Iowa lawmakers need to stop trying to intimidate

If a pipeline company can’t handle the heat of public debate, maybe it should stay out of the dining room.

Randy Evans
| Guest columnist

Randy Evans is a retired journalist.

Last week, the public and political controversy over plans to build a nearly 1,000-mile carbon dioxide pipeline through Iowa took a serious turn. The pipeline company’s latest tactic demonstrates why Iowa should finally pass a so-called anti-SLAPP statute; he floated in the legislature for several years.

This is reported by the Iowa Capital Dispatch that Summit Carbon Solutions, an Ames company founded by businessman Bruce Rastetter, sent letters to six opponents of its plans to use eminent domain to build the pipeline. With eminent domain, Summit can force landowners along the route to sell easements to the company so it can bury the proposed 2-foot-diameter pipe on their land.

The letters demand that the recipients retract what Summit considers false and defamatory statements by the six critics and stop making similar comments in the future. The letters warn recipients that their statements “expose you to significant legal liability.”

This was reported by the Cedar Rapids Gazette recipients are Steve King, former congressman from Kieron; Jess Mazur of Des Moines, official representative of the Sierra Club of Iowa; Barb Kalbach of Dexter and Tom Mohan of Cedar Rapids, both members of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement; Robert Nazario of Iowa Falls, like King, a member of the Free Soil Foundation, and Trent Loos, of Litchfield, Neb., a farmer and podcaster.

The Summit project and the controversy behind it are textbook examples of the public policy issues the country’s founders had in mind when they wrote the First Amendment in 1789. Freedom of speech was added to the Constitution to guarantee the people of the new nation the right to express their observations and opinions on important matters of public policy.

But what Summit is trying to do—silence critics with a large following—goes against the spirit of the Constitution’s guarantees of free speech. The summit’s threats of litigation, real or empty, could chill future public comments from people, businesses and organizations opposed to the controversial pipeline.

This new Summit tactic demonstrates why the Iowa Legislature should finally pass an anti-SLAPP statute. Thirty-three states have passed such laws in recent years.

Retaliatory lawsuits like the one Summit is threatening against its six critics can have a profound effect on citizens’ free speech. If Summit follows through on his veiled threat and sues the six — even if the individuals ultimately win — the cost of such a defense could be staggering.

Such lawsuits are often brought to intimidate citizens from speaking out on matters of public interest or to intimidate journalists from covering important policy issues.

Anti-SLAPP laws come from an acronym that stands for “strategic lawsuits against public participation.” These laws do not bar plaintiffs from filing libel or defamation lawsuits. Instead, anti-SLAPP laws generally establish an expedited process for judges to decide claims arising from people or companies exercising First Amendment rights over matters of public interest.

Under an anti-SLAPP bill that stalled in the Legislature in 2021, if such defamation or slander cases are resolved in favor of the defendants, the person or company filing the lawsuit — often a plaintiff with deep pockets or an ulterior motive — would be responsible for recovering reasonable attorney’s fees defendants

The statements at issue in Summit’s letters to the six critics were unlikely to cause a company with the word “Solutions” in its corporate name to lose its reputation or credibility in the community.

For example, one critic’s statement accusing the Iowa Public Utilities Commission of a “conspiracy” to disenfranchise landowners, or another critic’s remark that coal pipelines could be deadly, seem much closer to opinion or hyperbole than statements of proven fact. .

The late Iowa Chief Justice Mark Cady said it well in the decision of the Supreme Court of 2014. The ruling comes in the case of Rick Bertrand, a candidate for the Iowa State Senate seat in Woodbury County, who sued his opponent Rick Mullin over the content of a campaign ad that Mullin purchased.

Cady wrote in the court’s 6-0 decision in favor of Mullin: “The First Amendment protects the use of “rhetorical hyperbole” and “expressive expressions” intended to inspire contempt for the purposes of protected speech. After all, ridicule is often the strongest weapon in the hands of a public writer.”

In the case of the Summit’s pipeline proposal, Mazur told the N’West Iowa Review last year“The summit is using its power to deprive people of democracy and rights. For this they entered into a conspiracy with the Iowa Committee.

She told the Iowa Capital Dispatch last week, “This is clearly an attempt at intimidation to silence us and limit our free speech rights.”

King told Waterloo radio station KXEL last week, “These are just threats that say, ‘Shut up or we’re going to sue you because we don’t like the truth and how it hurts our business model.’

The pipeline project is “the biggest piece of crap the world has ever seen,” King told KXEL listeners, because it would be paid for by billions of dollars in federal tax breaks and weaken landowners’ property rights if Summit is allowed to use eminent domain. power.

King, Mazur and the other recipients of Summit’s cease-and-desist letters likely feel that this free-speech dispute needs a little President Harry Truman: If the pipeline company can’t handle the heat of public debate, maybe it should stay out of the cafeteria.

Randy Evans is a retired journalist. Contacts: [email protected].