Legal Question in Constitutional Law in Virginia

Re: Can legislators call for an advertising boycott of a newspaper?

The mayor is free to exercise her First Amendment rights whether it be in her local newspaper or wherever as is the councilman also

entitled to exercise his same rights, whether he's calling for the mayor's impeachment(undoubtedly baseless)or recommending that members of the local community refrain from purchasing advertising in the mayor's newspaper.

There is no issue of so-called prior restraint in the situation described in this question as occurred in the 1931 case of Near v. Minnesota which involved a Minnesota law which was invoked by goverment authorities to prevent a local periodical from publishing its news at the risk of being declared guilty of being a nuisance. The Supreme Court headed at that time by Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes concluded that the Minnesota state statutory scheme which was used by government officials to enjoin publication of materials which they found offensive did indeed

constitute a prior restraint on a free press and therefore was in violation of the First Amendment.

There is nothing in the question which has been offered here that is even remotely similar to the facts in the case of Near V. Minnesota decided by the Supreme Court of the United States

in A.D. 1931.

Furthermore, the respective statuses of these two rivals(the mayor and the councilman), whether they be mayor or publisher, citizen or legislator, or whatever, I see as having no relevance whatsoever for purposes of doing the legal analysis.