Remember a few years ago when Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) tried to pretend that California was the state that best represented freedom? Now would be a good time to revisit that sales pitch, as California is once again being sued for compelled speech.
The lawsuit comes from Exxon Mobil, a massive oil and gas company that calls Texas home. Exxon Mobil is suing over two California laws. One requires companies with over $1 billion in annual revenue to track and publicize their greenhouse gas emissions, and the other requires companies with over $500 million in revenue to issue reports about how they are mitigating climate change and how climate change might affect their finances.
NEWSOM’S ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT DRIVER’S LICENSES ARE GETTING PEOPLE KILLED
According to Exxon Mobil, this is California’s attempt to shame large corporations and force them to peddle the narrative that large corporations are responsible for climate change.
“California may believe that companies that meet the statutes’ revenue thresholds are uniquely responsible for climate change; but the First Amendment categorically bars it from forcing ExxonMobil to speak in service of that misguided viewpoint,” the lawsuit reads.
Whether this amounts to a First Amendment violation or not, Exxon Mobil is undoubtedly correct that California only passed these laws to shame major corporations and make them complicit in the state’s climate witch hunt against themselves. This would not be the first time that California has compelled organizations to advocate against themselves: A law to force crisis pregnancy centers to help women get information about abortions was struck down in 2018, having made it all the way to the Supreme Court.
And California has made policing free speech a priority as of late. California attempted to ban “deepfake” content on social media about politicians with laws so broad that they did not include carveouts for satire or parody content. Newsom based his support of that new law on an obvious satire video that depicted “Kamala Harris” criticizing her own incompetence and calling herself a deep state puppet. Newsom also wanted satire sites to plaster giant “this has been manipulated” warning labels all over memes and satire stories. All of it has been thus far blocked by the courts.
Newsom’s press team, meanwhile, shares satire memes and images to its heart’s content, because the French Laundry-during-a-pandemic governor would be nothing if not a massive hypocrite.
EXXON IS RIGHT TO SUE OVER UNCONSTITUTIONAL CALIFORNIA LAWS
California is in no way the “freedom” state. No one ever fell for Newsom’s weird, ham-fisted PR campaign, precisely because of efforts such as this. Newsom and California Democrats want Exxon Mobil to walk through the streets, Game of Thrones style, and declare itself responsible for “climate change.” It is an ideological goal, though it may be driven by the state blaming “climate change” for the Los Angeles fires when an alleged arsonist may be to blame.
California needs someone to blame climate change on and some way to pretend it is really doing anything about it, and so you end up with this law designed to scapegoat Exxon Mobil and others. If such a law is struck down, it would be a win for free speech, which is always considered a loss for California’s Democratic monopoly on power.
