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Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Missouri bill seeks to crack down on meritless lawsuits targeting free speech
State Sen. Mike Henderson stands as he is introduced to the Missouri Senate on the first day of the 2025 legislative session in January (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent). Lawmakers are once again pushing for Missouri to join more than 30 other states that have enacted protections against frivolous litigation aimed at silencing free speech. The proposal targets strategic lawsuits against public participation, or 'SLAPPs,' which are often filed without any expectation of winning in court and are instead simply an attempt to intimidate a person or organization by threatening a lengthy, expensive legal battle. 'These are lawsuits used to punish people with costly litigation to suppress free speech,' state Sen. Mike Henderson, a Desloge Republican sponsoring the legislation, told the Missouri Senate Judiciary Committee last week. 'Even if a defendant wins, the financial burden discourages them and others from exercising their free speech.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX A coalition of groups testified in support of the bill, including Missouri Right to Life and the Missouri Press Association. There was no opposition during the Senate hearing. 'News organizations and journalists across the country are frequent targets of these meritless lawsuits that aim to silence reporting through expensive and protracted litigation,' said Chad Stebbins, executive director of the Missouri Press Association. 'Missouri's current statutes only protect conduct or speech undertaken or made in connection with a public hearing or public meeting.' The bill would require plaintiffs in these lawsuits to demonstrate a basis for their claim early in the litigation A judge would then have to rule in an expedited manner on whether the case should be dismissed, easing any expense to the defendant and avoiding a drawn out process. Businesses and politicians are increasingly using legal intimidation to stifle journalism and dissenting voices. Elon Musk's social media company X filed multiple lawsuits against liberal advocacy group Media Matters for America in 2023 over reports by the nonprofit organization that led to an advertising boycott. Media Matters was forced to lay off dozens of staffers because of the lawsuits. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has reportedly spent more than $500,000 defending himself in a defamation lawsuit over how a book he recently wrote described debunked claims of election fraud made in the video presentation to state legislators. The suit was filed by the wife of a Texas multimillionaire and ardent support of Donald Trump. In 2023, a professor at University of Notre Dame filed a defamation lawsuit against a student-run, conservative Catholic newspaper after it published a news story about her abortion-rights activism. Because of Indiana's anti-SLAPP law, the case was dismissed but the paper still spent $175,000 defending itself. Citizens exercising their free speech rights should not have to endure the toll of litigation and the risk of financial ruin to defend themselves against meritless claims, said Susan Klein of Missouri Right to Life. 'Obviously we have freedom of speech, but sometimes people or organizations are intimidated by the threat of a lawsuit and are encouraged to not speak out,' she said. 'And so because of this harassment and intimidation, we need to have some added protection for our freedom of speech.' The Missouri anti-SLAPP legislation has had success in both the House and Senate in previous years, but has never made it to the governor's desk. Last year, it was included in a wide-ranging judicial bill that cleared the House but ran into gridlock in the Senate, where GOP infighting resulted in fewer bills passing than any year in living memory. 'This has been around since 2021,' state Sen. Nick Schroer, a Republican from Defiance and chair of the judiciary committee, told Henderson during last week's hearing. 'You've got my full support.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
19-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The Missouri Sunshine Law's power is the people's
The Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City, as pictured September 26, 2023 (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent). No Missouri law is more important to holding government accountable than the state's Sunshine Law. As a newspaper editor, I had a deep appreciation of the impact of the law as a reporting tool. But the Sunshine Law exists for ordinary citizens, not just journalists. Every Missourian should value the power of this law, which protects access to public records and meetings. When the Sunshine Law took effect 52 years ago, it was broad and simple. It made clear that citizens have a right to know how their government operates, in large and small ways. In essence, any record the government kept or maintained was a record that should be considered open to the public's view. And the contents of meetings, with few exceptions, also were to be open to the public. Over the years, though, legislators have passed dozens of exemptions — narrowly construed exceptions that allow public officials to keep certain documents secret. While the legislators who have pushed these exemptions often seem to be well-meaning, the net effect of all these exemptions is to chip away at this important law, diminishing