Joe Gale Settles Social Media Lawsuit Over Blocked Constituents

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, PA — Montgomery County Commissioner Joe Gale has agreed to a settlement which states he will not block citizens who are critical of him on social media, or delete their comments.

The settlement came in response to a lawsuit that alleged Gale violated the 1st Amendment rights of area residents in blocking them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The lawsuit, filed by seven local residents, is believed to be the first suit of its kind in Montgomery County.

"Welcome to all the Leftist Looneys and Raging Radicals," Gale wrote on Facebook Tuesday, acknowledging that he would need to unblock those he had blocked. "Come one, come all!"

“He definitely has his right to say what he wants,” Abby Deardorff, one of the constituents who brought forth the lawsuit, told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “But he can’t suppress me as a constituent.”

"Commissioner Gale has the right under the First Amendment to say whatever he wishes to say, no matter how abhorrent the viewpoint might be,” Attorney Michael J. Lyon, who represented the plaintiffs with the firms Waslh Pancio, Mudrick and Zucker, and Phillip Press Law Office, said in a statement. "Our clients simply request that he extend them the same right that they are entitled to under the First Amendment as well."

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It's the latest bit of drama surrounding Gale, whom Democrats and activists are trying to impeach from his position as the lone Republican on the three-person county commissioner's board due to comments he made in June about Black Lives Matter. He called the organization a hate group that had manufactured claims of racial injustice.The comments drew numerous protests, as well as formal legislation to remove him introduced in the state legislature by State Rep. Joe Webster.

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Precedent has been set in related cases in the past, but just not at the county or municipal level. That includes a case last summer where a U.S. Circuit Appeals Court ruled that President Trump cannot block critics from his Twitter account. A similar lawsuit was also filed against U.S. Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez.

Gale, however, seemed to see that unblocking the constituents in question was in his favor.

"If I allow leftist agitators to troll my social media accounts, they will trigger the Facebook & Twitter algorithms that determine what posts get shown to more people," he wrote on Twitter. "By unblocking the Marxist mob, they will actually help me spread my message to more supporters and grow my base."

Meanwhile, despite a renewed push last month by activists to remove Gale, the state house and state senate resolutions calling for his impeachment have not yet been put on the floor for discussion.

Editor's note: a previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Joe Gale had been ordered to unblock his constituents in a federal ruling. This is incorrect; he agreed to that as a part of a settlement related to a lawsuit filed by constituents.