State Rep. Alex Kolodin Proposes Bill to Stop Lawfare, Political Prosecutions of Opponents

State Rep. Alex Kolodin

State Representative Alex Kolodin (R-Scottsdale) proposed a bill Tuesday, a week ago that would stop lawfare and the political prosecutions of opponents. HB 2633 broadens laws against Strategic Legal Actions Against Public Participation (known as anti-SLAPP laws) to include political and religious expression, creates additional remedies against state actors who bring SLAPP suits, and establishes an avenue for post-conviction relief when a defendant asserts that a prosecution was politically motivated. Anti-SLAPP laws prohibit using the courts to suppress the First Amendment, including the constitutional rights of petition, speech, and association.

Kolodin, an election and constitutional attorney, announced the bill on X, quoting President Donald Trump. “‘Never again will the immense power of the state be used to prosecute political opponents!’ – Trump,” he said. “HB2633 turns that promise into law. It’s up in Judiciary next week. Show up. Speak out. Make the Constitution great again!”

Kolodin told The Arizona Sun Times why he brought the bill, “We have seen political disagreements become criminalized, and we’ve seen the justice system transformed into a tool of political repression. President Trump promised the American people in his inaugural address that no more will the power of the state be used in order to repress political opponents. And I know that after four years of dealing with that kind of repression, the guy really means it from the bottom of his heart. And what we want to do at the state level is bring that promise into law as part of President Trump’s Republican Party.”

He said after the 2020 election, when the election political lawfare ramped up, he started receiving numerous calls from constituents terrified of being targeted for their posts on social media. They asked him whether they might be prosecuted.

“These are not conversations like that a politician should ever be having with his constituents, ever, ever, ever,” he said. “I never thought when I was a kid and I was taking civic classes in high school that when I was an adult and a politician or whatever, like, I had people calling me, calling like, ‘Tell me what I can say, because I worry that the government’s gonna come after me.’ That’s so antithetical to who we are as a country, we got to do something about it.”

Unfortunately, Kolodin said prosecutors like moderate Republican Rachel Mitchell, the Maricopa County Attorney, have gotten his bill defeated when he’s run it previously. The first year he proposed it, she called every single Republican in the State House to persuade them to vote against it. “Prosecutors, Republican, Democrat, whatever they want this power,” he said. “They’re hungry for it, and we really have to put our foot down, or we’re not gonna have a country anymore.”

Mitchell represented the Maricopa County Supervisors in the efforts stonewalling election integrity efforts, asking for sanctions twice against Kari Lake’s attorneys in their election challenges. One request was dismissed immediately by the trial court, an election fraud denier who had ruled against Lake on most other issues. Mitchell was censured by the Maricopa County Republican Committee for her role in the sanctions.

State Senator Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek), who is being prosecuted by Mayes along with other Republicans who made up the slate of alternate electors for Trump in 2020, expressed his support for the bill to The Sun Times. “As someone who is personally experiencing the naked weaponization of the Arizona justice system at the hands of a corrupt Attorney General, I can attest to just how critically necessary it is that the legislature pass Representative Kolodin’s bill,” he said. “If they can come after me for exercising my constitutional rights, they can come after you — no one is safe under our current system until safeguards have been enacted.”

The far left group States United Democracy Center provided a legal blueprint for Mayes to prosecute the alternate electors along with Trump’s attorneys and others, which Mayes copied fairly closely. During Mayes’ press conference announcing the prosecutions, she repeatedly got the law wrong. Her challenger for attorney general in 2022 who lost by 280 votes, Abe Hamadeh, and Arizona Corporation Commissioner Jim O’Connor believe Mayes never practiced law before becoming elected to the position, and lied about having been a prosecutor.

Kolodin’s bill states that the law is to be liberally construed to protect the government from censoring free speech. The bill also provides that if someone succeeds in an action against the state, they can get costs and fees. If the court finds that an anti-SLAPP motion is frivolous, the court is not required to award costs and fees to the prevailing nonmoving party if the nonmoving party is a state actor. If a government actor is found liable, they cannot have their costs and fees paid for by the government.

There has been an epidemic of lawfare in Arizona in recent years. Kolodin himself was disciplined by the State Bar of Arizona for filing election lawsuits over the 2020 election. The bar sentenced him in November 2023 to 18 months probation. He was charged with several rules often used to disbar conservative attorneys. As part of the agreement, Kolodin admitted his actions violated Rule 42, ERs 3.1 and 8.4(d) of the Arizona Bar’s Rules of Professional Conduct. ER 3.1 prohibits attorneys from bringing “frivolous” lawsuits, and 8.4(d) prohibits attorneys from “engag[ing] in conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice.”

Since then, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled last spring that attorneys cannot be disciplined for bringing election lawsuits, prompting the bar’s disciplinary judge to drop charges against two of Kari Lake’s election attorneys, citing that decision.

HB 2633 will be heard on Wednesday by the House Judiciary Committee along with several other bills, beginning at 8:30 a.m. It is co-sponsored by State Representatives Rachel Jones (R-Tucson) and Tim Kupper (R-Yuma).

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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News NetworkFollow Rachel on Twitter / X. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “State Rep Alex Kolodin” by State Rep Alex Kolodin and “Arizona Capitol” by WARS CC2.0.

 

 

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