ACLU, Pasadena Councilman Drop Suit Against City

The American Civil Liberties Union and Pasadena City Councilman Isaac Richard dropped a lawsuit against the city Monday over its code of conduct for council members.

An ACLU lawyer said that because the city changed its ordinance in June to specify conduct and not speech, it no longer violates the 1st Amendment.

“The truth is, this goofy law has been effectively repealed and replaced as a consequence of this lawsuit by a new law that singles out only conduct for sanction,” Mark D. Rosenbaum, legal director of ACLU of Southern California, said Monday. He said the ACLU had also been informed there would be further revisions to tie the law even closer to conduct rather than speech.

The original September, 1992, ordinance allowed the council to levy sanctions against council members who do not “perform responsibilities in a manner that is efficient, courteous, responsive and impartial” toward council members, staff and the public.

The ACLU filed the suit in May on behalf of Richard and two of his constituents after Richard was denied a council perquisite--access to 75 World Cup tickets--as part of the sanctions for allegedly acting abusively toward city staff in 1992.

ACLU attorneys had declared the code, prompted in part by Richard’s heated arguments with other council members, as possibly the most restrictive of its kind in the country.

Richard was censured in August, 1992, after city Housing Administrator Phyllis Mueller filed a sexual harassment complaint against him for cursing and threatening her during a council meeting. In June, 1993, he was censured for cursing a roomful of city officials, including City Clerk Maria Stewart, who also filed a sexual harassment complaint. In October, 1993, a Superior Court judge ordered Richard to keep his distance from Councilman Chris Holden for three years. In a court petition, Holden said Richard tried to provoke a fight in the Rose Bowl press box.

Next week, a judge is to decide whether to issue an order to keep Richard away from a city Department of Water and Power supervisor he allegedly harassed.