Assemblywoman Mia Bonta (D-Oakland), at AB 2624 hearing. (Photo: screen shot)
How California Democrats Have Ravaged Truth in Journalism
‘Public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy’
By Katy Grimes, April 22, 2026 6:00 am
Last week, I reported on Assemblywoman Mia Bonta’s proposed legislation to criminalize independent journalists: “California Democrats Violate First Amendment to Criminalize Investigative Journalism.”
Assemblywoman Bonta’s proposed bill, Assembly Bill 2624, would impose huge civil sanctions on independent investigative reporters for “harassing” what Bonta calls “immigrant services” workers who, in fact, are providing taxpayer-funded goods and services to illegal aliens.
California legislators are trying to make investigating fraud illegal, as Elon Musk noted on X:
California legislators are trying to make investigating fraud illegal https://t.co/tmWik0Z1iv
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 13, 2026
Within two days, Ms. Bonta, the wife of California Attorney General Rob Bonta, claimed “Right-wing agitators, ineffective legislators, and Trump loyalists are intentionally spreading significant misinformation about Assembly Bill 2624.”
While the legacy media in California is silent on AB 2624, the Globe contacted the Society of Professional Journalists, the First Amendment Coalition, and Electronic Frontier Foundation for their positions on this gross violation of the First Amendment.
Not one First Amendment organization bothered to reply or to weigh in on this very serious bill.
As I explained, AB 2624 is perhaps the most egregious violation of the First Amendment I’ve seen in Sacramento, and I have first hand history with the California Legislature violating the First Amendment, after my Capitol press credentials were revoked because Democrats didn’t like what I was reporting. My attorneys at the Pacific Legal Foundation filed an administrative appeal and won my press credentials back. Easily. And that is because the First Amendment explicitly protects “the freedom of speech, or of the press,” prohibiting Congress, and by extension through the Fourteenth Amendment, state and local governments from diminishing it.
Independent journalist Nick Shirley is a pioneer in immediate, real-time video journalism. He does research, as he did in Minnesota, and then took video of the local Somali-run Quality Learing Centers, daycares with no children in attendance. Shirley’s video showed facilities that weren’t being used for daycares and there were no children present, despite receiving government funding for this purpose.
And now Nick Shirley is chasing lawmakers down the halls of the California State Capitol with video camera in hand, asking them why they co-authored Bonta’s bill, or why they voted for it. The answers are pure comedy gold.
🚨 Here is 10 minutes of me confronting the California politicians who authored the "Stop Nick Shirley Act"…
When confronted about AB 2624:
– Lied about authoring the bill
– Couldn't justify the bill
– Acted like they didn't know about the billThis bill will CRIMINALIZE… pic.twitter.com/p0k8wNfuXF
— Nick shirley (@nickshirleyy) April 20, 2026
But how did we get to this place and time where it takes a video journalist to expose government defrauding, armed with the video evidence to prove it? Or to expose lawmakers feigning ignorance of a bill they co-authored or voted in favor of?
This is happening because Democrat lawmakers believe they are above the law in California, above the State Constitution, and above the U.S. Constitution. In their arrogance, Democrats’ supermajority is above any law.
No longer are print, radio, television or online news stories of their antics violations of law or unconstitutional actions ruffling their feathers.
I started in print – newspapers, and moved to online news. At California Globe, we adhere to AP Style and the Society of Professional Journalists (SJP) Code of Ethics:
“Members of the Society of Professional Journalists believe that public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. Ethical journalism strives to ensure the free exchange of information that is accurate, fair and thorough. An ethical journalist acts with integrity.”
SPJ says “Seek Truth and Report It.” So it is particularly curious that they won’t comment on Assemblywoman Bonta’s anti-First Amendment bill.
SPJ says “Act Independently: The highest and primary obligation of ethical journalism is to serve the public.”
Yet, Assemblywoman Bonta’s bill will criminalize independent journalists. Hmmm.
In California, this has been building for the last 20 years. When Jerry Brown was re-elected and took office in 2011, and the Democrat Supermajority took hold in the California Legislature, the attitude of lawmakers noticeably changed. Many believe they don’t have to answer questions, or speak with any journalist pushing for the truth. During Gov. Brown’s second two terms, much of the mainstream media began carrying water for the Democrats as evidenced by how many former mainstream media members went to work for Democrat legislators, or as PR spokespersons for Democrat-appointed state agency directors. My last count was over 40 former news journalists… and that was in 2013:
“In California’s capitol, I have counted more than 40 former news reporters, television reporters and radio newscasters who now work inside the state Capitol, or for a state agency.”
During Jerry Brown’s two terms as governor (2011-2018), I was a member of the Sacramento Press Club. At one meeting, the club President announced the Board would no longer invite Republican lawmakers to speak at the Club’s monthly lunches. When I pointed out that Republicans are elected lawmakers too, “because they are irrelevant,” was the response I received.
It got significantly worse when Gov. Gavin Newsom was elected and took office in 2019. Gov. Brown’s administration was mostly civil, if a bit terse at times. Newsom’s administration is repugnant, and has openly declared war on X on any member of the media who asks a question they don’t like, or don’t think they should have to answer.
