In the lame duck session, the energy on Capitol Hill is busy and frazzled, as Democrats try to squeeze in any lingering priorities before they’re shut out of power for at least two years. Republicans are largely intent on blocking or slowing down those priorities, while members jockey for position in the new trifecta.
Amid the frenzy, a bipartisan group — somewhat unusual in and of itself — is quietly making a longshot, eleventh-hour attempt to pass federal protections for journalists and other critics before President-Elect Donald Trump and his famously thin-skinned coterie take over.
On the House side, the effort is being led by Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Kevin Kiley (R-CA). On the Senate side, it’s being spearheaded by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR). Both sides plan to introduce their bills in early December, per spokespeople from Raskin and Wyden’s offices. TPM is first to report the existence of this legislation, and the plans to introduce it.
“I’m very interested in the whole anti-SLAPP issue,” Wyden told TPM in a Senate elevator on his way back from a vote.
The legislation, a federal anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) bill, would help journalists and other critics dismiss frivolous lawsuits in federal court. Both Trump and his close advisors, including billionaire Elon Musk, have made liberal use of the kind of suit anti-SLAPP legislation would address; plaintiffs often file these suits without any hope of winning their cases, but aim to chill criticism, bury their critics in legal fees and force them to disclose sensitive information through discovery. Trump has sued or at least sent letters threatening to sue a host of media companies, including CBS, the New York Times, the Daily Beast and the Washington Post. Musk is currently waging lawfare against Media Matters, which laid off staff, the advocacy news outlet said, in response to his legal assault.
Advocates have been pushing for a federal anti-SLAPP law because the state patchwork of laws varies in strength. Additionally, some federal appellate circuits allow state anti-SLAPP protections to be invoked in federal cases and some don’t, encouraging the often rich and powerful plaintiffs who want to file these suits to forum shop for a court in which the defendant can’t use state protections. This threat looms largest for vulnerable people including independent journalists or those at small outlets, who lack a battery of lawyers to protect them, and even low-profile critics who are dragged to court for circulating a petition or making critical comments online.
Raskin and Kiley are planning to reintroduce Raskin’s SLAPP Protection Act, which didn’t go far when he introduced it in 2022. Wyden will introduce a Senate version of the bill.
“He now has a Republican partner on the bill,” Caitlin Vogus, senior adviser for Freedom of the Press Foundation, told TPM of Raskin, who has long been pushing the issue. “That could be part of the ingredients going into making it happen now.”
The bipartisan team, an increasing rarity in Congress even on anodyne issues, stems at least in part from the men’s relationship outside of the House. Kiley took Raskin’s class at Yale Law when the latter was taking weekly trips from the Maryland Senate to give his lecture.
The two collaborated on the PRESS Act, which passed through the House in 2022. That bill, meant to protect journalists from the federal government forcing them to disclose information and identify sources, has stalled out in the Senate. The bill has bipartisan support in the upper chamber — including from Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) — but was reportedly blocked by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) at the Senate Judiciary Committee. He previously said it “would open a floodgate of leaks damaging to law enforcement and our nation’s security.” Cotton’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Trump likely ended any lingering chance that the bill would pass anyway, writing on Truth Social last week that “REPUBLICANS MUST KILL THIS BILL!” and linking to a PBS interview in which Jodie Ginsberg, the CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists, urged the Senate to pass it.
“Based on the feedback we’ve received from Senators and President Trump, it’s clear we have work to do to achieve consensus on this issue,” Kiley said in a statement. “I’m looking forward to working with the new Administration on a great many areas of common ground as we begin a new era of American prosperity.”
After at least the moral victory of House passage for the PRESS Act, Raskin and Kiley are teaming up again — a notable collaboration, as recruiting Republicans to support the bills has proven difficult.
“This was a bipartisan issue historically,” Vogus said. “But we’ve seen an uptick in SLAPP cases filed by conservatives, or at least very high-profile cases filed by conservatives.”
Republican opposition will make the bills difficult to pass, particularly through the Senate — even though, as advocates point out, Republicans too have benefitted from anti-SLAPP protections in the past.
Trump himself has used state level anti-SLAPP laws in his defense at least twice. He invoked the Texas anti-SLAPP law when Stormy Daniels sued him for tweets in which he accused her of lying about their affair. That case was dismissed.
And just last week, Trump’s lawyers indicated that they may rely on Pennsylvania’s anti-SLAPP law in a case where the exonerated Central Park Five sued him for defamation.
“President-Elect Trump’s statements about the Central Park Five, made in the context of responding to accusations during a nationally televised debate, squarely fall within the protections afforded by Pennsylvania’s anti-SLAPP statute,” his lawyer wrote in a letter to the U.S. District judge.
Still, passing bipartisan legislation at all, much less in the graveyard of the lame duck, will prove daunting.
“Frankly, getting the bill passed during the lame duck shouldn’t be the goal — it’s very difficult to get anything passed during the lame duck when there’s so much going on,” Vogus said. “Getting the bill introduced puts down a marker that Congress cares about this and can tackle it right away in the next Congress.”
That would require a come-to-Jesus moment from Republican majorities in both chambers, and from their leader, who, in between touting his Cabinet nominees at midnight on Tuesday, was busy railing against the New York Times’ “Magot Hagerman, a third rate writer and fourth rate intellect,” for failing to write flattering stories about him.
Does anyone care anymore about the First Amendment to the Constitution?
I know most of you are tired, but this is the moment when winners step up and losers start whining. I say we make a concerted effort to call Republican Senators - whether from your own state or not - and ask whether they want to be counted as men, or Trump’s bitches. I know that if they hear this enough times, a handful of them will refuse to look like whipped dogs, and that’s all we need. One or two to decide they don’t want history to mock them as lapdogs. So how about we stop whining like bitches and start fucking fighting.
”Good night and good luck.”
Murrow said that back, when we knew the honor of something, dear, meaningful, which has been our way of life for a very long time. All because of a campaign promise to Cletus, Who figured that the leopards would only eat other people‘s faces.
Back to the days of the railroad police, McCarthyism, mining police, etc. on the other hand. We’ll see what it’s like to have a government run by a fraternity house, alienator are strongest trading partners, and also our neighbors north and south upon whom we rely. Eric Trump proclaiming this with glee. Forfeit Medicare and Social Security so that billionaires may benefit. Good times.
Trumpism. Because changing the constitution is too much work.
How will legislation matter when Trump can just send SEAL Team 6 to knock off anyone he pleases as an “official act” and get full immunity?
Face it folks, we’re entering the “Caligula” faze of American history. From far enough away it might be entertaining, but I’d never want to be anywhere near where the action is right now.
That there is the dilemma.
You do that and you destroy the thing that you’re trying to save.