§ 25-21,241.Legislative findings and declarations.

Section 25-21,241 is a statement of legislative findings, not an operative rule, and it sets the stage for the sections that follow it, 25-21,241 through 25-21,246. The Legislature declares that Nebraska’s policy is to encourage and safeguard, with great diligence, the constitutional rights of citizens and organizations to get involved and participate freely in government. It calls the information, reports, opinions, claims, and arguments citizens provide vital to effective law enforcement, the operation of government, public policy, and representative democracy itself.

Against that backdrop, the Legislature finds that civil damages actions have been filed against Nebraska citizens and organizations because they exercised those constitutional rights, and that these strategic lawsuits against public participation have grown more common. It finds that the threat of such suits, personal liability, and the cost of defending them chills citizen participation in government and public service, and that this pattern amounts to an abuse of the judicial process aimed at intimidating, harassing, or punishing people for getting involved in public affairs.

The section closes by stating the purpose of what follows: to strike a balance between a person’s right to sue for genuine injury and the constitutional rights of others to petition, speak, and associate; to protect and encourage public participation in government to the fullest extent the law allows; to build an efficient process for identifying and deciding these strategic lawsuits; and to provide for costs, attorney’s fees, and actual damages.