Politics, Defamation, and Texas Anti-SLAPP Laws

Sure, your political opponent is the spawn of satan and the father of lies. But can you sue him for it?

We Americans are a feisty, restless people. I mean, we rebelled against one government to form our own. And then, within a single century, half of those rebels turned around and rebelled against the new government.

That feistiness has remained a constant in our American society. Though our values may be lofty and noble, our politics are never without name-calling, personal insults, and character attacks.

Hey, free speech!

The National Nerd Alert System has issued the following warning for this area: someone is about to say, “But free speech has limits.”

But free speech has limits. One of those limits is that you can’t lie about people. If someone slanders or defames your character, you can sue and prove them wrong.

However, once you step into the political arena and become a public figure, you lose much of your ability to set the record straight via the judicial system. Your ability to win a defamation claim is next to impossible because you must prove that not only was the statement false but that it was made with “actual malice.”

That’s a high burden.

Lately, however, more and more public figures have been bringing defamation suits. Former President Trump is one such figure. John Lee, a Nevada congressional candidate and former Las Vegas Mayor, filed a defamation case recently against the makers of an attack website. Other examples abound at the national political level. Kari Lake. Rudy Giuliani. The 2000 Mules thing. Dominion Voting.

What’s up with that? Is it just a political strategy?