The Council\u2019s attorneys called that argument \u201cabsurd\u201d in their Monday motion, because she has \u201cCouncilwoman\u201d in the account\u2019s name. <\/p>\n
\u201cPetitioner\u2019s contention that her tweets have no nexus to her Council business because they were made from her \u2018personal account,\u2019 is absurd,\u201d the motion reads. \u201cPetitioner chose to display her name on her allegedly \u2018private\u2019 social media account as \u2018Councilwoman Vickie Paladino.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPetitioner is not afforded blanket protection from consequences stemming from her social media statements,\u201d the motion added. \u201cThe Council may, within limits, discipline Petitioner for her speech.\u201d<\/p>\n
The motion further argued that although her comments were not directed at councilmembers or Council employees, they \u201craise[d] alarms.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThe Council has Muslim employees and it takes seriously its duty to protect its employees from hateful or discriminatory speech by people in positions of power within the body, including councilmembers,\u201d the motion said. <\/p>\n
In her suit, Paladino argued that her fellow lawmakers were not treated the same or charged by the ethics committee for what she described as similar political comments, including when progressive Councilmember Chi Oss\u00e9 called the Queens Republican a \u201cslimy\u2026white supremasist.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cUnlike her Democratic colleagues\u2026[Paladino] is being singled out for a formal, adversarial trial designed to brand her publicly as a violator of human rights policies,\u201d the suit read. \u201cThis selection is based impermissibly on her political affiliation and viewpoint.\u201d <\/p>\n
The Council argued there was a difference between Paladino\u2019s comments and the comments she cited in her suit. They also said that Paladino excluded cases where councilmembers were previously punished for remarks they made. <\/p>\n
\u201cTwo of Petitioners\u2019 four comparators indeed faced consequences for their alleged acts, as Petitioner herself concedes: they lost coveted committee positions,\u201d the motion read. \u201cNone of the four comparators\u2019 alleged misconduct involved statements made on verified social media accounts featuring their official title, like Petitioner\u2019s tweets here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paladino has to respond to the motion by March 30, a week ahead of a scheduled court hearing on April 7. <\/p>\n
Jim Walden, a former prosecutor and mayoral candidate who is representing Paladino in the case, said he doesn\u2019t think the motion to dismiss is going to stick. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey raise a bunch of technical defenses that I don’t think any of them are gonna fly with the court,\u201d Walden told the Eagle on Tuesday. <\/p>\n
Walden said that their response will include more examples of the Council choosing to discipline some lawmakers and letting others off the hook. <\/p>\n
“They’re just ignoring the fact that they can’t pick and choose,\u201d he said. \u201cIf they’re going to include personal media in the \u2018workplace\u2019 as they’re doing it against Vickie, they can’t actively prosecute based on their view of what speech is good and what speech is bad.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Council\u2019s attorneys called that argument \u201cabsurd\u201d in their Monday motion, because she has \u201cCouncilwoman\u201d in the account\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175411,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-175410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}