Newsom Signs Butthurt Bill

so stop being mean

The Romper Roomification of the American political class continues apace.

I’ve written several times about SB 1100, a tedious bill written by tedious people to stop the “bullying” of tedious elected officials at the tedious public meetings of tedious local legislative bodies. Hold on a moment while I see if I can work the word tedious into that sentence one more ti— nope, we’re good.

This week, California’s tedious governor signed the tedious thing, so everybody has to be nice from now on and not hurt anybody’s tedious widdle feewings. The tedious California legislature spews out so many tedious bills that Newsom doesn’t usually offer signing statements on the things, group-signing them in box lots and paying about as much attention to them as anybody else does. So.

For a look at what the state has supposedly just prohibited, do yourself the very mild favor of reading this piece of tedious pearl-clutching from some television news idiots in San Francisco:

Here’s the example of “bullying,” using the tedious example of the tedious Los Gatos politician Marico “Tedious” Sayoc as the tedious designated martyr:

Last year, anti-vaccine and anti-LGBTQ groups targeted Los Gatos Mayor Marico Sayoc during town council meetings.

One Los Gatos resident spoke at the podium during an October meeting to say, “Madam Sayoc, you are not God! How dare you force your ideologies on our children! We the people of Los Gatos do not consent to the forced mutilation of our bodies, mind, and sovereignty.”

They targeted her! For example, they spoke during the public comment section of a public meeting and told an elected official — loudly and angrily, but still — that they disagreed with her. The public spoke at…public comment.

Taking the story at face value, telling a member of a suburban city council that she isn’t God is bullying, and state law now prohibits the bullying of the members of city councils, so you can no longer tell the members of California city councils that they aren’t God, because that’s being mean. If I’m reading the theological implications correctly, I believe this means that the members of California city councils have now been legislatively elevated to the status of actual gods, and will therefore no longer know death or suffering, and so we’ll have to sacrifice livestock to propitiate them or they’ll destroy our crops. But we may have to wait for the courts to weigh in on all of that.

In practical terms, the bill means literally nothing at all. After amendments that removed some even dumber stuff, the version passed by the legislature and signed by Newsom just says — I am not making this up — that city councils may remove individuals who are disruptive, which the law defines as people who engage in disruption. Free tautology lessons in the senate chamber, stop by anytime.

Brittle, thin-skinned local government officials will use this law to throw people out of public meetings for criticizing them or saying things they don’t like, which means the entire state of California is about to pull a Pennsbury:

But we know how that one ends:

Anyway, pity the small town that thinks this meaningless piece of “the peasants are revolting” theater is enforceable law. And be prepared for gavel-banging. Lots and lots of gavel-banging.

Before every local elected official in California became a sniveling toddler, I used to cover the meetings of a city council in the suburbs of Los Angeles in a college town where one of the frequent flyers at public comment was a proud Marxist-Leninist of the elevated-clenched-fist variety. Public comment is allowed once for general items not on the agenda, then one more time for each agenda item, so a particularly dedicated troll can speak, say, twenty-eight times — three minutes each time — on a night with a twenty-seven-item agenda. The proud college town Marxist-Leninist did that at every single meeting.

So the mayor would open Item #17, Contract for Slurry Sealing of First Street, and the proud Marxist-Leninist would stride to the microphone, cock his head back, bulge his eyes at the council, and very loudly warn the executive committee of the bourgeoisie that they could play their little SLURRY SEALING GAMES, but the WORKERS OF THE WORLD had their number, and their time would come, OH YES MY FRIENDS YOUR TIME WILL COME, and then the slurry sealing will be up to the PROLETARIAT, because the streets will belong to the proletariat, AND SO WILL EVERYTHING ELSE (clenched fist rises into the air), AND WHEN THE TIME COMES THERE WON’T BE A DAMN THING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT.

And then the mayor would say, “Thank you, Mr. Noonan, is there further public comment? In the absence of further public comment, I’ll entertain a motion.”

Then they’d vote, and then the mayor would open Item #18, and….

But throughout all of that Bolshevik Vaudeville noise-spouting, the council maintained their composure and let the often-frustrating process of public comment play out. They let the public speak. Sometimes it sucked. So what?

Now somebody tells a suburban mayor that she isn’t God, and in our shock and horror we pass a new law to prevent a terrifying recurrence.

We are not serious people.