Tom Knighton has been around the internet longer than most and he opens his article with this story to illustrate his warning about what is going on with Texans for Lawsuit Reform in Texas politics now. This outdated group that helped Texans by getting critical legal reforms passed in years past is now betraying those same Texans.
The first site I ever wrote politics for was one I co-owned with a friend who founded it. He turned it into a partnership and, in hindsight, I kind of wish that didn’t happen.
See, he wrote a story about a gubernatorial candidate he’d learned had what we would consider an inappropriate relationship with a 16-year-old girl. We had ample reason to believe the report, but he screwed up by referring to him as a “child molester” when the girl was above the age of consent in Georgia.
We got sued, and let me tell you, lawsuits aren’t fun. Especially when your attorney goes on a year-long mission trip out of the country and hands your case off to another who really wants nothing to do with it, so she says you either have to settle or find another attorney, and pay the retainer all over again.
Knighton goes on to quote conservative attorney James Bopp at RedState.com.
TLR is leading the charge at the Texas Legislature to weaken the Texas Citizens Participation Act, a 13-year-old law designed to stop frivolous SLAPPs (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation). SLAPPs are often baseless defamation suits filed to punish individuals or organizations for speaking out on matters of public concern. The TCPA provides a critical safeguard by allowing defendants to seek early dismissal of these lawsuits and to appeal immediately if a judge refuses to dismiss the case. That’s precisely the protection TLR wants to eliminate through Senate Bill 336 and its companion House Bill 2459.
Why would an organization that claims to fight frivolous lawsuits want to gut a law that does exactly that? Their position is hypocritical. TLR’s millionaire backers are all for reforms that prevent ordinary Texans from suing them, but they’re happy to dismantle protections that stop them from using lawsuits to silence their critics.
and,
Similarly, Texas Right to Life, Texas’s leading pro-life organization, has repeatedly relied on the TCPA to fend off lawsuits designed to silence its advocacy. In 2021, Planned Parenthood sued TRTL for publicizing the availability of private enforcement lawsuits under Senate Bill 8. TRTL used the TCPA to defend its constitutional rights, ensuring that advocacy on abortion policy remains protected.
Another case illustrating the importance of the TCPA involved Mark Lee Dickson, a pro-life activist known for his work advocating for “Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn.” In 2020, Dickson was sued for defamation because he claimed that abortion is murder and that organizations funding abortion are criminals.
Texas Scorecard in May, 2024 wrote the following.
As of May 10, 2024, Transparency USA reported that TLR has more than $29 million in the bank. TLR has become one of the most well-funded PACs in Texas, doling out millions each election cycle, mostly to protect incumbent legislators in the name of being pro-business.
They also have deployed lobbyists to do their bidding. Same-day reporting by Transparency USA showed they’ve spent between $1 million to more than $2 million on lobbyists. Those who crossed TLR, even Republicans who were once allies and voted lock-step with the organization on sound tort legislation, found themselves in the group’s crosshairs.
“A high percentage of House members depend on TLR for most of their money, they don’t depend on their constituents,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told Texas Scorecard. “They don’t depend on the people who elect them, and so they don’t listen to them. They listen to TLR.”
It would be constructive if everyone would call and write their state representatives and senators in Austin and tell them to vote this wretched bill down. This attempt by TLR is really disgusting. Tell them to vote NO on Senate Bill 336 and its companion House Bill 2459.
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