the rights of citizens to look inside their government and its processes. The efforts to create new loopholes around this law continue to this day. After retiring last year as a journalism professor, former Missouri Press Association Director Doug Crews invited me to speak out on bills affecting public records access, and I had the chance to testify against two such bills earlier this year. In both instances, the sponsors of the bills were trying to close access to records under the guise of providing privacy to citizens. One bill would close records regarding people who make reservations in state parks. The sponsor said information about park users needs to be private because criminals could discover when people would be camping, leaving their homes at risk of burglary. I asked the sponsor of the bill if this had ever happened. No, he said — but it could! I doubt the burglars in my community have the patience or stamina to file public records requests to identify potential targets. The other bill would protect the identities of farmers and ag companies who are mega-users of water — those who pump 500,000 gallons of water or more from lakes, rivers or wells. The sponsor of this bill also was trying to provide privacy — in this case to the farmers who were mega-users. We live in a state that struggles with drought conditions nearly every year. Drought and water shortages affect some portions of Missouri every year, and severe droughts have been experienced multiple times. It's hard to imagine a resource of higher public interest than water. The public has a right to know about major water users — in any industry. The state requires ag interests who pump more than 500,000 gallons of water a day to file reports about that use. Those records should not be hidden from taxpayers and citizens under a cloak of secrecy. The way this bill was written, it would protect operations like Denali Water Solutions, which raised a literal stink last year when it spread a sludge made up of meatpacking waste mixed with water on farmland in several southwest Missouri counties. Why should we grant secrecy to an operation like that? Aside from the interest the press may have in a public issue like the Denali story, private citizens have an interest in obtaining information about mega-users of water. If I'm a small farmer and my well runs dry, shouldn't I be able to find out which of my neighbors is pumping from the water table we share? These two bills are examples of this continuing effort to close more records — an effort that needs to be challenged. Transparency is vital to the effective functioning of government. Citizens of Missouri have a right to know how taxpayer dollars are spent and who is using public resources. Transparency is essential to accountability, which lead to better-informed citizens — people who care and will be engaged in their government and the decision-making process. The Sunshine Law is a valuable tool that should be protected from the addition of well-meaning exemptions that will remove public information from the public's view.
Yahoo
14-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Joplin's birthday, Irish heritage to be celebrated with events Monday
Joplin's 152nd birthday and recognition of the city's Irish fathers in observance of St. Patrick's Day will be celebrated Monday with speakers who will make presentations at a Joplin City Council meeting. Chad Stebbins, executive director of the Missouri Press Association and retired director of Missouri Southern State University's Institute of International Studies, will present 'Joplin's Irish Heritage.' Stebbins has authored books about Thomas Connor, an Irish immigrant who made his way to Joplin during the rise of lead and zinc mining and was Joplin's first millionaire. Connor built what became the famous Connor Hotel at Fourth and Main streets. Another important Irishman in Joplin's history is Patrick Murphy, an Irish immigrant who came from Pennsylvania and settled a 40-acre tract west of Joplin Creek in 1871. That tract became Murphysburg, which merged with Joplin, a settlement on the hill east of the creek in 1873. Murphysburg is Joplin's first historically designated residential district. Another speaker, Brad Belk, community historian at MSSU, will speak about the significance of remembering Joplin's founding. The actual date when the city was chartered is March 23, 1873. Patrick Tuttle, director of the Joplin Convention and Visitors Bureau, will recognize the history and significance of Joplin City Hall, 602 S. Main St., where council meetings are held. It was once the Newman Building, which was a significant retail business for decades. Ahead of the council observance, the Joplin Celebration Commission will hold ceremonies for the public at 1:30 p.m. Monday to unveil two new storyboards on the Heritage Trail. One of the new storyboards tells the history of John C. Cox, Joplin's first homesteader and the man who gave the city its name. The unveiling of that storyboard and another, titled 'Unrest,' about conflict between mining camps, will be held at the end of the driveway where the Cox estate is located, 619 E. Persimmon Ave. These are the eighth and ninth Heritage Trail markers to be placed. The initial markers along the trail between Landreth Park and the Broadway Bridge were dedicated in 2022, and three more were added last year in Spiva Park. The celebration commission also is working on plans for Route 66's 100th anniversary and the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, both in 2026.
