Kincannon Suit Against South Carolina Bar for Violating First Amendment Right to Engage in Offensive Public Discourse

This is older news, but I was discussing this case and civility regulation in my First Amendment and Lawyer Regulation seminar last week, and I didn’t see anything posted here about it and wondered what others thought. Todd Kincannon, the former executive director of the South Carolina Republican Party, is suing (as of July 2014) the South Carolina Commission on Lawyer Conduct for allegedly threatening to discipline (he indicates disbar) him for outrageous and offensive writing and tweets dealing with national political and social issues. Although the allegations of the complaint are vague (attached at the bottom of this article), it appears that his writings to which the South Carolina Bar object as uncivil and unethical are entirely political commentary about public figures or national issues. While Kincannon's tweets are extremely offensive (see here), the writings appear to have no relationship to his practice of law or to his competent or ethical handling of actual cases for clients.  While I have my own views, I would appreciate others’ thoughts on the First Amendment aspects of this case and of civility regulation overall.  Constitutionally, can the bar discipline you for making offensive tweets and political commentary--even extremely offensive comments with racial and sexist overtones--that have no relationship to your actual practice of law?