California Governor Newsom wants to outlaw all political speech annoying to himself. If legislation he’s just signed is allowed to stand, he’ll be well on the way to doing so.
One target of California’s two new laws, the Babylon Bee, is filing suit against them.
The Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents the Bee, says that the subjects of the lawsuit, California’s AB2839 and AB265, “censor speech through subjective standards like prohibiting pictures and videos ‘likely to harm’ a candidate’s ‘electoral prospects.’… AB 2655 applies to large online platforms and requires them to sometimes label, and other times remove, posts with ‘materially deceptive content.’”
Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon observes that, contrary to the wishes of “self-serving politicians [who] abuse their power to try and control public discourse and clamp down on comedy,” the right to tell jokes they dislike is secured by the First Amendment.
The vague nature of the laws would enable California officials to “police speech they disagree with,” according to ADF and Captain Obvious.
One of the laws requires a disclaimer to be attached to satirical content, a mandate that also violates the First Amendment.
The immediate incentive for fast-tracking the censorship bills into law was a parody video of Kamala Harris that includes a simulation of her voice. The video does bill itself as parody but that is obvious regardless. This video “should be illegal,” Newsom asseverated.
No, it shouldn’t.
Anyway, watch the hilarity on YouTube … while you can.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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3 replies on “California vs. Inconvenient Speech”
Newsom &alii fully expect such laws to be struck-down, at least until a purged, expanded, and packed Supreme Court is dominated by Justices willing to turn the First Amendment into an inkblot. The point of passing these laws now is to impose the costs of legal battles upon their opponents.
Even if the Bee or the Alliance Defending Freedom itself receives donations sufficient to cover those costs, those donations will come from people who will, accordingly, have less money to spend on other things.
Meanwhile, the people passing and enforcing these laws will be spending money from taxpayers to do so and to defend the laws in court. Newsom will not be fined, imprisoned, or suspended. One doesn’t read about politicians who do such things being recalled or even losing a next election as a result.
The passage of these laws is a no-brainer for sociopaths. They have nothing to lose.
As I understand it, there is a Supreme Court decision that obligates the states themselves to respect the Bill of Rights. Then there is the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution. Given that the internet is accessible nationwide, how can California regulate what is posted?
“Laws” like this are just one reason the state is sometimes known as Kommiefornia.