Spokane defends City Council resolution naming politician-turned-pastor as ‘domestic terrorist’

A lower court found the Spokane City Council must face a lawsuit from former state Representative Matthew Shea over a resolution condemning the mayor's participation at an event with the right-winger.SEATTLE (CN) — The city of Spokane appeared before the Ninth Circuit on Wednesday seeking to dodge a former Washington state representative’s claim that the City Council violated the state constitution by labeling him a domestic terrorist.“A legislative resolution does not inflict punishment within the meaning of the bill of attainder clauses simply because it criticizes a public official where it imposes no affirmative disability or restraint in any way on anyone,”In 2019, an investigation by the Washington state House of Representatives found former state Representative Matthew Shea had engaged in domestic terrorism by supporting separatists’ plots of militia groups seeking to create a white homeland in Washington and Idaho. It also found he endorsed killing all males who didn’t agree to follow fundamentalist Biblical law. He was expelled and left office in 2021.In 2023, Shea appeared at a large Christian revival event in Spokane, where then-Mayor Nadine Woodward joined him on stage. To express its disappointment and disapproval of Woodward’s participation in the event, the City Council adopted a resolution denouncing Woodward in which they describe Shea as an “identified domestic terrorist.”Shea sued Spokane and the four members of the City Council who voted for the resolution, arguing the action violated his First Amendment rights and amounted to an unlawful bill of attainder — or legislation that targets an individual or group, implicating them in a crime and imposing punishment without a judicial trial.The lower court dismissed the bulk of Shea’s claims, but held that he plausibly pleaded the resolution was a bill of attainder. The City Council appealed, arguing the lower court was correct in many ways but fell short by allowing the bill of attainder claim to proceed since the resolution didn’t impose any punishment on Shea.An essential feature of whether a statute is a bill of attainder is whether it imposes a punishment such as death, imprisonment, banishment and property confiscation.“Everything else the district court did was exactly correct: It rightly understood the resolution as ’toothless’ because it regulated nothing, prescribed nothing and compelled nothing,” argued Spokane’s attorney, Zach Pekelis with Pacifica Law Group. “The district court also recognized the resolution’s obvious nonpunitive purpose, namely, to express the council’s collective opinion that anti-LGBTQ rhetoric is antithetical to the city’s values.”U.S. Circuit Judge Milan Smith interjected with a question.“So bottom line from the city’s perspective, there’s simply no punishment here, and because there’s no punishment, there’s no cause of action?” the George W. Bush appointee asked. The city agreed.Shea argued he had effectively been banished under the resolution. While the lower court found the resolution contained no language amounting to banishment, it also concluded it “cannot say that there are no facts supporting plaintiff’s claims.”The city argued the resolution had no such effect and served only a nonpunitive expressive purpose. It further suggested the City Council members are subject to qualified immunity.Shea, on the other hand, argued the City Council’s resolution was an “act of hostility toward religion,” as Shea had been leading a prayer at the event and argued the resolution did not need to target him.“I was not being hyperbolic when I said that this is probably one of the most egregious sort of attainders in this country’s history,” said Shea’s attorney Christopher Hogue. “They sit there and declare him to be a criminal.”Shea, who is a pastor, said all he was guilty of was “having a love for Jesus Christ” and was simply spreading that love through prayer at the event, which he co-organized with Sean Fuecht, who the City Council described as a “known anti-LGBTQ extremist.”Shea argued attainders historically involved reputational damage before more severe punishment.“I think in old England, that’s what you do first before you go hang them in the gallows,” Hogue said. You make them a nobody; you take away their being, their standing, their reputation.”Shea argued the resolution deprived his political and civil rights, as well of his right to petition, right to associate, and deprived him of his dignity.“The resolution literally says that he doesn’t belong in the city of Spokane, I mean they’re exiling him,” Hogue said.The Ninth Circuit panel — which also included U.S. Circuit Judge Morgan Christen, a Barack Obama appointee, and U.S. District Judge Sunshine Sykes, a Joe Biden appointee who sat on the panel by designation from the Central District of California — did not indicate when it would rule.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads