Sacramento’s Favorite Fix: When Policy Fails, Silence the Critics

California lawmakers have a long-established habit of treating the First Amendment like a nuisance. If speech is uncomfortable, regulate it. If criticism is sharp, chill it. If reality looks bad, rename it. That reflex is on full display in Assembly Bill 2624, a measure authored by Assemblywoman Mia Bonta (D-Oakland) that would extend the state’s “Safe at Home” address confidentiality program to immigration service workers — and in doing so, hand those workers a legal tool to silence nearly any online discussion that “relates to” them, including posts that have nothing to do with immigration or threats.

That’s not compassion. It’s political self-protection with a humanitarian label stapled to it.

I arrived in California in 1990 when the budget was roughly in the black. I’ve watched single-party rule reshape this state for 35 years, and I’ve learned to read the tell: when Sacramento can’t defend a policy on the merits, it reaches for the rulebook on conversation. AB 2624 is a classic example.

The stated goal is to protect workers at immigrant service organizations from being doxxed or physically threatened. No one disputes that genuine threats are harmful and already illegal. But the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) reviewed the bill and found that while some provisions appropriately target unprotected conduct — threats and incitement — the most troubling section, 6218.19(b)(1), goes much further. Under it, any person who provides or receives immigration services and claims to fear for their safety can demand that nearly anyone remove online content about them. The triggering post doesn’t have to be threatening. It doesn’t have to relate to immigration. It simply has to “relate to” the protected individual, which under the bill’s broad language, can mean nothing more than their name.

Apply that provision to California’s demographics. Over 10 million of the state’s residents are immigrants. Millions more work in organizations that touch immigration in some way — lawyers, nonprofits, healthcare providers, social workers. The bill’s potential reach is enormous. Its chilling effect on accountability journalism is broader still.

Assemblymember Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego) dubbed it the “Stop Nick Shirley Act”. That’s a reference to the citizen journalist who went viral after exposing alleged daycare fraud in Somali immigrant communities in Minnesota. Whether you like Shirley’s style or not, the principle matters: public accountability for publicly funded programs isn’t harassment. It’s citizenship. California funds a lot of organizations providing services to immigrants. Taxpayers have a right to know where that money goes.

Bonta says critics are misrepresenting her bill, and she may be partially right on the threat’s provisions. The Supreme Court addressed that line directly in Counterman v. Colorado (2023), holding that prosecuting someone for making threats requires proof they at least “consciously disregarded a substantial risk” that their speech would be viewed as threatening violence. AB 2624’s threats section doesn’t fully track that constitutional standard. But the broader online posting restrictions are what make the bill constitutionally suspect on their face. FIRE’s Legislative and Policy Director Carolyn Iodice found that the bill’s troubling sections “go far beyond” targeting unlawful conduct “to restrict speech that is protected by the First Amendment.”

Bonta’s defense, that there are “no provisions related to journalism or fraud,” reveals the problem rather than resolving it. A statute vague enough to cover protected speech will be used to suppress it. That’s not a partisan talking point. It’s constitutional law 101.

This is the classic Sacramento move. The state has solved a $55 billion deficit in 2024-25, a $27 billion deficit in 2023-24, and now faces an estimated $18 billion shortfall heading into 2026-27, those are California’s own nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office numbers. Housing costs bear no relationship to working people’s salaries. Public confidence in state institutions is somewhere between low and corrosive. So rather than addressing the failures directly, some lawmakers decide the problem isn’t the policy, it’s the people talking about it.

When ideas fail, control follows. Sacramento has made an art form of this.

Jonathan Turley, one of the country’s most respected First Amendment scholars, has written extensively about the government’s habit of stretching narrow carve-outs until protected speech is no longer protected. AB 2624’s overbroad posting restriction is exactly that kind of stretch — a legitimate concern about harassment used as a crowbar to pry open broad censorship authority.

The cure for bad speech is more speech. The cure for bad policy is better policy. What it’s not is a half-drafted bill that gives immigrant service organizations — many of them publicly funded — a legal mechanism to suppress scrutiny. The First Amendment is not a decorative clause reserved for commencement speeches and sunny weather. It’s the structure that keeps government from becoming the referee of its own accountability.

If Sacramento wants less conflict around immigration, it should address the underlying policy failures. If it wants more trust, it should tell the truth about costs and tradeoffs. And if it wants citizens to stop sounding alarmed, it should stop giving them reasons.

Instead, California keeps reaching for the same lever. Regulate the alarm system. Leave the fire alone.

That’s not governance. That’s evasion. And it’s getting harder to hide.