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Much to his credit, Rep. William Sinclair is trying again in the Colorado General Assembly. Sinclair, a Colorado Springs Republican, introduced an anti-SLAPP bill that was narrowly defeated last year, and he has introduced a similar bill this year.
SLAPP is an acronym for Strategic Lawsuit Against
Public Participation,
and it worked like this in the
case of Erick Krystkowiak, a captain in the U.S. Air Force
stationed in Colorado Springs.
In 1999, he went to a public hearing and testified against an apartment complex proposed for his neighborhood. The apartment developer, the W.O. Brisben Company of Cincinnati, sued him for $16 million. Krystkowiak prevailed in court, but ran up $25,000 in legal bills.
(Lest I be accused of ambrosism, some of this comes from reporting by Kyle Henley in the Colorado Springs Gazette.)
That Krystkowiak eventually prevailed shows that there wasn't much basis to the developer's suit. But that isn't why SLAPP actions happen.
The idea is to use our judicial system to silence your opponents. File a lawsuit against them, no matter how baseless, and you'll tie them up with depositions and discovery, so they won't have the time or energy to continue addressing the public issue that caused them to speak up in the first place. Even if they get the case dismissed, they face substantial costs -- a $25,000 legal bill might be a routine expense for a large corporation, but enough to bankrupt a mere citizen concerned about his neighborhood.
A SLAPP action isn't about justice. It's about making citizens scared to speak about a public matter at a public meeting. It's about using the civil courts to deny people their First Amendment rights to free speech and to petition the government for redress of grievances. The government cannot abridge those rights -- but moneyed people can use the court system for the same end.
Sinclair's anti-SLAPP law would raise the bar on such litigation by giving judges more power to grant a summary dismissal if the lawsuit is based on testimony at a public hearing.
This looks like a motherhood-and-apple-pie issue -- after all, aren't we citizens supposed to address public bodies about issues that concern us? Shouldn't we be able to do that without fear of being bankrupted by specious litigation intended to silence us?
And isn't the public interest best served by a robust
and full discussion? That was the philosophy when our
state constitution was adopted in 1876. Article 5, Section
16 provides that for any speech or debate in either
house, or any committee thereof, they [members of the
General Assembly] shall not be questioned in other
place.
This means that our legislators are free to address issues in session and in committee meetings without being sued for defamation. But there are legislators who don't think their constituents can be trusted to speak at public meetings.
When Sinclair's bill threatened to pass last year, the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry dispatched its lobbyists with the argument that discouraging SLAPP actions would give citizens immunity for lying at public meetings.
During my journalist career in the boondocks, I have attended hundreds of public meetings -- town boards, city councils, county commissions, zoning boards, sewer boards, water boards, school boards, hospital boards. Since most legislators served in local government before getting sent to Denver, they've likely done the same.
I don't know about them, but I've heard scores of prevarications at public meetings. I've heard developers lie about their intentions to pave streets and install sidewalks when they wanted an annexation approved. I've heard electric generation and transmission companies lie about their delivery capacity and proposed power-line routes. I've heard diverters lie about how they would use the water they proposed taking from the Western Slope.
I've heard the cable-TV companies lie about adding channels and improving service when they wanted a rate increase, back in the days when cable franchises were a local matter.
People do lie at public meetings. In my experience, the liars are seldom the concerned citizens that CACI seems worried about -- but it does happen from time to time.
And so if CACI and its legislative lackeys are truly concerned about lies at public meetings, here's a proposed amendment to Sinclair's HB-1192, which a House committee will consider this week:
Make it a felony, good for at least five years in the penitentiary, to lie at a public meeting. Require the attorney general to investigate and prosecute any such complaint filed by any citizen. Send the developers and the diverters to prison, along with vocal citizens, if they deliberately mislead at a public meeting.
If CACI will support this, then we'll know that it's truly concerned about truth. Otherwise, it seems safe to conclude that CACI really wants nothing more than the continued protection of corporate bullies.
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