The “Stop Nick Shirley Act” is a blatantly unconstitutional law that violates the freedom of the press.

That’s why I am asking the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice to intervene to block its implementation.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the controversial bill, AB 2624, into law despite knowing that there were serious objections to its violations of the First Amendment.

Proponents say it protects immigrants by shielding nonprofits that serve immigrants communities from supposed harassment.

What AB 2624 really does is shield these organizations from scrutiny, despite the fact that many of them receive public money. 

Specifically, Section 6218.19 of the legislation says:

“(b)(1) A program participant, or an individual, entity, or organization authorized to act on their behalf, may make a written demand to a person, business, or association to not publicly post or publicly display, disclose, or distribute on the Internet the personal information or image of the program participant. …

“(b)(4) A program participant whose personal information or image is made public as a result of a failure to honor a demand made pursuant to paragraph (1), or any individual, entity, or organization authorized to act on their behalf, may bring an action seeking injunctive or declarative relief in any court of competent jurisdiction. If a jury or court finds that a violation has occurred, it may grant injunctive or declarative relief and shall award the successful plaintiff court costs and reasonable attorneys fees.”

Even after we raised initial concerns about attacks on free speech and journalists, the Democrats doubled down on attacking the First Amendment by amending the bill to remove exemptions for journalists under the California Shield Law.

Here’s how AB 2624 will play out in real life.  An investigative journalist like Nick Shirley gets video of a phony day care center defrauding taxpayers, but the scammer operating the center hands him a note demanding the video not be shared publicly. If the journalist posts it, he has violated state law and is subject to costly court orders and fines.

That’s why when the bill was first introduced, I nicknamed it the “Stop Nick Shirley Act.”

Shirley drew attention to the problem of fraud among Minnesota nonprofit groups, and he came to California to investigate further. 

That’s when Democrats decided to stop him.

Instead of fixing rampant waste, fraud, and abuse, Newsom and his party are trying to punish the people exposing it. In so doing, they are blatantly violating our First Amendment freedom of speech rights.

Last week, I called on the governor to veto the bill, but now that he signed it into law in a hurry, I will continue to fight it using the legal system.

As a first step, I will ask the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division to review the law and intervene against it in the courts. The division, under California’s own Harmeet Dhillon, is currently challenging a number of California state laws and policies in court for violating constitutional rights.

If the DOJ cannot establish standing, then we must wait until AB 2624 is weaponized against a journalist and then wage a lengthy (and expensive) court battle to overturn AB 2624 and restore our First Amendment rights.

The fact is that Newsom and California Democrats have a bad record of repeatedly imposing unconstitutional laws, only to be stopped by the US DOJ and the courts. Of course, the damage is already done — because while we fight in court, our constitutional rights are being infringed upon.

Newsom and his party know the “Stop Nick Shirley Act” is unconstitutional, but they are trying to slow down investigations into the massive fraud problems they have allowed in state and local government programs.

It is clear that they are trying to hide the true extent of the fraud problems we have in California — and how they benefit politically, from not only the fraud but the far-left groups that pushed for the Stop Nick Shirley Act to be passed.

Carl DeMaio is a member of the California Assembly and chairman of Reform California.