Why the Iowa Senate finally approved enhanced First Amendment protections

a surprisingly heavy lift

Former Carroll Times Herald co-owner Douglas Burns is pictured as a child with his predecessors in leadership at the newspaper: his uncle, James B. Wilson, and grandfather, James W. Wilson, both publishers at the newspaper that was in the family for three generations. (photo courtesy of Douglas Burns)

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When the Iowa House and Senate approve a bill unanimously, you might assume it was easy to get the measure to the governor’s desk. But appearances can be deceiving. Sometimes, a unanimous vote for final passage obscures years of hard work to pull a bill over the finish line.

So it was with House File 472, which took effect on July 1. The law will make it easier for Iowans to defend themselves when facing meritless lawsuits filed in order to chill speech. Such cases are often called “strategic lawsuits against public participation,” because the plaintiffs have no realistic chance to win in court. Rather, they are suing as a means to silence or retaliate against critics.

Iowa was the 38th state to adopt an “anti-SLAPP” law, according to the Washington, DC-based Institute for Free Speech, which advocates for such legal protections across the country.

If not for one state senator’s determined opposition, Iowa might have joined that club years earlier.

The long-running effort to pass Iowa’s anti-SLAPP bill illustrates how one lawmaker can block a measure that has overwhelming bipartisan support and no meaningful opposition from lobby groups.

PROTECTING “THE CORE FREEDOMS OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT”

House File 472 creates “a special motion for expedited relief in actions involving the exercise of the right of freedom of speech and of the press, the right to assemble and petition, and the right of association.” David Walker, a retired Drake University law professor and longtime chair of the Iowa Commission on Uniform State Laws, highlighted the bill’s key provisions in testimony before an Iowa Senate subcommittee in January 2025. (Iowa’s law closely tracks model language from the Uniform Law Commission.)

Walker explained how the bill “protects and encourages the core freedoms of the First Amendment,” preventing powerful forces from using nuisance, defamation, or other kinds of lawsuits to muzzle critics. Defendants can ask a court to promptly consider a motion to dismiss such lawsuits. After being sued, they have 60 days to file that motion for expedited relief. The court must schedule a hearing within 60 days of receiving that motion, and must rule on it within 60 days of that hearing. Defendants can appeal if the court denies their motion to dismiss.

Importantly, Walker said, the anti-SLAPP bill freezes discovery while the motion to dismiss is pending. (The court can order discovery “if good cause is shown.”) Without such a freeze, litigants can rack up huge legal expenses during the discovery process, which may involve depositions, productions of documents, or court appearances.

Many lawsuits take years to resolve. Walker noted that the Iowa State Bar Association’s litigation section strongly supported provisions of the bill that “provide a quick process for the hearing before the court.” The bar association was among a dozen entities that registered in favor of the anti-SLAPP bill in 2025.

Finally, the bill provides a sanction by allowing defendants to recover reasonable attorney’s fees and costs if they succeed in getting the lawsuit dismissed through the expedited process. That’s a “protection against Pyrrhic victories” in court, Walker said.

At the same subcommittee meeting, Pete McRoberts spoke in favor of the bill on behalf of the ACLU of Iowa. “Frequently, bad actors use the court system to stifle people’s First Amendment rights,” he told senators. Courts are supposed to settle grievances and resolve differences between parties. “They’re not to be designed to bankrupt people into submission against the intentions of the First Amendment.”

Walker brought senators a letter in support of the bill from prominent conservative attorney Jim Bopp, who has represented organizations including the National Right to Life Committee. McRoberts likewise reminded senators that anti-SLAPP bills are not partisan; the ACLU (which is often aligned with progressive causes) had filed a brief in support of President Donald Trump in a case implicating his political speech.

Lobbyists representing the Iowa Newspaper Association and Iowa Broadcasters Association also spoke at the Senate subcommittee in January. They emphasized that the bill would protect all individuals, not just media organizations.

The Institute for Free Speech put it this way in a news release celebrating passage of Iowa’s law in May:

The new anti-SLAPP law is not just for journalists or activists, who are often common targets of SLAPP suits—it protects every Iowa citizen’s right to speak freely on matters of public concern. Whether posting an online review, reporting harassment, or speaking at a public meeting, Iowans now have legal protection against retaliatory litigation.

By deterring meritless suits designed to silence speech, Iowa has created an environment where citizens can more confidently participate in public discourse without fear of devastating legal intimidation.

