Bipartisan Group Officially Introduces Bill To Protect Journalists That Was First Reported By TPM

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Kevin Kiley (R-CA) on Thursday officially introduced federal anti-SLAPP legislation, meant to protect journalists and other critics from frivolous lawsuits, particularly of the sort that are expected under the new Trump regime.

I broke the news of the existence of the legislation, and the plan to introduce it, last week. SLAPP stands for strategic lawsuit against public participation, and wealthy people often use them to chill criticism, bury their critics in legal fees and force them to divulge sensitive information during discovery. There is a patchwork of anti-SLAPP measures at the state level, but no federal law; some federal appellate courts don’t allow defendants to use state anti-SLAPP protections, incentivizing those who file these suits to forum shop.

“The rich and powerful are all too willing to use the legal system to bludgeon reporters, activists and whistleblowers with expensive lawsuits, even if the claims have no merit,” Wyden said in a statement.

“Goliath triumphs over David in our justice system when powerful special interests can silence their critics with frivolous strategic lawsuits against public participation, or ‘SLAPPs,’” Raskin added.

And check out the subtle conservative valence of Kiley’s contribution: “The Free Speech Protection Act will stop trial lawyers from abusing our justice system, clogging our courts, and silencing those they deem to have incorrect politics,” he said.

It was important to Raskin to recruit a Republican as part of the effort. Kiley, a swing-district Republican who’d taken Raskin’s seminar at Yale Law and collaborated with him on another journalist protection measure, fit the bill.

Wyden was less successful in courting bipartisan interest, ultimately heading up the Senate version alone.

Without robust Republican support — itself an indictment of both Trump’s anti-press crusade and his tendency to file these lawsuits himself — the legislation may well stall out (despite the fact that Trump has also used state-level anti-SLAPP protections successfully in his own legal defense). Advocates I spoke to chalked it up as a win that the legislation got this far.

The 11th-hour, longshot attempt to get it over the line, though, presages the dark days ahead under the Trump administration. Freedom of speech advocates fear that Donald Trump, or those in his orbit, will use these lawsuits and a weaponized federal law enforcement to intimidate critics and crack down on those who defy them. As always, those with the fewest resources are the most vulnerable.

“I am most worried about it when it comes to SLAPPs against the little guy,” Caitlin Vogus, senior adviser for Freedom of the Press Foundation, told me. “For freelance journalists out there on their own, if you have to defend yourself and spend your own money, you may think twice before you write something true and critical about someone powerful.”