The case was filed in April 2021 by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas on behalf of nine individual plaintiffs and the Knight Institute. Paxton had blocked the individual plaintiffs from his @KenPaxtonTX account after they criticized him or his policies in their own tweets.

“We’re pleased that Attorney General Paxton has agreed to stop blocking people from his Twitter account simply because he doesn’t like what they have to say,” said Katie Fallow, senior counsel at the Knight First Amendment Institute. “Multiple courts have recognized that government officials who use their social media accounts for official purposes violate the First Amendment if they block people from those accounts on the basis of viewpoint. What Paxton was doing was unconstitutional.”

“This is an important victory for Texans’ First Amendment rights,” said Kate Huddleston, attorney for the ACLU of Texas. “It shouldn’t have taken a lawsuit for Attorney General Paxton to comply with the Constitution and respect Texans’ right to their free speech, including their right to criticize his policies and qualifications in their responses to his tweets.”

As the complaint in the lawsuit explains, Paxton uses the @KenPaxtonTX Twitter account to announce, describe, and defend his policies and legal challenges brought by his office; to comment on national and local issues; and to share news appearances and interviews related to his official duties. These tweets typically generate dozens, if not hundreds, of engagements on Twitter in the form of replies, likes, retweets, and quote tweets.

Some of the individual plaintiffs in the lawsuit found themselves blocked from Paxton’s account after they tweeted their views about the top Texas law enforcement official’s qualifications and policies, including tweeting about funding for lawsuits brought by his office; commenting on the fact that he was previously indicted; or tweeting “wear a mask nerd,” after Paxton retweeted a photo of himself and another person at the Conservative Political Action Conference, with neither of them wearing masks.

In response to the lawsuit, Paxton unblocked the nine plaintiffs in May, and he subsequently unblocked all other accounts that had been previously blocked by the @KenPaxtonTX Twitter account. He also agreed to not block users from the account based on their viewpoints in the future.

The U.S. Courts of Appeals for both the Second and Fourth Circuits have held that public officials who block people from their official social media accounts based on viewpoint are violating the First Amendment. In Knight Institute v. Trump, the Second Circuit held that President Trump could not block users from his @realDonaldTrump account because “he disagree[d] with their speech.” Earlier this year, the Supreme Court found the case to be moot and vacated the Second Circuit decision on that basis, without addressing the merits.

Read the joint stipulation here.

Read more about Knight Institute v. Paxton here.

The individual plaintiffs include a U.S. Army veteran, a journalist, a director of a Texas nonprofit, an immigration advocate, two students, a sales representative, a communications project assistant, and an attorney.

Lawyers on the case include, in addition to Fallow and Huddleston, Lyndsey Wajert, Jameel Jaffer, and Alex Abdo of the Knight First Amendment Institute, and Andre Segura, legal director of the ACLU of Texas.

For more information, contact: Lorraine Kenny, communications director, lorraine.kenny@knightcolumbia.org. 

“We’re pleased that Attorney General Paxton has agreed to unblock our plaintiffs in this lawsuit and are hopeful that he will do the same for anyone else he has blocked from his Twitter account simply because he doesn’t like what they have to say,” said Katie Fallow, a senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute. “Multiple courts have recognized that government officials who use their social media accounts for official purposes violate the First Amendment if they block people from those accounts on the basis of viewpoint.”

“This is a step in the right direction. Attorney General Paxton cannot prevent Texans from exercising their First Amendment rights, including their right to criticize his policies and qualifications in their responses to his tweets,” said Kate Huddleston, attorney for the ACLU of Texas. “It remains to be seen, however, whether the Attorney General will unblock other Texans whose speech he’s suppressed. It shouldn’t take a lawsuit for Attorney General Paxton to comply with the Constitution.”

As the complaint in the lawsuit explains, Attorney General Paxton uses the @KenPaxtonTX Twitter account to announce, describe, and defend his policies and legal challenges brought by his office; to comment on national and local issues; and to share news appearances and interviews related to his official duties. These tweets typically generate dozens, if not hundreds, of engagements on Twitter in the form of replies, likes, retweets, and quote tweets.

Some of the individual plaintiffs in the lawsuit found themselves blocked from Attorney General Paxton’s account after they tweeted their views about the top Texas law enforcement official’s qualifications and policies, including tweeting about funding for lawsuits brought by his office; commenting on the fact that he was previously indicted; or tweeting “wear a mask nerd,” after Paxton retweeted a photo of himself and another person at the Conservative Political Action Conference, with neither of them wearing masks.