(Disclosure: the Institute for Free speech works on around 20 issues related to political speech rights. As part of its efforts to combat content-based discrimination, the organization represented me in a federal lawsuit that prompted the Iowa House to grant me press credentials for the first time in 2024.)

Persuasive testimony at a subcommittee doesn’t always carry the day in the Iowa legislature, but Republican State Senators Jeff Reichman and Jeff Taylor and Democratic Senator Matt Blake did advance the anti-SLAPP bill (then numbered Senate File 47) from the subcommittee.

The next step in the Iowa Senate would be a heavier lift—and wouldn’t have been possible without other pieces coming together.

A PERSISTENT ADVOCATE IN THE IOWA HOUSE

State Representative Steven Holt began working on anti-SLAPP bills in 2018, largely because of a lawsuit against the Carroll Times Herald, located in the county next to Holt’s western Iowa district. A former Carroll police officer sued the newspaper after its investigative reporter Jared Strong covered the cop’s inappropriate relationships with teenage girls. (David Enrich described the legal battle in chapter 9 of his 2025 book Murder the Truth: Fear, the First Amendment, and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful.)

The newspaper prevailed in court, because Strong’s reporting was accurate. But legal costs of around $140,000, combined with canceled subscriptions and advertising from locals who sympathized with the plaintiff, severely undermined the newspaper financially. In an effort to save money, co-owner Douglas Burns cut back from printing the paper five times a week to twice a week in 2019. He created a GoFundMe page seeking to raise additional funds. He even contemplated suicide because of the stress, he later told journalist Dave Hoekstra. Burns and his family were eventually forced to sell the Times Herald in 2022.

As chair of the Iowa House Judiciary Committee, Holt could guide bills in his jurisdiction past legislative hurdles and deadlines. He also had the power to assign bills to members of his caucus. Republican State Representative Dustin Hite, an attorney, floor managed an early version of anti-SLAPP legislation in 2020, as well as the first anti-SLAPP bill to incorporate Uniform Law Commission language in 2021. House members approved both bills unanimously, but they died in the Senate.

After Hite lost to a Republican primary challenger in 2022, Holt floor managed subsequent anti-SLAPP bills himself. He introduced and led debate on a 2023 bill, which the chamber approved by 94 votes to 1. It got through a Senate subcommittee, but went no further.

Sometimes lawmakers give up on bills that keep hitting a wall on the other side of the rotunda. But again this year, Holt introduced an anti-SLAPP bill. Again, he referenced the Carroll Times Herald’s plight during floor debate in March. Again, House members approved the bill unanimously.

Why did Holt have to keep pushing the same bill over and over? And why was the outcome different this year? Two factors seem most important.

CHANGE AT THE TOP OF A KEY COMMITTEE

When a popular bill fails, sometimes a lobby group is responsible. Last year, Kali White VanBaale wrote about the seven-year journey to pass legislation regulating non-medical “prescription switching,” over the objections of insurance companies and pharmacy benefit managers.

But the lobbyist declarations show no outside group was registered against Iowa’s anti-SLAPP bills in 2020, 2021, or 2023. The adversary was inside the building.

A committee chair can kill a bill by not assigning it to a subcommittee, or by assigning it to a subcommittee that never meets, or by failing to bring it before the full committee, even if it came out of subcommittee with bipartisan support.

In this case, the obstacle didn’t appear to be State Senator Brad Zaun, who led the Senate Judiciary Committee for eight years beginning in 2017. Zaun told the Des Moines Register in 2022,

“I honestly don’t have any problems with the bill,” he said, pointing to the Carroll case as a reason the Legislature should take action. “Assuming I’m the judiciary chair in the future, we want to get something done.”

He had his chance after a Senate subcommittee recommended passage of the House anti-SLAPP bill in 2023. But Zaun didn’t bring it up in the full Judiciary Committee that year, or in 2024.

By many accounts, the roadblock was the committee’s vice chair, State Senator Julian Garrett. He told the Des Moines Register in 2022 that the anti-SLAPP bill was unconstitutional because it violated a person’s right to a trial by jury. He also suggested to advocates that the bill was unnecessary, because defendants already can file motions for summary judgment. If successful, those can resolve a case without a trial.

