Today, Sen. Ron Wyden, Rep. Jamie Raskin, and Rep. Kevin Kiley introduced the Free Speech Protection Act, which would create an expedited process for journalists, authors, and their publishers to seek dismissal of baseless lawsuits designed to prevent or stop them from publishing certain information or opinions. These lawsuits—known as strategic lawsuits against public participation, or “SLAPP” suits—are a commonly used tool by which wealthy and powerful individuals bring unfounded defamation or other claims against writers and publishers to intimidate them from exercising their First Amendment rights to speak about and act on public issues.

Defending a lawsuit, even a baseless one, costs a lot of money. Fact-based suits like defamation require some discovery to determine if all of the elements of the claim are met (e.g., falsehood, negligence or actual malice, harm to the plaintiff’s reputation, etc.), allowing claims to be brought that a plaintiff should know will not succeed and forcing the defendant to spend money defending it. As the person pursuing the suit knows, often the author and/or publisher will feel compelled to instead remove the offending material to avoid the expense. 

Anti-SLAPP laws permit writers and publishers who have been sued to quickly and more cheaply obtain dismissal of such cases. Around the country, 34 states and the District of Columbia have already enacted anti-SLAPP laws (which differ somewhat from state to state), but there is currently no federal protection against lawsuits being weaponized to censor speakers. In today’s nationwide media landscape, authors need federal legislation to prevent those who would seek to silence them from shopping for favorable jurisdictions in which to bring these suits.  Moreover, the bipartisan nature of this bill reflects the importance of freedom of speech to everyone on the political spectrum.

The Authors Guild applauds the introduction of this bill, which allows a party in a case they believe is a SLAPP suit to file a special motion to dismiss the case. Once the motion is filed, other proceedings in the case, including discovery, will be stayed until the court rules on it. In most cases, the court is required to issue a ruling within 90 days after the motion is filed.

The Guild looks forward to working with the sponsors’ offices to help move the bill toward swift passage.

Read the full text of the proposed bill here (PDF).