ST. LOUIS — City officials on Monday sued Missouri in federal court in an effort to stop the state takeover of the St. Louis police department.

The lawsuit says a clause in the new state law that forbids city officials from “interfering” in any way with the board violates their First Amendment rights to speak out against it.

And it says provisions requiring the city to spend more of its budget on the police department violate the state constitution.

Aldermanic President Megan Green, who is named as a co-plaintiff along with the city itself, said on Monday that city officials had to challenge the new law.

“We’re not going to go along with something we think is unconstitutional,” she said.

The lawsuit marks the city’s latest bid to stop the takeover. Advocacy in Jefferson City didn’t work. Gov. Mike Kehoe sped the bill through the Republican-dominated legislature in mere weeks this year, casting it as a way to revive a beleaguered force, reduce crime and stop the flow of people out of the city.

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But city leaders — all Democrats — have maintained the plan will make the department less accountable to citizens and less safe to live in, and had been looking for weeks for a way to sue.

They ultimately landed on a handful of provisions in the law that officials think go too far.

The interference clause, they say, is unconstitutional because it could feasibly prohibit Green’s federally protected rights to speak out against or protest the board's actions, or even petition for the new law's repeal.

The lawsuit itself, the city says in the suit, could be interpreted as interfering.

The city also says the rules mandating additional funding for the department overlook key clauses in Missouri’s constitution. For instance, the state constitution says the legislature can pass such a mandate for police departments “established” by a state board. But city lawyers say the St. Louis police department is already “established,” and is simply being taken over by a state board.

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