It’s a safe bet Zaun would not have advanced an anti-SLAPP bill in 2025, if he were still in charge of the Judiciary Committee. In February, he signed on as a plaintiff to Donald Trump’s consumer fraud lawsuit against the Des Moines Register and its longtime pollster, Ann Selzer. Critics have described that suit as a classic example of a SLAPP that has no legal merit and is designed to intimidate the defendants and drain their resources. Plaintiffs seem aware that their case is weak, because they refiled the lawsuit in Polk County District Court on June 30, one day before Iowa’s anti-SLAPP law went into effect.

In any event, Zaun wasn’t in a position to kill the bill again, because he lost his 2024 re-election bid. As a result, Republican State Senator Jason Schultz was in charge of the Judiciary Committee this year. His Senate district includes Carroll County as well as the area Holt represents in the Iowa House. Schultz and Holt live near each other, have collaborated on various bills, and sometimes ride together to and from the state capitol.

Schultz declined my request for an interview. But the ground shifted in favor of the proposal early this year. For the first time, the Senate had a companion bill, introduced by Reichman. Previously, Iowa Senate Republicans had not filed anti-SLAPP bills.

Senate File 47 got a subcommittee hearing in late January. Brad Epperly, a lobbyist for the Iowa newspaper and broadcast associations, pre-empted some of Garrett’s objections in his comments at that subcommittee. Addressing Republican Senators Reichman and Taylor, “because you may have a discussion in caucus about the need for this,” Epperly said, “I can assure you, the need is there.”

Although Iowa rules of civil procedure allow defendants to seek summary judgment, the costs can be quite high, Epperly said. “You can file your motion, but there’s not a state court judge in this state who’s going to grant that motion or even have a hearing, because the other side’s going to say, I have a right to conduct discovery. And they do, by our rules.” The bill lays out “a simple, expedited process,” using the same standards courts already use for summary judgment, but without requiring discovery.

Schultz put the anti-SLAPP bill on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s agenda for its February 11 meeting, well in advance of the first “funnel” deadline for keeping bills alive. The video (available here) shows Garrett didn’t speak against the bill during the meeting, and remained silent as colleagues from both parties approved it by voice vote.

The Cedar Rapids Gazette quoted Schultz as saying after that meeting that Republicans on his committee decided “it is time to move” anti-SLAPP legislation this year. “We have 35 states that have put this in their code. … It’s a standard best practice. We think it’s time to go ahead and move the bill. And at the very least it is time for the full (Senate Republican) caucus to weigh in on it.” He added, “I like it. I support it and I hope we get it done.”

CARBON PIPELINE CRITICS ENGAGE ON THE ISSUE

Advocates for anti-SLAPP bills got some unexpected help last year from Summit Carbon Solutions, which is seeking to build a CO2 pipeline across Iowa. The project is controversial within Republican circles, mainly because Summit Carbon wants to use eminent domain to seize farmland along its proposed pipeline route.

Summit Carbon’s attorneys sent cease and desist letters in November 2024 to at least six Iowans who had publicly criticized the pipeline project, including former U.S. Representative Steve King, Sierra Club staffer Jess Mazour, and two members of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement. The letters accused the critics of making “false and defamatory statements” that “have now exposed you to significant legal liability.”

Some of the pipeline critics came to the Iowa House subcommittee on Holt’s anti-SLAPP bill in February. Mazour told lawmakers,

“I think this is ridiculous, because what I’ve been doing for the last four years is trying to help, holding meetings to make sure Iowans know their rights, learning as much as I can about this project so that people in this state can know how to protect themselves, or what the truth is about this project,” Mazour said. “None of that should be punished. And I shouldn’t have to be worried about going broke, because I’m doing what I am granted under the U.S. Constitution, which is my First Amendment rights.”

Summit Carbon’s letters weren’t the main reason the anti-SLAPP bill gained more traction this year. But they may have fueled momentum for the proposal, especially among Senate Republicans who were on the record against the CO2 pipeline. Some three dozen Iowa GOP lawmakers, including Holt and Schultz, were part of a group called Republican Legislative Intervenors for Justice, which has joined some legal efforts to block Summit Carbon’s use of eminent domain.

SENATORS INSIST ON MEANINGLESS AMENDMENT

Prospects appeared bright for the anti-SLAPP bill. It was finally through Senate Committee, and Holt ran the companion bill (House File 472) through the lower chamber on March 11. All that remained was for Senate Republicans to bring Senate File 47 to the floor, substitute it for the House bill, and send the measure to the governor’s desk.

