Legislators

A bill that would have substantially reformed Maryland's law against strategic lawsuits against public participation, or "SLAPPs," was defeated in the state Senate yesterday by a 25-21 vote.

S.B. 221 would have provided a number of substantial revisions to the law, including removing the requirement that lawsuits be brought in "bad faith" to qualify as SLAPPs, creating clear procedural rules for how to dispose of SLAPPs, and clearly defining what kind of conduct is protected by the law.

Update: A House committee announced late Monday that the bill would not be considered, after a prominent senator announced he would not support it.

The Superior Court of California for the county of Sacramento entered an order Friday ruling that the California assembly – the lower house of the state legislature – must release budget-related records to news organizations under the state’s Legislative Open Records Act.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that a legislator’s act of casting a legislative vote is not protected personal speech for First Amendment purposes. The Court’s opinion reverses a decision by the Nevada Supreme Court, which had held that a state recusal law infringed on the free speech rights of local legislators.

In the final oral argument of the term, the U.S. Supreme Court considered today whether recusal rules interfere with First Amendment rights legislators may have in their legislative votes. Some of the justices' questions in Nevada Commission on Ethics v.