The U.S. Courts of Appeals for both the Second and Fourth Circuits have held that public officials who block people from their official social media accounts based on viewpoint are violating the First Amendment, while the Eighth Circuit has adopted the same general framework for evaluating social media blocking by government officials. In Knight Institute v. Trump, the Second Circuit held that President Trump could not block users from his @realDonaldTrump account because “he disagree[d] with their speech.” Earlier this year, the Supreme Court found the case to be moot and vacated the Second Circuit decision on that basis, without addressing the merits.

Read more about Knight Institute v. Paxton here. 

The individual plaintiffs include a U.S. Army veteran, a journalist, a director of a Texas nonprofit, an immigration advocate, two students, a sales representative, a communications project assistant, and an attorney.

Lawyers on the case include, in addition to Fallow and Huddleston, Lyndsey Wajert, Jameel Jaffer, and Alex Abdo of the Knight First Amendment Institute, and Andre Segura, legal director of the ACLU of Texas.

For more information, contact: Lorraine Kenny, communications director, lorraine.kenny@knightcolumbia.org. 

“Multiple courts have recognized that government officials who use their social media accounts for official purposes violate the First Amendment if they block people from those accounts on the basis of viewpoint,” said Katie Fallow, a senior staff attorney with the Knight First Amendment Institute. “People shouldn’t be excluded from these important democratic forums simply because an official doesn’t like what they have to say.”

“Attorney General Paxton is preventing Texans from exercising their First Amendment rights. He cannot bar them from directly expressing their criticisms of his policies and qualifications by blocking them on Twitter,” said Kate Huddleston, attorney for the ACLU of Texas. “This is yet another example of the Attorney General’s many violations of Texans’ civil rights and liberties and an authoritarian effort to suppress speech with which he disagrees.”

As today’s complaint explains, Attorney General Paxton uses the @KenPaxtonTX Twitter account to announce, describe, and defend his policies and legal challenges brought by his office; to comment on national and local issues; and to share news appearances and interviews related to his official duties. These tweets typically generate dozens, if not hundreds, of replies.

Some of the individual plaintiffs in today’s case found themselves blocked from Attorney General Paxton’s account after they tweeted their views about the top Texas law enforcement official’s qualifications and policies, including tweeting about funding for lawsuits brought by his office; commenting on his multiple felony indictments; or tweeting “wear a mask nerd,” after Paxton retweeted a photo of himself and another person at the Conservative Political Action Conference, with neither of them wearing masks.

Both the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second and Fourth Circuits have held that public officials who block people from their official social media accounts based on viewpoint are violating the First Amendment, while the Eighth Circuit has adopted the same general framework for evaluating social media blocking by government officials. In Knight Institute v. Trump, the Second Circuit held that President Trump could not block users from his @realDonaldTrump account because “he disagree[d] with their speech.” Earlier this week, the Supreme Court found the case to be moot and vacated the Second Circuit decision on that basis, without addressing the merits. Read more about this case here. 

Read today’s complaint here. 

The individual plaintiffs include a U.S. Army veteran, a journalist, a director of a Texas nonprofit, an immigration advocate, two students, a sales representative, a communications project assistant, and an attorney.

Lawyers on the case include, in addition to Fallow and Huddleston, Lyndsey Wajert, Jameel Jaffer, and Alex Abdo of the Knight First Amendment Institute, and Andre Segura, legal director of the ACLU of Texas.

For more information, contact: Lorraine Kenny, Communications Director, lorraine.kenny@knightcolumbia.org.

“Go on and beg for your pardon,” tweeted Joseph Cascino of the University of Texas at Austin, referring to an outstanding indictment against Paxton for felony securities fraud charges and speculation that he was seeking a preemptive pardon from then-President Donald Trump.

The next day, in reply to a new Paxton tweet, Cascino, who tweets from his account @Joecascinotx, sent a second critical message, writing “Enjoy the fresh air before you go to prison, Kenneth!” 

Not long after, Cascino realized that the state’s top law enforcement officer had blocked the undergraduate from following his Twitter account.

Three months later, on April 8, Cascino and eight other Texans also blocked from the @KenPaxtonTX account went to court in a lawsuit filed on their behalf by the Knight Institute and the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas. 

They asked the court to declare that Paxton’s practice of blocking critics from his Twitter account violates the First Amendment and to order him to unblock them and anyone else he’s blocked due to their viewpoint. 

This week, in response to the Institute’s legal action with ACLU-Texas, Paxton unblocked the nine plaintiffs. “We’re pleased that Attorney General Paxton has agreed to unblock our plaintiffs in this lawsuit and are hopeful that he will do the same for anyone else he has blocked from his Twitter account simply because he doesn’t like what they have to say,” said Katie Fallow, a senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute.

