Paula Soto speaking before the Cambridge City Council. Source: Cambridge Day.

This post was authored by Otten Johnson summer law clerk Alex Gano.  Alex is a rising third-year law student at the University of Colorado Law School.

Last week, a federal magistrate judge in Boston denied a plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment against the City of Cambridge, Massachusetts, in a case involving a municipal ordinance and state law that (might) prohibit non-commercial leafletting of parked cars. The court held that the plaintiff’s case against the City was moot because the City had recently amended its ordinance to allow non-commercial leafletting on private property.  The court also considered and rejected the City’s motion to join the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to the case citing the Eleventh Amendment.  The order in Soto v. City of Cambridge acknowledges a circuit split over the constitutionality of laws banning non-commercial leafletting, but the court ultimately declined to weigh in on the controversy.
Continue Reading Federal Court in Massachusetts Rejects First Amendment Leafletting Challenge