Opinion ID: 768122
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The claim for exclusion from the October 1996 Council meetings.

Text: 39 DeGrassi asserts that her exclusion from Council meetings in October 1996 violated her free speech rights under the First Amendment. According to DeGrassi, these were closed meetings in which the claims and defenses in the Andrews action were discussed. She claims she was excluded on advice of the City's counsel. 40 In Madison Sch. Dist. v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Comm'n, 429 U.S. 167 (1976), the Court stated: Plainly, public bodies may confine theirmeetings to specified subject matter and may hold nonpublic sessions to transact business. Id. at 175 n.8. In Perry Educ. Ass'n v. Perry Local Educators' Ass'n, 460 U.S. 37 (1983), the Court observed that the State may reserve [a nonpublic] forum for its intended purposes, communicative or otherwise, as long as the regulation on speech is reasonable and not an effort to suppress expression merely because public officials oppose the speakers's view. Id. at 46. In Kindt v. Santa Monica Rent Control Bd., 67 F.3d 266 (9th Cir. 1995), we applied the forum analysis to city council and board meetings. We said that [c]itizens are not entitled to exercise their First Amendment rights whenever and wherever they wish, id. at 269, and concluded that such meetings fit more neatly into the nonpublic forum niche, id. at 270. We acknowledged, however, that limitations on speech at those meetings must be reasonable and viewpoint neutral, but that is all they need to be. Id. at 271. 41 DeGrassi was excluded from the October meetings because of her status as a party, not because of her viewpoint. See Perry, 460 U.S. at 49 (denial of access to nonpublic forum based on status is not viewpoint discrimination). Because of the potential conflict between DeGrassi's role as a Council member and her personal interest, it was reasonable for the Council to exclude her from its discussions concerning her request for a defense. See Pickering v. Board of Educ., 391 U.S. 563, 570 (1968) (finding a sufficiently great interest in confidentiality may override a public employee's First Amendment rights). Moreover, her exclusion caused only a minor intrusion on her right to speak; she was not precluded from speaking out in public or directly with other Council members. See Pell v. Procunier, 417 U.S. 817, 824 (1974) (alternative means of communication are a relevant factor in First Amendment analysis). Because exclusion of DeGrassi was both viewpoint neutral and reasonable, defendants did not violate her First Amendment rights as a private citizen. 42 DeGrassi also asserts that as a member of the Council she has First Amendment rights independent of those of a citizen. Restrictions on a council member's ability to attend council meetings and address matters of public concern may infringe the member's First Amendment rights. See Bond v. Floyd, 385 U.S. 116, 137 (1966) (Georgia legislature's disqualification of elected representative on account of statements about the Vietnam war violated representative's right of free expression under First Amendment). As the Court stated in Bond, [t]he manifest function of the First Amendment in a representative government requires that legislators be given the widest latitude to express their views on issues of policy. Id. at 135-36. But [t]he central commitment of the First Amendment . . . is that `debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust and wide-open' . . . . [S]tatements criticizing public policy and the implementation of it must be . . . protected. Id. at 136 (emphasis added) (quoting New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 270 (1964)). With respect to public employees generally, while their speech on matters of public concern merits the highest degree of First Amendment protection . . . if the communication is essentially self-interested, with no public import, then it is not of public concern. Roe v. City and County of San Francisco, 109 F.3d 578, 584-85 (9th Cir. 1997). As the Supreme Court stated in Connick v. Meyers, 461 U.S. 138 (1983): 43 When employee expression cannot be fairly consid ered as relating to any matter of political, social, or other concern to the community, government offi cials should enjoy wide latitude in managing their offices, without intrusive oversightby the judiciary in the name of the First Amendment. 44 Id. at 146; see also McKinley v. City of Eloy, 705 F.2d 1110, 1114 (9th Cir. 1983) (Speech by public employees may be characterized as not of `public concern' when it is clear that such speech deals with individual personnel disputes and grievances and that the information would be of no relevance to the public's evaluation of the performance of governmental agencies.). 45 While the free speech rights of elected officials may well be entitled to broader protection than those of public employees generally, the underlying rationale remains the same. Legislators are given the widest latitude to express their views on issues of policy. Bond, 385 U.S. at 136. DeGrassi's allegations do not relate to issues of policy or to any matter of political, social or other concern to the community. They concern her grievance with the Council over the terms on which the City would provide her a defense in the Andrews action. Because her exclusion from the closed meetings did not interfere with DeGrassi's ability to speak out in public or to represent her constituents, it did not offend the First Amendment. 46