The Daily Sentinel (Grand Junction): A federal court ruling may change how state Sen. Ray Scott goes about interacting with — or avoiding criticism from — his constituents. At least it should.

The ruling emanates from an important question that is becoming more relevant as politicians increasingly turn to social media to promote legislative agendas and seek feedback:

“… when is a social media account maintained by a public official considered ‘governmental’ in nature, and thus subject to constitutional constraints?” the U.S. District Court for the eastern district of Virginia asked in its ruling. “The Court concluded previously that the best way to answer this question is to examine whether the public official acts under color of state law or undertakes state action in maintaining the social media account.”

Sen. Scott, R-Grand Junction, appears to meet the court’s threshold for acting under the color of state law as he routinely takes policy positions through Facebook posts or tweets from a Twitter account. There’s nothing wrong with that, as long as he doesn’t block critics or delete their comments. Doing so under a banner of government representation is considered “viewpoint discrimination,” the court held, which is a violation of a citizen’s right to free speech under the First Amendment.

To be clear, the ruling had nothing to do with Scott. The case involved an elected school board member in Virginia who banned a constituent from her official Facebook page. At least four of Scott’s constituents contend he’s doing the same thing. There’s no certainty that the ruling directly applies to how Scott manages his social media accounts, but it’s certainly a persuasive precedent. It might take a lawsuit to find out how binding it is.

What’s clear is that Scott doesn’t seem to understand that he is the government.

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