{"id":49240,"date":"2021-01-18T04:11:26","date_gmt":"2021-01-18T11:11:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/republican-boebert-sued-after-blocking-critic-on-twitter\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:46:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:46:35","slug":"republican-boebert-sued-after-blocking-critic-on-twitter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/republican-boebert-sued-after-blocking-critic-on-twitter\/","title":{"rendered":"Republican Boebert sued after blocking critic on Twitter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Lauren
Lauren Boebert speaks during a watch party at Warehouse 25 Sixty Five in Grand Junctio, after polls closed in Colorado\u2019s primary election. Bri Buentello, a former state representative in Colorado, sued Boebert on Sunday after being blocked from the first-term federal lawmaker\u2019s Twitter account.<\/span>McKenzie Lange\/The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Lauren Boebert, the bombastic new Republican congresswoman from Colorado, has been sued in federal court on allegations that she violated the free speech rights of one of her constituents by<\/p>\n

Bri Buentello, a former Democratic state representative who lives in Pueblo, brought the legal action on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cBuentello is a concerned citizen, and constituent of Boebert, who has tweeted criticism of Boebert,\u201d says the lawsuit, filed by powerful Denver civil rights lawyer David Lane. \u201cBoebert responded to Buentello\u2019s valid criticism by following the lead of her authoritarian hero \u2013 Donald Trump \u2013 and blocked Buentello from viewing her Twitter account, replying to her tweets, or otherwise engaging with those who interact within the replies to her tweets.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boebert blocked Buentello<\/a> on her personal Twitter account, but Lane argues that since Boebert uses the account to share official policy positions it is unlawful for her to block constituents from viewing it. Boebert also has an official Twitter account, but it has far fewer followers and is much less active.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of the way Boebert uses @laurenboebert, the account has become an important channel for news about her office and the United States government,\u201d the lawsuit says. \u201cThose who are blocked from the account are impeded in their ability to learn information that is shared only through that account.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lawsuit asks the court to compel Boebert to unblock Buentello. It also seeks damages and attorney fees.<\/p>\n

Boebert\u2019s congressional office declined to comment.<\/p>\n

The legal action is the latest controversy to surround Boebert, who lives in Rifle, since she took office earlier this month. Her personal Twitter account was briefly suspended after she shared baseless claims about Democrats rigging the 2020 presidential election.<\/p>\n

Boebert has grabbed national headlines for her desire to carry a handgun in the U.S. Capitol and for her efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Trump\u2019s favor. On Saturday, news broke that Boebert\u2019s spokesman, Ben Goldey, had resigned in the wake of the deadly, Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.<\/p>\n

Buentello, who filed the legal action, served two years in the Colorado legislature before losing her reelection bid in November. She has been highly critical of Boebert, calling her a \u201cwhite supremacist and unapologetic fascist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boebert\u2019s 3rd Congressional District spans the Western Slope and sweeps into Pueblo, where Buentello lives.<\/p>\n

Tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars have been paid out in Colorado in recent years because elected officials, both Democrats and Republicans, have blocked constituents on social media.<\/p>\n

A lawsuit filed against Colorado Senate President Leroy Garcia, D-Pueblo, resulted in a $25,000 settlement. Another legal action brought against former state Sen. Ray Scott, R-Grand Junction, resulted in another $25,000 settlement.<\/p>\n

Though there have been at least four settlements in Colorado lawsuits stemming from elected officials blocking constituents, there has not been a court ruling explicitly outlawing the practice. Courts in other states, however, have ruled it unconstitutional for elected officials to block constituents on social media because it impedes their ability and rights to participate in government.<\/p>\n

The issue of public officials blocking people on social media has reached the highest office in the U.S., with a federal court ruling that President Donald Trump cannot bar access to his pages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former state representative called for her recall<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49241,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-49240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49240"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87547,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49240\/revisions\/87547"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49240"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=49240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}