{"id":1774,"date":"2007-05-24T14:37:00","date_gmt":"2007-05-24T20:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/05\/aclu-sues-adair-alleges-he-barred-man-from-hearing\/"},"modified":"2007-05-24T14:37:00","modified_gmt":"2007-05-24T20:37:00","slug":"aclu-sues-adair-alleges-he-barred-man-from-hearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/05\/aclu-sues-adair-alleges-he-barred-man-from-hearing\/","title":{"rendered":"ACLU sues Adair, alleges he barred man from hearing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a onblur=\"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}\" href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_IabUCQmoheQ\/RlX3jYrd3BI\/AAAAAAAACa4\/AYegqEHKEgw\/s1600-h\/Adair,+Rod.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_IabUCQmoheQ\/RlX3jYrd3BI\/AAAAAAAACa4\/AYegqEHKEgw\/s200\/Adair,+Rod.jpg\" alt=\"\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5068229142967606290\" border=\"0\"><\/a>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aclu-nm.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">American Civil Liberties Union<\/a> is suing state Sen. <a href=\"http:\/\/legis.state.nm.us\/lcs\/legdetails.asp?Name=249&amp;Submit=Search\" target=\"_blank\">Rod Adair<\/a>, R-Roswell, for allegedly barring a man from the legislative committee meeting in violation of his First Amendment rights.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Virgil Beagles, a <st1:place st=\"on\"><st1:city st=\"on\">Roswell<\/st1:city><\/st1:place> man who has been a vocal critic of Adair, alleges he was barred from the meeting on Feb. 16. The lawsuit was filed by the ACLU on behalf of Beagles on Wednesday in federal court<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\u201cAdair verbally accosted Beagles as he sat in a hallway of the Capitol building, yelling and pointing his finger at Beagles and demanding that Beagles exit the building,\u201d an ACLU news release states. \u201cAt Adair\u2019s insistence, Senate security prohibited Beagles from entering the Senate side of the Roundhouse and from attending committee hearings on bills that were of special interest to him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Bad blood between the two apparently stems in part from an event that took place last year. At a June 2006 Democratic Party function, according to the ACLU, Beagles told Chavez County Commissioner Alice Eppers that she was not welcome at the table where he was sitting, prompting Eppers to file a report with Roswell police alleging that Beagles threatened her. The ACLU called the allegations false.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">The ACLU alleges that Adair called Beagles an \u201cevil person\u201d who had \u201cthreatened a county commissioner.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\u201cParty politics may provide the backdrop to this case, but a bigger principle lies at its heart: the right of every citizen to express themselves without fear of retaliation,\u201d ACLU New Mexico Director Peter Simonson said. \u201cSenator Adair interfered with that guarantee, and we\u2019re going to see that Mr. Beagles\u2019 rights are restored.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Adair told the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.freenewmexican.com\/news\/61758.html\" target=\"_blank\">Santa Fe New Mexican<\/a> that the lawsuit is \u201ca badge of honor. Seems almost every time I introduce a piece of legislation, the ACLU is there to testify against it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">He also told the newspaper he \u201chad no idea Mr. Beagles had been barred from the Senate. I did not even know it was possible to be barred.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The American Civil Liberties Union is suing state Sen. Rod Adair, R-Roswell, for allegedly barring a man from the legislative committee meeting in violation of his First Amendment rights. Virgil Beagles, a Roswell man who has been a vocal critic of Adair, alleges he was barred from the meeting on Feb. 16. The lawsuit was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1774\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}