Clay Higgins, the Republican who represents southwest Louisiana in Congress, is being sued in federal court for blocking a constituent from his official Facebook page.
The constituent, Lafayette community activist Matthew Humphrey, says he was blocked in October 2024, shortly after he posted a meme criticizing Higgins on his own page and tagged the congressman. The lawsuit was filed October 23 in the Western District of Louisiana, The Current reported. Humphrey is represented by Tulane Law School's First Amendment Clinic.
Humphrey isn't asking for money. He wants the court to declare the blocking unconstitutional and to order Higgins to restore his access for good.
A "Top Fan" who became a critic
According to the complaint, Humphrey had been a regular on the official Congressman Clay Higgins page — regular enough to earn a "Top Fan" badge. Then he posted the critical meme. On or around October 25, 2024, he "could no longer see or access Rep. Higgins' Facebook page, indicating that he had been blocked on the official page," the suit says.
The lawsuit says Humphrey's posts were core political speech — not obscene, not threats, not "fighting words." It argues that the page is how Higgins talks to the people he represents about his work in Congress, which makes it a public forum run by a government official. A public official can't kick people out of a public forum for disagreeing with him, the suit says. That's called viewpoint discrimination, and the First Amendment forbids it.
And Humphrey says he isn't the only one. The suit alleges that Higgins "has blocked other users, because of disagreement with the viewpoint of their speech."
The House's own rules
The suit leans on the House's own rulebook. Members of Congress are allowed to run social media accounts for their official duties, including talking with constituents. The House's Communications Standards Manual requires official social media to stick to members' congressional work and follow federal law and House rules.
In other words, Higgins's official page isn't a personal hobby. It's an office tool, set up under House rules for reaching the public.
The Supreme Court has weighed in on this kind of fight. In 2024, in Lindke v. Freed, the justices ruled unanimously that a public official who blocks someone on social media can be held responsible for it when the official had real authority to speak for the government and was using that authority in the posts. Whether Higgins's page meets that test is now up to the court.
When The Current reached Higgins's communications director, Mac Malloy, he said he was not familiar with the lawsuit.
A congressman who doesn't like being questioned
Blocking a critic online fits a pattern. In February 2025, Higgins held his town hall over the phone from Washington — replacing the kind of meeting that, as the local station noted, is "normally held in person."
When he did face voters in person in Crowley, a childhood abuse survivor asked why he was the only "no" vote on releasing the Epstein files. Higgins ended up telling a constituent he would personally carry him out of the building.
A town hall by phone, a threat to haul out a constituent, and now a lawsuit saying he cut critics off from his official page. Each one is a way of controlling who gets to talk back to a member of Congress.
Higgins, now in his fifth term, is on the November 3 ballot against five challengers.
What the lawsuit alleges
A Lafayette constituent is suing Clay Higgins in federal court, saying Higgins blocked him from the congressman's official Facebook page in October 2024 after he posted a meme criticizing Higgins, and that Higgins has blocked other critics the same way. The suit, brought by Tulane Law School's First Amendment Clinic, asks the court to rule the blocking unconstitutional and order his access restored.
Source
- Lafayette activist sues Clay Higgins for blocking him on Facebook — The Current, via Louisiana Illuminator, November 2, 2026
