Judge limits new California law protecting vaccination sites
SACRAMENTO » A federal judge has thrown out California’s new 30-foot buffer zone designed to restrict protests at coronavirus vaccination sites, though his ruling left in place other parts of a new state law despite arguments that it infringes on free speech.
The law that took effect Oct. 8 makes it illegal to come within 30 feet (9.14 meters) of someone at a vaccination site “for the purpose of obstructing, injuring, harassing, intimidating, or interfering with that person.”
U.S. District Judge Dale Drozd ruled Saturday that the 30-foot limit, which is contained in what he called the law’s “uncommon definition of ‘harassing,’” is too restrictive.
So he issued a temporary restraining order barring the state from enforcing the “harassing” portion of the law, while leaving in place the ban on obstructing, injuring, intimidating or interfering.
Those other portions of the law “appear to more precisely target the harms that the Legislature sought to prevent and further the state’s interest in ensuring that Californians can freely access vaccination sites,” he ruled.
Opponents said the bill is written so broadly that it includes any vaccine and can also apply to anti-abortion protesters.
Alliance Defending Freedom sued on behalf of Right to Life of Central California, which is located next to a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic that offers the HPV vaccine against the human papillomavirus, but not vaccinations against COVID-19.
The anti-abortion group said the law, as written, would block its members from approaching women on the public sidewalk and street outside its own building and even in its own parking lot.
The ruling came as the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday coincidently considered whether it would allow legal challenges to a Texas law that has virtually ended abortion in the nation’s second-largest state after six weeks of pregnancy.
The problem in California, the most populous state, lies with the law’s definition of harassing, which “is far broader than the dictionary definition of the word ‘harass,’” Drozd said in his 28-page decision.
It includes approaching within 30 feet of a person or vehicle, without consent, “for the purpose of passing a leaflet or handbill to, displaying a sign to, or engaging in oral protest, education, or counseling with, that other person in a public way or on a sidewalk area.”