Yahoo
27-01-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Governor, lawmakers discuss priorities, challenges ahead of State of the State address
Jan. 27—JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe last week outlined challenges and priorities ahead of his annual State of the State address, which is set for 3 p.m. Tuesday. Kehoe, speaking to the Missouri Press Association during a luncheon in the Governor's Mansion, said he will highlight priorities and how he will propose spending state money. "The budget's going to be a little tighter, and I think it's going to be even tighter next year and the year after. Most of that is because of the decreasing money flow we have from the federal government that we saw during COVID," he said. "Making sure we make those decisions to fund the central services but also recognize we have a balanced budget amendment is something that's probably going to be the biggest challenge that we have for the next couple of years. But we'll get through it." Kehoe said he will focus on four priorities: —Public safety and keeping neighborhoods safe. —Helping those in agriculture maintain their ability to be a major part of Missouri's economy. —Economic development and selling the state to businesses around the world. —Education, and particularly vocational and technical education, to make sure all Missourians have employable skills. Rep. Dirk Deaton, R-Noel, chairman of the House Budget Committee, agreed with Kehoe that the budget will likely be leaner than in recent years. "The challenge is we've had a surplus, a historic surplus," Deaton said. "We still have a surplus, although it's decreasing. The surplus was not created entirely by an influx of federal money. But there has been a lot of that over the last several years with the pandemic and various fiscal policy out of Washington. That's all winding down. And so the challenge is going to be as we kind of unwind and spend down the surplus that we do it in a responsible way, that we're doing it on things, making investments in our state's infrastructure and things that last and things that aren't necessarily repeatable every year. If you're spending one-time dollars on ongoing programs, it doesn't work." Kehoe said he wants to maintain services while working on another of his priorities — eliminating the state's income taxes. He admitted that would not happen all at once. "None of the big-picture ones, especially the income tax, which it's the biggest, can be a light switch," Kehoe said. "It's got to be something that's responsible, that funds essential services but ultimately has an end goal. And in the economic development world, even if it takes a matter of years to get to a certain position, as long as you can look an employer or manufacturer who might expand and are looking at moving their management here and tell them, 'Here's what your end goal is, and here's what you think you can get to,' that's a good conversation for us to be able to have. It will be a balance. It will not be easy, but it's still something that we're committed to continue to work on." Kehoe said Amendment 3, passed by voters in November to enshrine abortion rights for women in the Missouri Constitution, will also be in his speech. "You'll hear a lot about our belief in that we should protect innocent life. We said through the campaign that if Amendment 3 were to pass, which we were very much 100% against, we were going to put our hand on the Bible and we would protect the constitution. But we're always going to look for ways to protect innocent life, and there are several different ideas that are churning and have been filed through the Legislature," he said. House Speaker Jon Patterson, R-Lee's Summit, said House members are trying to come up with a plan that makes Missouri as pro-life as possible within the constraints of Amendment 3. "We're looking at a number of the bills that have been filed, and what I see is I don't think we have that bill yet and we're waiting on things to coalesce around a bill," Patterson said. "I'm talking to members about what they think, and there's a wide range of views in this. I don't think there is one yet. We're just trying to find the bill that we think makes Missouri as pro-life as it can be and it will pass the voters. It recognizes that the voters spoke and whatever we do has to pass the will of the voters."
