People affiliated with the Proud Boys sued the Clark County (Nevada) Republican Central Committee seeking to prevent the upcoming meeting because, they claim, the state GOP is discriminating against them, the Las Vegas Sun reports.
The judge refused to grant an injunction blocking the Committee from holding its monthly meeting, where it would decide whom to allow on the committee and whom to remove or ban. The ten people with Proud Boy connections claimed the committee was discriminating against them based on their affiliation, with the judge saying it asserts “allegations and evidence with regard to protected-class status.”
However, the judge found that there was no evidence of a “protected-class status” for the members of the Proud Boys. “There has been no credible evidence presented that the (county GOP committee) is discriminating against any of the plaintiffs as a member of a protected class, which arguably I would have jurisdiction to help with,” Clark County District Court Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez said.
Clark County Republican Party Chairman David Sajdak and Vice Chair Stephen Silberkraus said the group bars members of the Proud Boys from their organization, saying they will not allow people who spread “intolerance or hateful, anti-Semitic and racist ideology.”
Judge Gonzalez, however, seemed unlikely to get involved in the case of a membership issue for a private group, saying the county committee “as a private political association, has a total right” to determine its own members.