A state senator who has proposed loosening up the state’s defamation laws says he will make another attempt to pass his bill after it failed to gain traction in committee on Monday.
Senate Bill 230, which would codify a path for “invasion of privacy” lawsuits, is awaiting action in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
An effort to pass the bill failed for lack of a second on a "do pass" motion Monday and after a lengthy exchange in which several lawmakers expressed frustration with the media’s coverage of them.
No vote was taken, and the bill was officially recorded as having no action taken on it.
The bill's sponsor, state Sen. Kim Hammer, R-Benton, told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Tuesday that he planned to amend the bill and bring it back for another vote, possibly as early as Wednesday.
While a copy of Hammer’s amendment was not available Tuesday, Hammer said it would clarify that individuals and media outlets would be liable to lawsuits if they continue to print defamatory material after being informed that the information is false.
[RELATED: Complete Democrat-Gazette coverage of the Arkansas Legislature]
Hammer’s legislation was drafted in consultation with Robert Steinbuch, a law professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s William H. Bowen School of Law.
The pair said Monday the bill was conceived, in part, after a confrontation between a group of Kentucky high school students and an American Indian marcher outside of Washington, D.C.’s Lincoln Memorial, which was caught on tape and subsequently covered by many national media outlets.
Later videos offering a wider perspective of the encounter led to criticism that media outlets had falsely vilified the boys’ actions.
The Arkansas Press Association and Democrat-Gazette Managing Editor David Bailey spoke against the bill Monday, saying that it would open up individuals as well as the media to lawsuits for actions that lay outside of current defamation protections.
Steinbuch said that while he agreed that SB230 would expand the current liabilities for “false light” or defamation claims in Arkansas, he said that such protections were necessary to protect individuals' reputations.
Read Wednesday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.