California bill to curb 'hate littering' signed into law

A bill to crack down on “hate littering” across California was signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday.

Assembly Bill 3024, which was introduced by Asm. Chris Ward (D-San Diego), expands state civil rights protections against the dissemination of materials like flyers or pamphlets contain threatening speech with the intention of intimidating members of a protected class.

Also known as “hate littering,” this practice has become an increasing issue for neighborhoods throughout the Golden State, mirroring a wider nationwide surge in hate crimes based on race, religion or sexual orientation.

With the newly signed law, those targeted by hate littering will be able to seek civil damages from the individual behind the distribution of those materials. These protections go into effect immediately.

“The act of hate littering goes beyond what is intended in our First Amendment protections,” Ward said in a statement on Newsom’s signing of AB 3024.

“When hate groups are deliberately going into Jewish communities to leave anti-Semitic flyers on the doorsteps, vehicles and personal property of their victims to try to intimidate and harass them where they live, that’s not free speech,” Ward continued. “That’s attempting to turn neighbor against neighbor, and it makes the people these flyers are targeting afraid to be themselves and live their lives in their own neighborhood.”

AB 3024 builds off a landmark civil rights law in California, the Ralph Civil Rights Act of 1976. This law made it illegal to threaten or enact violence against an individual because of their actual or perceived characteristics like race, religion or sexual orientation.

The law was a direct response to intimidation tactics largely linked to white nationalist hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan, such as the burning or desecration of a cross outside someone’s home with the intent of threatening its owner.

Proponents of the AB 3024 argued it would make necessary updates to strengthen the protections laid out under California’s civil rights law by incorporating modern day hate-based groups’ strategies.

Critics, on the other hand, expressed concern the measure could lead to overly broad limitations of speech given the often anonymous nature of the practice.