California Government Code section 9026.5 provides — on pain of criminal prosecution — that
No television signal generated by the Assembly shall be used for any political or commercial purpose, including, but not limited to, any campaign for elective public office or any campaign supporting or opposing a ballot proposition submitted to the electors.
As used in this section, “commercial purpose” does not include either of the following:
(1) The use of any television signal generated by the Assembly by an accredited news organization or any nonprofit organization for educational or public affairs programming.
(2) As authorized by the Assembly, the transmission by a third party to paid subscribers of an unedited video feed of the television signal generated by the Assembly.
I’m pleased to report that Bradley Benbrook and Steve Duvernay of the Benbrook Law Groupand I have just filed a challenge to this statute, on behalf of (among others) the Firearms Policy Coalition. The coalition wants to produce, among other things, a video opposing a November 2016 ballot initiative (the so-called “Safety for All Act of 2016″); the video would include “Assembly television footage of past and current bill committee hearings, floor discussion, debates, and votes as well as footage from a May 3, 2016 joint Senate and Assembly Public Safety Committee hearing on the Initiative.” But that use would be a crime under § 9026.5; indeed, another one of our clients, former Assembly member and current congressional candidate Tim Donnelly, had been threatened with punishment in 2014, “when he used video footage of a hearing in which he participated.”
by Eugene Volokh
