On September 30, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law Assembly Bill 2098, which authorizes state regulators to discipline doctors who "disseminate misinformation or disinformation related to COVID-19." The law, which is scheduled to take effect on January 1, defines "misinformation" as advice "contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus." Implicitly acknowledging the First Amendment issues raised by A.B. 2098, Newsom averred that "it is narrowly tailored to apply only to those egregious instances in which a licensee is acting with malicious intent or clearly deviating from the required standard of care while interacting directly with a patient under their care."
But as the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) points out in a federal lawsuit it filed yesterday, Newsom's signing statement does not alter the broad language of A.B. 2098, which will be enforced as written. The NCLA, which is representing five California physicians who object to the new law, argues that it violates the First Amendment by punishing doctors based on the views they express and the 14th Amendment's guarantee of due process by imposing an unconstitutionally vague standard of acceptable speech.
