Sacramento Vice Mayor Karina Talamantes leaned over during a break in a city council meeting on Tuesday, July 22, and said something she probably assumed only one person would hear: "We should go over this disruptions thing, because if we want to ban somebody in the future, like to take them out, we have to point out specifically..."

The microphone was still on.

Mayor Kevin McCarty — both Democrats — responded with the quiet part even quieter: "I know, but the city attorney said we can't do that." Then he added, "I spent my first six months going over this. I wanted to give people, like, probation, like, you can't come..."

Talamantes wasn't discouraged. "We did it last time," she replied. Then she noticed the live mic and reached over to switch it off. The conversation continued — just not on the record.

The meeting that prompted this little strategy session had descended into chaos over the city's agreement with the Central California Intelligence Center, a federally funded operation that shares information with ICE. Sacramento, operating under California's SB 54 sanctuary law, has residents who are deeply opposed to any cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. The public comment period got heated. Speakers shouted profanities. Council eventually cleared the chambers.

And then the two highest-ranking officials in the room sat down and brainstormed how to make sure it doesn't happen again — not by addressing the underlying policy dispute, but by figuring out how to remove the people who show up to object.

Joshua Masias, an organizer with the Sac Immigration Committee who attended the meeting, told the Sacramento Bee what most people watching the footage were already thinking: "It's very authoritative how she wants to use her power."

McCarty's office issued a statement afterward claiming the discussion was about "existing policies and rules" to maintain "effective, orderly, and respectful" meetings. The Sacramento City Attorney's Office declined to comment entirely. Which is interesting, given that the city attorney was apparently the one who told McCarty he couldn't ban people — a legal opinion McCarty seemed to view less as a guardrail and more as an obstacle.

The council, for its part, voted to approve the federal grant funding for the Central California Intelligence Center anyway. So the people who showed up to protest lost on the policy. And if Talamantes gets her way, they won't be allowed back to protest the next one.

This is what it looks like when elected officials treat the First Amendment like a building code — something to work around if you know the right people. McCarty didn't say banning constituents from public meetings was wrong. He said the city attorney told him he couldn't do it. Talamantes didn't push back on the principle. She pushed back on the timeline.