Swaim: Newsom to business owners: Shut up!

George F. Will once said that football combines the two worst features of American life – violence and meetings. 

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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 C

alifornia. 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.

Click here to read the full article in the OC Register