The Hill News

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) believes that first amendment rights were violated when a group of Tea Party-affiliated voters were barred from holding a planned meeting in a House office building this week, according to his office on Friday.

The freshman senator had arranged a meeting Thursday in Russell, a Senate office building, for Tea Party activists and members of Congress and informed the Senate Rules Committee “weeks and weeks ago," according to Lee's office. The meeting had been approved, and several members of Congress planned to attend including Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).

According to influential Tea Party group Freedom Works, over two hundred Freedom Works activists planned to attend the event which was going to stream live on C-Span. A group of Tea Party leaders appointed as the Tea Party Debt Commission planned to present and discuss a set of deficit-reduction recommendations with members of Congress.

"The p! oint is these people need to be heard," said Brian Phillips, communications director for Lee. He pointed out that a group of "Occupy Wall Street" protesters were allowed to come into Senate office buildings in the past and stage a public protest in the halls.

"But all of a sudden when the tea party comes in they shut it down," he said.

According to Lee's office, the Rules Committee shut down the meeting because it was being called a hearing and a hearing had not been cleared with the committee.

Freedom Works had been promoting the event as a "Tea Party Hearing On Capitol Hill," apparently raising questions when the Rules Committee obtained a flyer. The committe did not immediately return a call for comment. Lee's office did not extensively promote the event.

According to Phillips, it was Thursday afternoon when someone in the Rules Committee "up and decided the event violated the Rules Committee’s policies and they shut it down."  Lee's office was notified at about 1 p.m., shortly before the meeting scheduled for 2.

Lee attempted to intervene personally. According to Phillips, Lee described the meeting as public and open to anyone who wanted to attend. "[That] doesn't make it a hearing," he said. "It sounds like dozens of meetings we have everyday in our office."

“If Sen. Lee is going to be held accountable for something an outside group put on a blog or on a press release, it's setting a low standard and that’s something else we need to address," Phillips said.

Phillips called it a "head scratcher" and said Lee's office is still trying to determine who made the call to shut down the meeting.

The senator's office is also seeking information on a simultaneous! but apparently unrelated event elsewhere in the Senate office building, Phillips said. Capitol Hill police were on the scene due to concerns over a suspicious package.

According to a statement sent out by Freedom Works on Friday, Rules committee staff removed the microphones set up for the event while Capitol Police blocked the doors of the room.

Lee's office said the event was not evacuated due to concerns about the package, an issue that was resolved shortly after 2 p.m., and the alert about the package did not go out until after Lee had been told the Rules committee was shutting his meeting down.

Lee's office is drafting an open letter to Capitol Hill police in an effort to sort out conflicting reports.

The Tea Party Debt Commission meeting was held off-campus on Thursday. Several members of Congress, including Lee, walked with the group to a nearby location on Massachusetts Ave. owned by Hillsdale College, which Lee called "t! he Hillsdale College 1st Amendment free speech zone" in a twee! t.

According to Freedom Works, Paul, Walsh, Reps. Steve King (R-Iowa), Mike Pence (R-Ind.), Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) and Paul Broun (R-Ga.) attended the meeting.