Minn. committee hears debate over bill to bar state databases of protected speech

ST. PAUL, Minn. — A House committee on Thursday heard debate over House File 768, a bill from Vice Chair Representative Hudson that would prohibit the Minnesota Department of Human Rights from creating or maintaining a database of constitutionally protected speech.

Hudson told the committee the bill "reaffirms that protected speech cannot be monitored or tracked by the government" and that it is intended to "reinforce our constitutional rights, prevent government overreach, and maintain fair and effective anti-discrimination efforts." The committee adopted an author's amendment, A4, to remove a portion of the bill the sponsor said was not part of her intent.

Supporters framed the bill as a safeguard for First Amendment rights. "No Minnesotan should have to worry that their words, whether in a debate, a classroom or a simple conversation, might be catalogued by the state," said Rhianna Lee, legislative and coalitions director for Americans for Prosperity'Minnesota, who testified in favor of HF 768.

Other members urged caution and said the language, as written, may be too broad. Representative Feist noted MDHR's published report on bias incidents and argued the report used only high-level, aggregate data and did not contain private, confidential investigatory data. "Footnote 1 says this is not the result of an investigation," Feist said, citing the report's statement that it is not governed by Minnesota statute 363A.18 or the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act for confidential investigative data.

Representative Finke said she generally supports the goal of protecting free speech but asked whether the committee could preserve the ability to produce de-identified trend reports on threats and discriminatory incidents so lawmakers could see whether particular forms of speech were increasing. "De-identified data perhaps would be a solution," Finke said.

Sponsor Hudson and proponents questioned the reliability and purpose of compiling subjective, unvetted reports into a centralized database. "You're saying we're just going to accept whatever claim somebody offers to the Department of Human Rights, take it on face value, not vet it," Hudson said when describing concerns about data quality and due process under prior proposals.

Several members described a tension between protecting expressive rights and addressing how harmful or hateful speech can correlate with violence. Representative Curran said attacks on human rights "start out as speech" and argued there is merit in collecting data to look for trends that might correlate with criminal actions. Hudson responded that MDHR is not a law enforcement agency and that prohibiting a standalone database of protected speech should not impede criminal investigations.

Representative Liebling warned that the bill's current phrasing could be overly broad and "prevent the department from collecting police reports that have incidentally protected speech in them" or from keeping news clippings that contain protected speech. Hudson said the statutory definition of "protected speech" in the bill mirrors language used in the state's anti-SLAPP law and that the intent is to prohibit maintaining a curated collection of protected speech for unspecified future use.

Procedural actions during the hearing included the adoption of the sponsor's A4 author's amendment by voice vote; the committee then laid the bill over for further consideration. No final passage or defeat of HF 768 occurred at this hearing.

Committee members repeatedly invited further drafting work to narrow or clarify the bill's language. Hudson said she is willing to pursue changes to ensure MDHR can continue legitimate investigatory functions while preventing the creation of a speech surveillance database.

The bill was laid over by the committee for additional work and potential future action.