Staff Reports
In a surprise turn of events, California has revoked a controversial law that limited the COVID-19 advice doctors could give their patients. More and more court pressure forced the state to back out of a law that was signed in September 2022 and went into effect in January 2023. "Unprofessional conduct" was meant to include COVID-19 misinformation in the law, and the Medical Board of California was given the power to take away the licenses of doctors who did not agree with the "contemporary scientific consensus."
From the start, there was a lot of resistance to the law. It's still not clear if the law was ever applied because a federal judge put a hold on it in January because of pending court challenges. Governor Gavin Newsom of California quietly signed a state Senate bill over the weekend to get rid of the controversial part of the law. The new law will not apply until January 2023, exactly one year after it was first put in place.
The Liberty Justice Center, a law company based in Chicago that argued against the law in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in July, was one of the most well-known groups that were against it. The company was glad that the law was overturned and was glad that California had acted before it could possibly spread to other states. The head of the Liberty Justice Center, Jacob Huebert, was happy and said, "We're proud to have defended our clients' First Amendment rights and glad California rolled back this bill before it could spread to other states."
California repeals COVID misinformation law, bowing to legal pressurehttps://t.co/zZJNsx19Bi pic.twitter.com/Uxs26wZBvK
— The Washington Times (@WashTimes) October 3, 2023
The Washington Times asked Governor Newsom's office for a statement on the repeal, but as of now, they have not responded. In September 2022, Newsom signed the law and said that he understood that it might have a "chilling effect" on free speech. However, he also said that the law was made to stop abuses and that he believed the Medical Board of California to interpret it correctly. But some doctors in California didn't think the board had the right to tell them how to treat their patients, so they filed three different lawsuits against state officials to challenge the law.
President George H.W. Bush appointed U.S. District Judge William B. Shubb, who helped the doctors right away by granting an injunction against the law in January. It looks like this decision had an effect on Governor Newsom and the state assembly, which is why the law was thrown out. A public interest law company called the New Civil Liberties Alliance fought for the doctors in the Eastern District of California. They said that the law made it hard for them to give patients timely advice as new COVID variants appeared.
The decision to get rid of the law seems to be in reaction to the legal and constitutional arguments against it.
