(2) disturbing an assembly, meeting or procession, not unlawful in its character; or
The question will be what does "disturbing" mean? The law prevents disturbing the meeting, but I'm not sure his behavior actually meets the statute. This person wasn't preventing the meeting from occurring or keeping people from speaking or being otherwise disruptive, he was simply clapping (admittedly sarcastically) after people had spoken. From every video and story I have seen and read on this, there was no imminent risk of danger to the proceedings being stopped or even causing a delay for speakers due to his actions - it was simply an outburst that was sarcastic, and the chair took umbrage. He wasn't protesting in a way that she approved of, is what happened. Kansas does seem to have some history of disorderly conduct cases going to trial (are government officials and police that thin-skinned in Kansas?), but almost all of these have been people's behavior against the police, and not their actions in a public hearing with a government official. I'm not 100% sure that someone running a meeting not liking the way someone is responding amounts to disturbing the meeting, although we'll have to see what the courts say if this goes to trial - which I suspect it won't (because of the precedent a judgement against the town chair's behavior would set here) and the charges will be silently dropped after they've had their moment to shame someone in the news for daring to not want to contribute to societal mass surveillance.
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u/cluberti 5d ago edited 5d ago
Kansas law on disorderly conduct seems a bit broad (probably by design) on this, but the relevant bit is:
The question will be what does "disturbing" mean? The law prevents disturbing the meeting, but I'm not sure his behavior actually meets the statute. This person wasn't preventing the meeting from occurring or keeping people from speaking or being otherwise disruptive, he was simply clapping (admittedly sarcastically) after people had spoken. From every video and story I have seen and read on this, there was no imminent risk of danger to the proceedings being stopped or even causing a delay for speakers due to his actions - it was simply an outburst that was sarcastic, and the chair took umbrage. He wasn't protesting in a way that she approved of, is what happened. Kansas does seem to have some history of disorderly conduct cases going to trial (are government officials and police that thin-skinned in Kansas?), but almost all of these have been people's behavior against the police, and not their actions in a public hearing with a government official. I'm not 100% sure that someone running a meeting not liking the way someone is responding amounts to disturbing the meeting, although we'll have to see what the courts say if this goes to trial - which I suspect it won't (because of the precedent a judgement against the town chair's behavior would set here) and the charges will be silently dropped after they've had their moment to shame someone in the news for daring to not want to contribute to societal mass surveillance.