After RCFP pushback, Colorado town settles First Amendment dispute with local newspaper

A Colorado town has agreed to settle a First Amendment dispute with a local newspaper after an attorney from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press pushed back on the town’s decision to revoke advertising from the newspaper in retaliation for reporting it disliked, calling the town’s actions “egregiously unconstitutional.”

In December, the town of Bennett, Colorado, authorized a three-year advertising contract with The I-70 Scout at $15,000 per year. It also agreed to pay $15,000 in damages to the newspaper. The I-70 Scout serves several small, rural communities in Eastern Colorado. 

“This settlement is an important first step in addressing the harm The I-70 Scout experienced as a result of the town’s decision to punish the newspaper over reporting it did not like,” said Rachael Johnson, the Reporters Committee’s attorney in Colorado, who represented The I-70 Scout. “Courts have made abundantly clear that the First Amendment prohibits government entities from retaliating against a newspaper because of its editorial decisions, and we hope the town will keep this in mind moving forward.”

In May, Bennett trustees voted to pull the town’s display advertising from The I-70 Scout solely because they didn’t like an article that truthfully reported on a police investigation into an alleged sexual assault at a local high school. One trustee said the story was “the worst article I’ve ever seen” and that “I would like this board not to spend any more money” on advertisements in the paper.

In an August letter to the board of trustees on behalf of The I-70 Scout and its publisher Doug Claussen, Johnson said that public comments from town officials “unambiguously show the unconstitutional nature of the Board’s actions.”

State and federal courts have long ruled that the government cannot withdraw advertising from publishers to punish them for First Amendment-protected speech, Johnson wrote, specifically citing orders from Colorado district court cases that concluded as much. 

As a result of the board’s actions, The I-70 Scout “has lost hundreds of dollars in revenue and stands to lose thousands more,” Johnson added. 

At a public meeting, the Bennett trustees approved the settlement agreement, but did not acknowledge that its actions were unconstitutional: The town’s attorney called the settlement terms “a compromise, sort of balancing the town’s support of the First Amendment and also recognition of the board’s frustration with an article that was published by the paper.”

“The Bennett Board of Trustees had no right to interfere with the operation of my newspaper or my freedom of speech, and this agreement attests to that fact, no matter how hard they try to mask it under the thin veil of morality,” Claussen told the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition.