Democrats Pitch Bill to Protect Speech Targeted by Trump

A group of congressional Democrats said on Thursday that they would introduce legislation to bolster legal protections for people targeted by President Trump for speaking freely, moving to counter his administration’s threats to weaponize the government against his political opponents.

Sponsors of the measure accused Mr. Trump and his lieutenants of exploiting the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the right-wing activist, to undertake a broad federal campaign to silence views and statements they dislike.

The bill was set to be introduced in both the House and the Senate, although there was almost no chance that Republicans would bring such a measure to the floor. Still, it was an opportunity for Democrats to respond in some fashion at a moment they said was an inflection point for the country.

“They aren’t even hiding what they’re trying to do,” Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, said of the Trump administration at a news conference on Thursday, where he previewed the legislation.

A summary of the bill, entitled the No Political Enemies Act, or NOPE, outlined a series of legal protections for people targeted for political speech. It said the bill would create a specific legal defense for those targeted for political reasons and allow them to recover attorney fees if they were subjected to government harassment for expressing their views.

And it would make it easier to sue federal officials for abusing their power to silence critics.

“They don’t want people to even speak when they don’t like what they say,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, said at the news conference. “That is the road to autocracy.”