Trio Kicked Out of Bush Social Security Event May Sue Republican Party

According to 9News.com, the three people kicked out of President Bush's Social Security "town hall" session last week are considering a lawsuit.

"We were there to take part in this dialogue on social security," says (Alex) Young. He says, "The gentleman came up to us and asked me to come with him. He refused to say who he was, where we were going, anything to that extent and he began shoving and pushing me to the door."

Special Agent, Lon Garner, who is in charge of the Secret Service office in Denver says, "The Secret Service had nothing to do with that. We are very sensitive to the First Amendment and general assembly rights."

"The Secret Service does know who this is, but they're not sharing it with us," says Dan Recht, the attorney representing Bauer, Weise and Young. Recht says the group met with the Secret Service on Monday and were told a Republican staffer had removed them from the event because of a bumper sticker on Weise's car. One bumper sticker says, "Save the environment, plant a bush back in Texas." A second sticker says, "No more blood for oil." It was apparently this sticker that caused the staffer to act.

It will be interesting to see if the three really do try a lawsuit, because a successful claim could force candidates to rethink the organization of their campaign stops in the future. This doesn't help Congressman Bob Beauprez, either, because his office was in charge of distributing many of the tickets.

Comments

[learnedhand]

just saw this on talkingpointsmemo.com

apparently BB spoke out about this issue on Peter Boyle's show this morning...

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_03_27.php#005305

[Joeker]

I personally think it took quite a bit of courage to do what Kelly and the security guard did. They knew the reprocussions that would follow, but still did what they were suppose to do. I commend them both. Way to go.