Besides ravaging the state of independent journalism, we are witnessing the degradation of the Golden State as it is run by Democrat supermajorities in both houses of the California Legislature and the governors office.
“California’s political paradox is that voters chronically elect politicians who double down on the failed policies of their predecessors,” the Hoover Institution’s Lee Ohanian wrote in 2021. “This means that California’s major economic problems—housing affordability and homelessness, cost of living and the highest poverty rate in the country, inadequate water supply, wildfires, underperforming schools, failing infrastructure, unsustainable pensions, the list goes on—continue to deteriorate.”
Apparently frustrated that there are any journalists willing to report on Democrats’ failures – housing affordability, homelessness, cost of living, highest poverty rate in the country, inadequate water supply, wildfires, underperforming schools, failing infrastructure, unsustainable pensions – the California Legislature is attempting to silence the remaining independent journalists and intellectually curious citizen journalists.
Yesterday, former Newport Beach Mayor Will O’Neill posted relevant details about the state of journalism in California that may shock some:
“Your tax dollars go to Sacramento, which legislators then use to pay journalists that cover the legislature.
Specifically, Democrat Steve Glazer pushed through $25mm in 2023 to start the “California Local News Fellowship” at – where else? – UC Berkeley. The average journalist salary (according to Indeed) is ~$60k, so $25mm could have paid for ~416 journalists. But, according to the LA Times, it paid for … a few dozen? The Fellowship claims ~70. Under either scenario, where did the rest of the money go?
If only we had a journalist who could tell us.
If the school doling out tax dollars is willing to prostrate itself on the front end, what message is it sending to the ‘journalists’ applying for those tax dollars? Clearly it’s ‘don’t attack the people paying your salary.’
Which means that we are going to have to rely more and more on independent journalists, some of whom have been doing great work (Jennifer Van Laar, Katy Grimes, etc.). Which is why this ‘Stop Nick Shirley Act’ is so insidious. Pay for good coverage or criminalize fair coverage. It’s how lefties in Sacramento ‘preserve democracy.’”
Ouch. That’s hot. But much appreciated.
Well, an Orange County Substacker, rather perturbed with Will O’Neill, picked it up:
“Will, fuck, let’s discuss the two journalists you say are doing “great work”—Jennifer Van Laar and Katy Grimes. One (Van Laar) is actively campaigning for Spencer Pratt to become Los Angeles’ mayor. The other (Grimes) is a right-wing hack pretending to be moderate.1
The footnote said:
A trusted colleague reached out to me, RE: Grimes. And wrote this: “There is only a very small percentage of people in the world and, in a smaller subset, the Capitol community that I truly dislike. I even get along quite well with most of the Republicans around the Capitol. But Katy Grimes… I dislike her intensely. Her investigative journalism consists of her sitting in the back of the chamber during a Senate or assembly session and then going and writing a column for the California Globe, where she trashes everything that went on that day. I have never in my many years of being around this Capitol even seen her talk to any lawmaker, except for the most hard-core Republicans. She is a fucking joke and not a single member of the press corps takes her seriously.”
Do I really care if anyone in the Capitol press corps takes me seriously? No. They can’t or won’t report on the issues I cover. But it’s clear that members of the Legislature do since they tried to boot me out of the Capitol Press Corps, with the help of the Capitol Correspondents Association of California. That is what matters.
And they take Nick Shirley seriously because he is taking video of them pretending that they don’t know who he is, or feigning ignorance about Assemblywoman Bonta’s unconstitutional bill.
As Assemblyman Carl DeMaio said after a recent hearing on Bonta’s AB 2624, “If this bill becomes law, the message is clear to every journalist in California: expose corruption and you will be punished. AB 2624 is an unconstitutional direct attack on transparency and the First Amendment – and it needs to be defeated.”
California Democrats are trying to make investigating fraud illegal.
A California native and Navy mom, Katy lives in Sacramento, CA.
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As goes California so goes America.
The manicual “constitutional rights” mongers that occupy the California Supreme Court are locked and loaded regarding this and like issues.
The subject court has already proclaimed they’re good with taxiation without representation thus the termination of free speech surely on their agenda and be assured the Bontas are complicit.
The lackadaisical among us will ultimately discover altering California’s vector now is too late.
No, most U.S. citizens in the rest of the country see the complete mess that your leader Gavin Newsom and your Democrat political masters have made of California and they don’t want it. Your Democrat political masters depend on open borders and illegal aliens votes to stay in power. It’s why Democrat Assemblywoman Mia Bonta’s proposed legislation will criminalize independent journalists who expose “immigrant services” workers who are providing taxpayer-funded goods and services to illegal aliens while making sure they vote.
Breitbart is reporting that Newsom covertly spent $1 billion of taxpayer money to import 400,000 illegal migrants from poor countries to serve the state’s Democratic political machine and globalist elite dominated economy, according to data provided by the Manhattan Institute in New York. This was done mainly through grants that were given to charities which then turned around and aided in all of this illegal immigration. (https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2026/04/22/report-gov-newsom-spent-1-billion-to-import-400000-extra-illegal-migrants/)
I personally cannot stand the use of mm for million because it has always been the abbreviation for millimeters.
