(The Orange County Register)—George F. Will once said that football combines the two worst features of American life – violence and meetings.
Americans are often divided on matters of violence, but we’re nearly united in our hatred of meetings. So you might have expected that my colleagues would have been thrilled by my announcement this week that, henceforth, staff meetings will no longer be mandatory.
The reason, I explained, is Senate Bill 399. The unions that drafted the bill call it the “California Worker Freedom from Employer Intimidation Act.” But SB 399 is about neither “freedom” nor “employer intimidation” – except insofar as it limits employer freedom of speech and intimidates them with punishing fines.
Signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in September, the law explicitly bans employers from communicating the employer’s opinion about religious or political matters in mandatory meetings. If that idea – telling an employer what he or she can say in their business – strikes you as a violation of the First Amendment (the one that says government “shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech”), you’re right.
So, in addition to cancelling mandatory employee meetings at California Policy Center, we’re suing the State of California. On Tuesday, the Liberty Justice Center and California Justice Center filed a federal lawsuit challenging the law. My organization, California Policy Center, is the plaintiff in that case.
At California Policy Center, our meetings routinely consider the political implications of public policy. We often examine the ways in which politics sometimes infringe on another First Amendment, the freedom of religious expression. All of that is now prohibited by SB 399.
Please don’t make the mistake of thinking we’re alone in being damaged by SB 399. This bad law threatens every business operating in California.
Consider, for instance, the owner of a fast-food franchise who called seeking my advice about SB 399. He wondered if he could tell his employees why he’s had to lay off some of their colleagues and cut the hours of others; why kiosks – those ATM-like machines that allow customers to punch in their own orders – are replacing the men and women who used to work the front counter; and why customers are surprised or even angry about skyrocketing menu prices.
But to be honest with his employees would mean having a political conversation now banned under SB 399. Because the reason for the job cuts, automation, rising prices and dissatisfied customers is a result of another California law, Assembly Bill 1228 arbitrarily raised the hourly minimum wage for fast-food workers to $20 per hour.
Thanks to SB 399, explaining that connection – and the role of the Service Employees International Union behind it – would make him subject to massive penalties. Under the new law, the state labor commission can hit an employer with fines of $500 per employee for each violation. Perhaps worse, an employee shocked by such outrageous expressions of public policy can file for additional “compensatory and punitive damages.”
California’s state and local officials have a puzzling perspective on the First Amendment. In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that state and local governments were violating the First Amendment’s rights of free speech and association by requiring their employees to join unions. Gov. Jerry Brown countered on the very same day with Senate Bill 866 – a California law that makes it illegal for government officials to say anything that might make public employees aware of that right. That’s a clear violation of the First Amendment.
Similarly, in 2022, state lawmakers passed a law allowing the state medical board to revoke the licenses of doctors who shared information about Covid that was at odds with whatever passed for the state’s current “contemporary scientific consensus.” Following a Liberty Justice Center lawsuit, state officials, hoping no one would notice, quietly repealed the law.
Last year, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill that requires school officials, including teachers, to lie to parents about their children’s on-campus behavior with regard to gender and sexuality. Yes, parents still have to sign permission slips – volumes of them allowing schoolkids to go on field trips, watch movies, join sports teams or attend student performances. But under Newsom’s AB 1955, a child’s sexual behavior or publicly declared gender identity are off limits to their own parents. The law even requires school officials to create separate, secret student files to keep these parents in the dark – a clear violation of federal and state law.
Each of these laws has already landed the state in legal battles. But Californians shouldn’t have to go to court to safeguard their constitutional rights against their own government officials.
California Policy Center will go to court to kill SB 399. Our organization – and every California business – depends upon our success. Thanks to the Liberty Justice Center and the California Justice Center, we’re likely to win.
In the meantime, our staff meetings, no longer mandatory, will continue to include talk of politics and faith. And they will likely always start with reflections on the football weekend just passed – because, you know, meetings and violence.
Will Swaim is president of the California Policy Center and co-host with David Bahnsen of National Review’s Radio Free California podcast. The California Policy Center is plaintiff in California Policy Center v. Garcia-Brower, a lawsuit challenging SB 399.