Patrick Marley

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

MADISON - A federal judge ruled Friday that three Wisconsin Republicans violated the First Amendment rights of a liberal group by blocking it on Twitter.

U.S. District Judge William Conley found in a 30-page ruling that Assembly Speaker Robin Vos of Rochester and two others had acted unconstitutionally by blocking One Wisconsin Now on Twitter "because of its prior speech or identity."

One Wisconsin Now — an advocacy group that frequently tweaks Republicans online — in 2017 sued Vos, Rep. John Nygren of Marinette and then-Rep. Jesse Kremer of Kewaskum for blocking it on Twitter.

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By blocking One Wisconsin Now, the three lawmakers prevented the group from responding to their posts and offering its own — often snarky — point of view.

Conley, who was appointed to the bench in 2010 by President Barack Obama, determined the three Republicans ran their Twitter accounts as public officials. By operating those accounts, they chose to participate in an interactive forum open to the general public, he wrote.

"Having opted to create a Twitter account ... and benefit from its broad, public reach, defendants cannot now divorce themselves from its First Amendment implications and responsibilities as state actors," he wrote.

Conley wrote that it was clear the three blocked One Wisconsin Now because of its liberal point of view. Kremer, for instance, said his Twitter feed was not “for Dane County liberals to carry on conversations with me” and Nygren said he blocked the group for "crude comments," though he could not identify any comments that were crude.

Conley wrote that a likely way to resolve the case would be to have the officials unblock the group, but he won't decide whether to order that until more briefs are filed. He also indicated he would likely drop Kremer from the suit because Kremer did not seek re-election and left office this month.

One Wisconsin Now immediately took to Twitter on Friday, telling the three Republicans "we wanna @ you, brah."

"This decision is a victory for open, transparent and accountable government," said a statement from Scot Ross, executive director of One Wisconsin Now. "Elected officials can’t exclude people from public forums just because they don’t agree with their political views or don’t want to hear what they may have to say."

Republicans have groused about the lawsuit in part because Ross has blocked some of his critics on Twitter. As a private citizen, Ross has broader rights to do that than elected officials but Republicans view his stance as inconsistent.

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Friday's ruling came less than 24 hours after a different federal judge handed One Wisconsin Now a victory by ruling in its favor and striking down limits on early voting approved in December by Republican lawmakers.

Vos and Nygren are two of the top Republicans in the Legislature. Vos leads the Assembly and Nygren is co-chairman of the budget-writing Joint Finance Committee.

They tweet from @repvos and @rep89. (Vos has not blocked One Wisconsin Now from a second account he uses, @SpeakerVos.)

Kremer's official Twitter account, @RepJesseKremer, has been shut down. Kremer continues to operate a second account, @JesseForWI, but that account was not part of the lawsuit.

Vos, Nygren and Kremer did not immediately say whether they would appeal the decision or otherwise react to it. When the lawsuit was filed, Kremer said he blocked One Wisconsin Now because he considered its tweets disrespectful and akin to email spam.

The lawsuit is similar to one brought against President Donald Trump by Twitter users he blocked. A federal judge in New York ruled in the users' favor last year.

Trump unblocked them but has appealed the ruling.