Here’s some of what unfolded, leading to the initial blocking, for the other plaintiffs, who include a U.S. Army veteran, a journalist, a director of a Texas nonprofit, an immigration advocate, a second college student, a sales representative, a communications project assistant, and an attorney. All have confirmed this week that they’ve been unblocked from Paxton’s account.

Mario Carrillo is a campaign manager with a pro-immigration reform organization.

Carrillo, who often followed Paxton’s Twitter account looking for content on the attorney general’s immigration policies, retweeted a tweet from the @TXAG account last October that said that Attorney General Paxton’s office was exploring options for preventing an El Paso County Judge from issuing a shutdown order in light of COVID-19. Carrillo commented, “The party of local control strikes again. Also, when is court date again @KenPaxtonTX?” referring to Paxton’s outstanding indictment. Carrillo also retweeted a tweet from the @TXAG account regarding Paxton’s guidance to election officials that poll watchers did not need to maintain six feet of social distancing from voters or election workers, commenting, “In case y’all didn’t know, @KenPaxtonTX is a ghoul.”  

Justin Champlin is a technology company sales associate.

Champlin was blocked around January 1, 2021, after he replied to a tweet from the @KenPaxtonTX account, in which Paxton wrote: “Join me on America’s Newsroom (Fox News) at 9:30 am CST to discuss the Texas lawsuit against Travis Co. and City of Austin for COVID - related shutdown. #notonmywatch.” He responded to the tweet with “I guess you didn’t try hard enough. What a waste of a hearing. You wasted everyone’s time by sending unprepared lawyers with no basis to their claims.”

Edward Espinoza is the executive director of an organization that promotes progressive messages and policies. 

Espinoza, who occasionally responded to Paxton’s tweets by criticizing the attorney general’s policies or political statements, believes he was blocked at the beginning of January 2021, around the time he replied to a tweet from the @KenPaxtonTX account in which Paxton celebrated the Texas Supreme Court’s reversal of an Austin local order closing restaurants and bars in response to COVID-19. Espinoza replied to the tweet, asking if the Texas Supreme Court could “stop the holdup of [Paxton’s] 5+ year felony indictment.” Espinoza added in his tweet, “It should be illegal that you’ve been allowed to evade it for so long.”  

Omar Gallaga is a freelance journalist. 

Gallaga was blocked after he retweeted a story by the Austin American-Statesman discussing Paxton’s efforts to block results of the 2020 presidential election. Along with the link to the story, Gallaga noted “I have lived in Texas for so long that I remember when people took @KenPaxtonTX seriously.” 

Fatima Maniar is a United States Army veteran and a project manager for a health insurance company. 

Maniar, who believes she was blocked in late November 2020, followed the @KenPaxtonTX account to stay informed about Paxton’s policies, and, as a single mother, is particularly interested in child support issues, while trying to stay updated on issues related to elections and immigration. . For example, on November 9, 2020, Maniar responded to Paxton’s retweet of a New York Post article about the authorization of investigations into allegations regarding the 2020 election by then-United States Attorney General William Barr. Maniar replied, “1,931 days since you were indicted of 3 felony counts by a grand jury, shouldn’t you be worried about that instead? #PaxtonforJail.” 

Jennifer Ramos is a project assistant for a communications firm.

Ramos followed the @KenPaxtonTX account to stay informed about issues, particularly child support, paid sick leave, and immigration, and would occasionally reply to tweets from the @KenPaxtonTX account. She was blocked after she responded on January 20, 2021, to a tweet from the @KenPaxtonTX account about the inauguration of President Joe Biden that declared “I will always stand firm for Texas.” Ramos replied, saying “So can you do us a favor and turn yourself in? You’re indicted and didn’t get pardoned by Trump, after all.” 

John Ruffier is a student at the University of Texas, El Paso (UTEP), the president of the UTEP College Democrats, and an office assistant at a medical supply company. 

Ruffier, who viewed tweets from the @KenPaxtonTX account to stay informed about the attorney general and his policies, was blocked after he tweeted in reference to Paxton’s outstanding felony indictment, “attorney general ken paxton? more like ‘going to jail!’ am i right kenneth? @KenPaxtonTX.” He also tweeted, “[W]ear a mask nerd” in reply to a tweet from the @KenPaxtonTX account, in which the attorney general retweeted a tweet and photo of himself and another person at the Conservative Political Action Conference, with neither of them wearing masks.

James Scurlock is a civil rights and employment attorney.

Scurlock followed the @KenPaxtonTX account to track the way in which Paxton used taxpayer funds. He was blocked after he replied to a tweet from the @KenPaxtonTX account about mask mandates in Travis County and Austin, writing “You’re indicted.” That same day, Scurlock replied to an International Women’s Day tweet by Paxton that criticized President Biden and Democrats, “You have victimized women. You’re indicted for making women victims of your crimes.”