Texas state Sen. Brian Hughes speaks about the Texas Attorney General’s Office investigating a complaint of vote harvesting in Gregg County.

State Rep. Jeff Leach, a Republican who represents an area of Collin County, at the state capitol in Austin.

Three Texas lawmakers want to make free speech a whole lot more expensive by passing a law making it easier for the rich and powerful to silence their critics through lawsuits.

If any of these bills pass, Texans who speak up for themselves could end up with $100,000 or more in legal bills even after they win their cases. The lawmakers’ goal is to gut one of the strongest free speech laws in the nation, not just for the media, but for any Texan who says something when they see something wrong.

The law at stake is the Texas Citizens Participation Act, passed by conservative Republicans in 2011 to protect the free speech rights of Tea Party members and others fighting corporate malfeasance. Before the TCPA, institutions and corporations often sued their critics for defamation and sought a temporary injunction to silence them, a tactic called a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, or SLAPP.

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Powerful institutions have used SLAPPs to silence neighborhood associations, nonprofit groups and small newspapers. Wealthy people have used them to punish domestic violence victims for reporting an attack to the police. While SLAPPS are rarely successful, they can cripple individuals and grassroots groups by forcing them to spend tens of thousands of dollars on attorney fees.

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