The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington sued the city, arguing the transit agency infringed free speech rights of the Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign by refusing to carry its pro-Palestinian placards on buses.
The group's advertising bore the words: "Israeli War Crimes: Your Tax Dollars at Work," next to a picture of children standing next to a damaged building.
The Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign had paid for the advertising to run on 12 Metro buses run by King County, shortly after it received approval from a private company that handles advertising for King County's transit system.
In reaction, a pro-Israel group led by conservative commentator David Horowitz said it proposed placards to run on 25 buses. Those ads would have carried the words "Palestinian War Crimes: Your Tax Dollars at Work," next to a picture of a bus engulfed in flames.
The rival advertising campaigns were going to run simultaneously on Seattle's Metro bus system.
But neither side succeeded in having its placards on the buses, because on December 23 King County, which runs public transit in Seattle and neighboring communities, said it would no longer carry political advertising on buses.
Instead, the county said it would restrict itself to commercial advertising and ads from government agencies geared toward a specific purpose.
"In a free and democratic society, we cannot allow the government to suppress lawful speech, even speech that may stir emotions," Kathleen Taylor, executive director of the ACLU of Washington, said in a statement about the suit on Wednesday.
The ACLU's lawsuit against King County and on behalf of the pro-Palestinian group was filed in federal court in Seattle. It seeks a court order to force King County to place the group's placards on Metro buses.
When he issued the ban on advertising, King County Executive Dow Constantine said the "escalation of this issue" from a proposal for 12 placards to an international fracas had created "security concerns that compel reassessment."
In response to the ACLU's lawsuit, King County spokesman Frank Abe said, "We welcome the opportunity for the court to clarify standards regarding Metro's ability to regulate ads on its buses."
(Reporting by Laura L. Myers in Seattle: Additional reporting and writing by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles: Editing by Greg McCune)
