Larry Hogan is being sued after deleting a slew of Facebook comments. (Photo by Larry French/Getty Images for MGM National Harbor)

The American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland is suing Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, accusing him of violating the First Amendment for blocking his constituents and deleting comments on an official Facebook page.

“It violates both the First Amendment and Maryland’s own social media guidelines for government officials to block out any voices of dissent or those simply raising questions about positions taken by public officials sworn to serve,” said Deborah Jeon, legal director for the ACLU of Maryland, in a statement announcing the suit.

The governor or his staff appears to have begun deleting comments and blocking users in late January, as constituents called on Hogan to condemn President Donald Trump’s immigration ban.

Annapolis resident Molly Handley told DCist earlier this year that her post on Hogan’s wall, written on January 28, was among the first to be deleted. It read:

“Maryland governor Larry Hogan’s silence during this time is unforgivable. Marylanders, call his office and let him know that bigotry and religious based discrimination are not acceptable human values, and that his lack of words/actions due to partisan politics is inexcusable. Don’t choose to be silent during this time, doing so is to give complicit support to what is happening. 410-974-3901, 1-800-811-8336”

She was also banned from the page. “I do want to strongly clarify that not one of the tens of comments I saw violated any terms of service, had any explicit language, or were hateful in any way,” Handley told DCist via email about the more than 100 comments that were deleted. She is now one of the four plaintiffs being represented by the ACLU of Maryland.

A group of Twitter users are separately suing Trump for blocking them on the social media service. Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute, a nonprofit focused on defending free speech, filed that suit last month in the Southern District of New York. They argue that Trump and his aides are in violation of the first amendment by stopping citizens from seeing and being able to interact with official correspondences.

The defendants in the case against Hogan are making a similar case.

“Social media has become a vital means for constituents to communicate with their elected officials,” Jeon says. The ACLU cites the the governor’s own director of communications who has said Hogan “views social media, especially Facebook, as a way to talk directly to the people of this state without the interference of traditional media.”

At least one court ruling has found in favor of such arguments. A federal court ruled recently that Loudoun County Chairwoman Phyllis Randall violated a resident’s right to free speech by blocking him from her official Facebook page.

The governor’s office told the Baltimore Sun in February that it had banned around 450 users, saying about half had posted “spam” while the other half had used “abusive” language.

“The governor’s office has a very clear social media policy that fosters open and constructive dialogue, and we will continue to remove users who violate this policy,” Hogan spokesperson Amelia Chassé said in an emailed statement. “This frivolous lawsuit is completely without merit, a waste of taxpayer dollars, and has more to do with partisan politics than anything else.”

At least one of the plaintiffs says she voted for Hogan, though, and was hoping for respectful discourse.

“I am a Democrat who crossed party lines to vote for Governor Hogan. I posted a comment to the Governor’s official Facebook page about the Muslim ban, asking him to make a public statement. My comment was deleted and I was blocked from the page,” Meredith Phillips said in a statement. “I couldn’t believe Governor Hogan would block people who disagreed with him, but who weren’t rude or threatening. Deleting any comment from constituents that doesn’t praise or agree with Governor Hogan is a violation of free speech.”

Larry Hogan ACLU lawsuit by Rachel Sadon on Scribd