No harassment zone: California legislators pass bill making it illegal to obstruct coronavirus vaccination sites.
SACRAMENTO — While hundreds protested at the state Capitol against coronavirus vaccine mandates, lawmakers voted Wednesday to make it a crime to obstruct vaccination sites.
Unrelated to the rally happening outside, SB742 would make it illegal to approach anyone within 100 feet of entering or exiting a vaccination site with the purpose of harassing, intimidating or preventing them from obtaining medical services.
Sen. Richard Pan, a Democrat and physician from Sacramento who has tussled with activists for years over mandatory immunization legislation, introduced the bill this spring, after protests briefly shut down a mass vaccination site at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Similar to protections for abortion clinics in California, demonstrations that disrupt vaccine services would be a misdemeanor punishable by a $1,000 fine or up to six months in jail.
Despite some objections from opponents about violations of free speech rights, the measure passed overwhelmingly through the Legislature. Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose office said he does
not comment on pending legislation, has about a month to sign or veto it.
“Anti-public health extremists are escalating attacks against patients and health care workers,” Pan said in a statement. “Because of undefined areas of law, too many Californians find themselves subjected to direct attacks on their safety, privacy and personal medical choices.”
The protesters who gathered in Sacramento on Wednesday were instead fighting against a bill that doesn’t exist: a sweeping proposal that could have required COVID-19 vaccination or regular testing for all California workers and proof of vaccination to enter restaurants and entertainment venues. The idea was briefly floated last month and then shelved before ever being formally introduced because supporters ran out of time to fully develop the details, though it could return next year.
Anxious Californians, worried about losing their right to forgo the vaccine, nevertheless rallied for hours on the Capitol steps as the temperature climbed above 100 degrees. The serenely chaotic scene — families with young children picnicked on the lawn while speakers railed against “medical slavery” and groups chanted in favor of recalling Newsom — reflected how deeply divisive coronavirus vaccination has become, as resistant Americans dig in their heels against increasingly forceful efforts to get them to take the shots and vice versa.
Loraine Webb, 73, and her 93-year-old mother arrived from Nevada City, north of Sacramento, saying they were distrustful of vaccines promoted by for-profit pharmaceutical companies. Webb worried she might lose her job driving people to medical appointments, after Newsom last month ordered all health care workers to be immunized against COVID-19, but she said she would not get the vaccine because she believes it is more dangerous than the virus.
“Western medicine cannot keep up with a virus that is mutating in filth,” she said.
Another legislative effort to boost coronavirus vaccine rates in California also collapsed Wednesday.
After the mandate proposal was shelved on Aug. 30, Assembly Member Evan Low, D-Campbell, continued to work on a narrower approach that would have provided legal cover to private employers who wanted to adopt their own vaccine mandates for their workers.
Representatives for business and labor groups confirmed they were close to a deal that would have offered that indemnity and also extended California’s expiring paid sick leave for COVID, but were unable to finalize it by a Tuesday deadline to have a bill in print. The legislative session ends Friday.
“While I’m disappointed we will not be passing a bill that would have created greater safeguards for workers and employers, I
will continue to exhaust all legislative avenues when it comes to protecting the health and prosperity of all Californians,” Low said in a statement.