A Florida Mayor Fights the Gun Lobby

In 2014, two gun-rights organizations, Florida Carry and the Second Amendment Foundation, sued the city of Tallahassee and various of its officials over a pair of laws, passed in 1957 and 1988, that prohibit residents from discharging firearms in public parks. Those local regulations retroactively violated a Florida state law, passed in 2011, preempting local governments from passing any ordinances that regulate guns.

On Tuesday, Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum will appear before Florida’s First District Court of Appeal for oral arguments in that continuing case. Except Gillum will not have the benefit of Tallahassee’s legal team behind him: The same Florida state preemption law prohibits the use of public funds in defending local government officials in any dispute over gun ordinances. So, in this case, the mayor had to procure pro-bono representation.