Today the ACLU of Washington joined nonprofit pro-labor group Working Washington in its lawsuit against Sound Transit, challenging the transportation organization's refusal to run ads on their downtown-to-airport light rail cars demanding that we "make all airport jobs good jobs."

Ads that the airport, ironically enough, had no problem running.

The lawsuit, filed on April 5 in U.S. District Court, the lawsuit (Working Washington v. Sound Transit) argues that Sound Transit’s rejection of the ad violates agency policy and the First Amendment.

“A government agency that operates an advertising program open to a wide variety of messages cannot just leave it to the discretion of individual government officials to decide subjectively what is ‘controversial,'" explained ACLU of Washington legal director Sarah Dunne in a statement. "What Sound Transit has done in rejecting the ‘Good Jobs’ ad is to censor a message without a reasonable basis."

From the ACLU's statement:

Sound Transit’s advertising policy states that the agency controls ads displayed at or on its facilities, including “maintaining a position of neutrality on political, religious, and controversial matters.” Its Advertising Standards lists “political” material among 18 categories of restricted materials, and defines political ads and material as that which “promotes or appears to promote any candidate for office, any political party or promotes or implies position on any proposition, referendum, proposed or existing laws, or other ballot measures.”

“The Working Washington ad does not fit any of the grounds Sound Transit gives for prohibiting political ads. In rejecting it, the agency is misapplying its own policy,” Dunne said.