Following allegations that a Republican state senator tried to bankrupt a local news organization for publishing stories about his alleged use of a homophobic slur, Wisconsin Democrats on Tuesday advocated banning the use of costly, bogus lawsuits to stifle critics.
The Wausau Pilot & Review revealed in 2021 that Cory Tomczyk, a local businessman who was elected to the state Senate in January, used a homophobic epithet against a 13-year-old boy who was speaking in favor of a diversity and inclusion measure that had caused divisions in the community of northern Wisconsin.
Tomczyk filed a defamation suit against the newspaper after denying uttering the epithet. Three attendees who were present at the meeting testified during that case that they overheard Tomczyk use the slur. The New York Times stated that Tomczyk acknowledged using the phrase on several times in a deposition. In April, a judge ultimately threw out the case, stating that Tomczyk had failed to establish that the paper had libeled him.
According to Shereen Siewert, the small nonprofit news site’s founder and editor, the legal battle has already cost the organization close to $200,000 so far. Siewert’s concerns heightened when Tomczyk announced in June that he would appeal the judgment.
He is aware that we are a modest news outlet. He is aware that we are a small business with limited resources, and that pursuing this litigation further will severely harm our finances and jeopardize our ability to operate.
The office of Tomczyk declined to comment on the legislation or the case, and on Wednesday, a call to his lawyer Matthew Fernholz went unanswered.
According to Siewert, the four-person newsroom of The Wausau Pilot & Review has an annual budget of around $185,000. The news website already had to delay hiring a second correspondent due to mounting legal costs. The weight has just recently started to lighten as the news site’s article received widespread media coverage and a GoFundMe campaign received close to $100,000 in donations.
Democrats on Tuesday proposed a plan that would let someone ask a judge to throw out a lawsuit against them if they feel it is an unjustified protest of their right to free expression. The lawsuit may be dismissed and the person who filed it may be required to pay the opposing party’s legal fees if the judge determines that there is no reasonable prospect of the case succeeding.
To resist this kind of political intimidation, Senate Minority Leader Melissa Agard, the bill’s sponsor, stated, “It takes a lot of strength.” The cost and stress of these pointless, protracted legal battles are frequently enough to have chilling effects, even when the lawsuit is unfounded, as it is in Sen. Tomczyk’s case.
Strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs, are the prevalent name for the kind of unjustified litigation that the measure aims to stop. According to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, there are already anti-SLAPP statutes in place in at least 31 states and the District of Columbia.
“This has been long overdue,” Siewert added. “I am so appreciative that legislation is being proposed to safeguard journalists and future small news organizations like ours,”
The bill is unlikely to pass in the state Legislature, which the GOP controls. Bill Lueders, head of the nonpartisan Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, urged Republicans to support the bill at a Democratic news conference unveiling it.
“The defense of transparency is not a partisan issue,” he declared. “Local news outlets are absolutely essential to the crucial task of having an informed electorate, but the difficulties that news organizations face have never been higher.”