SLAPPers across the political spectrum use the courts as a weapon against speech they don't like. SLAPPs can be absurd, such as when bar owners sued a magazine for $75,000 for calling their bar a "dive bar" - in a favorable review! SLAPPs can also be seriously chilling, with immediate consequences for democracy. In New Mexico,a nonprofit organization sent out educational fliers about members of the New Mexico state legislature. The fliers included voting records and some campaign contributions for each member. Several months later, three of the state legislators lost reelection. They sued the nonprofit organization over the educational fliers, alleging conspiracy and demanding that the election results be vacated.
Regardless of who is speaking and who is suing, everyone is losing when SLAPPs are allowed to continue. These meritless lawsuits clog the courts, waste resources and contribute to a general culture of litigiousness. Instead of answering speech with speech, SLAPP filers answer speech with subpoenas and spurious claims.
SLAPPs frequently end in settlement, conditioned on silence, apology or retraction, so important ideas are excised from the debate, and critical information - about health, safety, economic security, civil rights and liberties, and government abuse - is withheld from the public. Would-be participants in public life see the devastating effects of lawsuits - on life savings, employment, reputation and even staying insured - and think twice before speaking out.
Judge Nicholas Colabella, Jr., famously said of SLAPPs that a greater threat to First Amendment rights can scarcely be imagined. SLAPPs chip away at the will and ability to speak out, person by person, group by group, issue by issue. James Madison cautioned that "there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations," and his words ring true in the SLAPP context.
The Citizen Participation Act protects against SLAPPs by allowing the defendant of a meritless lawsuit arising from speech to have it quickly dismissed, and to recover the fees, costs and damages incurred in defending against it.
Legitimate lawsuits - true claims for relief - are not affected by the bill's procedural provisions. Only those lawsuits that use the litigation process as a means of harassment and intimidation are dismissed.
Join us in the fight to end the abuse of the courts to chill important debate.