But weeks passed, and the anti-SLAPP bill was absent from the Senate’s floor debate calendar. I wasn’t able to find out why.

Reichman had filed an amendment to Senate File 47 in late February. The original version stated, “This Act applies to a civil action filed or cause of action asserted in a civil action on or after the effective date of this Act.” Reichman’s amendment would strike the words “or cause of action asserted in a civil action.” The apparent goal was to clarify that the bill would not apply to lawsuits filed before it took effect.

In mid-March, Holt confirmed to me that he hadn’t been consulted about the Senate amendment. I checked with Walker and other attorneys, who agreed that this kind of change to legal procedures would not be retroactive in Iowa regardless. So the amendment would not alter the bill in any substantive way.

My worries abated, then came roaring back in early April, when Iowa Senate leaders put the anti-SLAPP bill on the “unfinished business” calendar. Those bills are still eligible for floor debate, but many of them never see the light of day. Moving a bill to unfinished business could mean there weren’t 26 Republicans supporting it. (Senate GOP leaders generally won’t bring a bill to the floor unless members of their own caucus could pass it without any help from Democrats.)

It was also possible that Senate leaders decided to shelve the bill for some other reason. Every year, some bills with strong bipartisan support don’t make it to the floor.

Finally, Senate leaders might be holding up the anti-SLAPP bill in hope of obtaining some concessions from House Republicans on unrelated legislation, such as appropriations bills. We’ve repeatedly seen that kind of horsetrading under Iowa’s GOP trifecta.

Eventually, the anti-SLAPP bill appeared on the Senate’s debate calendar for April 16. In what was unlikely to be a coincidence, Garrett was absent from the chamber that day.

No one but Reichman spoke during the brief debate on the bill. He withdrew his amendment from Senate File 47 and substituted that bill for the House version. Senators then approved his amendment to the House bill and voted 47 to 0 to send House File 472 back to the lower chamber.

Reichman didn’t respond to my inquiries, so I still don’t know why GOP senators wanted to change the bill in this way. I wondered whether some MAGA Republicans feared attorneys for the Des Moines Register and Selzer would use the new law to toss Trump’s frivolous lawsuit.

“A TREMENDOUS VICTORY” FOR SMALL IOWA MEDIA

When the House took up the amended bill the following week, Holt recalled his years of work with McRoberts, Walker, and others on the issue. He explained the Senate amendment to colleagues, adding, “Professor Walker has advised me that rarely, when anti-SLAPP legislation is passed, is it ever retroactive in the first place. So this amendment really does nothing” but clarify that the bill is forward-looking. That would be “a tremendous victory in trying to protect our small-town newspapers and media outlets from being put out of business,” Holt said. He again referenced the heavy price the Carroll Times Herald owners had paid for “telling the truth.”

Democratic State Representative Megan Srinivas rose to endorse “a great bill, that is valuable for protecting freedom of speech, especially for many of our small-town journalists.” House members approved the bill one last time by 89 votes to 0.

To my knowledge, Governor Kim Reynolds has never publicly expressed an opinion on anti-SLAPP legislation. Even though no corporations or industry groups had lobbied against the bill, I was concerned leaders of Summit Carbon Solutions (some of whom have donated generously to Reynolds’ campaigns) might encourage a veto. But on May 19, the governor’s office announced 25 bill signings, including House File 472, with no additional comment.

Once the bill was guaranteed to go into effect on July 1, I reached out to Douglas Burns, the former Carroll Times Herald publisher who now writes The Iowa Mercury newsletter on Substack. He told me,

Sometimes the truth does prevail, and that will be more likely in Iowa with this essential law in place. It’s a big win for truth, journalism and democracy itself. Community media, small rural newspapers and journalists on emerging platforms in often overlooked or undercovered parts of Iowa, those without deep financial resources, have more protection to probe and question — and eventually publish — public-service stories that hold those in power accountable. That’s good for all Iowans.

In an ideal world, one senator wouldn’t be able to block bipartisan legislation for years, and committee leaders wouldn’t defer to one misguided colleague on something as important as First Amendment rights.

Credit is due to all the advocates and legislators who didn’t give up on passing the anti-SLAPP bill, and to Blake for defeating Zaun in Senate district 22 last November. Without that election result, Iowa would in all likelihood still be in the shrinking club of states that do nothing to stop deep-pocketed plaintiffs from abusing the legal system to punish protected speech.