Much prefer M for million. $25M. Or spell it out.
Good article otherwise.
What an excellent, comprehensive, and hands-on report and analysis of this fundamental crisis of free speech in California journalism (and elsewhere) from Katy Grimes. That organizations such as the Society of Professional Journalists, and others —- which are ostensibly meant to protect the First Amendment rights of journalists —- should bail on this extremely important matter like rats on a sinking ship follows a pattern that seems to have reached a critical mass in our country recently, of empty, unhelpful, fake and dishonest organizations with misleading important-sounding names whose failure to speak up when needed have been popping up as corrupt in every sector of American life. This can only be ruinous for what’s left of the health of the country and for California in particular.
Reporters with integrity such as yes, most definitely, Katy Grimes and Jennifer Van Laar, and a handful of others, are heroes but cannot endlessly withstand the onslaught of an increasingly growing mob made up of a combination of manufactured, lying, paid-off and propped-up media who slobber over politicians and other willing participants who enable a corrupt government when they need to report facts and truth, however ugly that truth is.
We seem to have hit rock bottom and when that happens we typically say that things can only get better from here, but the situation is a huge, ugly, and tangled mess. So we’ll see
Meanwhile, so much gratitude and appreciation for Katy Grimes and Jen Van Laar and the other courageous journalists, as usual (you know who you are, whether broadcast or print reporters), who are sticking to their guns in this long-standing war against free speech in spite of all.
“The other (Grimes) is a right-wing hack pretending to be moderate.1” I simply offer my congratulations and support. You now that you have touched a nerve when you are demonized and called a conservative. That is the “progressive” playbook. Disregard the facts and tear apart the messenger. Good Job Keep it up. Thanks,
I no longer trust a single word any california democrat politician says nor most news media reporting that is even faintly related to political things, I usually assume the truth is directly opposite of what they say. There are events I have directly witnessed and sometimes participanted in that weren’t the same occasion as the media write up. I guess the guiding maxim would be “truth is fiction and fiction is truth” when it comes to the entrenched left, and that they are viciously combative when their lies, hypocrises and crimes are exposed
One of the tactics leftist media would use during anti-iilegal immigration rallys was to find the village idiot in the anti-illegal group to ask leading questions to while ignoring the threatening and violent behavior of the counter demonstrators, then writing up scurrilous and libelous articles about the anti-illegal group. It didn’t help that on occaision obvious skin heads and neo-nazis would, uninvited, show up to pass out anti-semitic flyers to passersby. There was an occasion after the racist scum was told not to come around anymore. Some very clean cut looking, handsome, white men attended a rally and initially actively participated and caused no trouble – at first. However, as the rally ended, those guys pulled out a 3rd reich nazi flag and posed with it, which photos of went viral on the internet (during the days of dial up and message boards). It was a false flag operation, but was it by actual neonazis sticking the proverbial finger in the eye for being rejected or pro-illegal immigration advocates planting a narrative?
One last comment: During the times described above, there was an open air speech by a San Diego area anti-illegal leader (I disremember his name). To be clear, I didn’t attend and this is not a first hand account. At the end of his speech, a couple of clowns wearing period 1930’s nazi brownshirt uniforms goose stepped past the event. Media attention instantly swiveled from covering the message of the speaker in order to misrepresent his message to uniformed naxis at an anti-illegal immigration event. Even stormfront (a neonazi message board) was freaking out about those 2 idiots and the malicious media opportunity picture it presented. But again, were those two jokers actually organized nazis, unorganized cosplayers or false flag, leftist agents?
This is a very interesting article, but also very disturbing. The actions by the Democrats show their true goal of an authoritarian government. Censorship and propaganda is the cornerstone of authoritarian governments. Most news agencies today are nothing more than propaganda machines. Here are the only news outlets besides California Globe that I could find covering AB 2624: FOX News, KCRA 3, Fox 5 San Diego, LA Times Studios, 13WHAM ABC News, and The Voice of San Francisco. That’s it.
The WW@ bomber pilots used to say that you always knew when you were over the target when you saw heavy flak coming up.
Well, you’ve been over the target for years trying to expose the rot and corruption in the Capitol in Excremento.
Lots of us appreciate your toughness and fighting spirit so please keep it up. There are so few people in the media like yourself who are willing to expose the graft,corruption and waste of taxpayer dollars.
Anyway, I always look forward to your articles on CG.
…and ‘Illegitimati non carborundum’ (Don’t let the bastards wear you down!)
^^^ Amen, and amen… 100% agreement…
Well said, Ricky. I totally agree. If it wasn’t for the California Globe, we would all be in the dark about what corruption is going on in Sacramento.
Here’s the Cliffs Notes version : “Newsom’s administration is repugnant…”
ALL of them that “sponsored” this bill… a bunch of Karen’s and three soy-boys with crossed arms, sissy-style…