those meetings if the personal opinion differed from the view of the other two commissioners.

That’s blatantly unconstitutional, as well as undemocratic.

The board of commissioners cannot adopt a policy that abridges the free-speech rights of its members. Furthermore, individual commissioners are often elected by people who don’t necessarily share the views of the majority of the commissioners. Any policy that prevents their views from being expressed through their elected county representative diminishes democracy.

This is interesting: it appears that the Sentinel sees an opening to divide the two GOP commissioners over this proposal, which originated with John “Marlboro Man” Martin but requires the support of new Republican commissioner Mike Samson–the whole point being to shut down public dissent from the third and lone Democrat commissioner Trési Houpt. Samson is more likely to side with Martin on policy issues, but he may not be willing to go down this nutty, censorious road.

As we said before, Martin’s proposal is an utterly laughable idea–akin to forcing Republicans in Congress to praise the stimulus package on Meet the Press. But it’s more accurate to say it would be laughable, if the threat of it being enforced wasn’t a real concern. The fact that this might actually get shoved 2-1 down the minority’s throat turns this from laughable to creepy, legally indefensible majoritarian excess, as the Sentinel concludes:

We understand that Martin wants to make sure the official county position is presented at meetings of outside boards and committees. But attacking the free-speech rights of his fellow commissioners isn’t the way to do that.

His proposal has stirred a considerable debate in Garfield County, with many people understandably supporting Houpt’s view.

We hope that controversy is enough to make Martin rethink his proposal. If it isn’t, and he continues to push his resolution, then newcomer Samson will be on the hot seat to put free speech ahead of partisan politics and help Houpt kill the measure.

If Samson doesn’t, we feel pretty comfortable the courts will–though at a high price to Garfield County, as well as the reputation of two out of three commissioners.