By Mark Glennon | Wirepoints.org
Attempts to squelch free speech — the bedrock right essential for democracy — have become the norm in Illinois. The latest is the Illinois Worker Freedom of Speech Act, recently signed into law by Gov. J.B. Pritzker. It passed by both houses in the General Assembly along strict party lines, with Republicans opposed.
It has nothing to do with worker freedom of speech, creates a nightmare for employers and is yet another measure by the state that flagrantly ignores the First Amendment’s right to free speech.
Under the Act, most every employer in the state faces mandatory fines of $1,000 per employee plus civil lawsuits if they discuss “religious or political matters” at meetings where worker attendance is mandatory.
Think about that — no discussions allowed on political matters.
Say you work for a company that makes a renewable energy product of some kind. Your employer would be fined for a meeting discussing the importance of government subsidies for your product and your job, even if it was employees who asked for the discussion. Likewise, a company making conventional gasoline powered vehicles could not tell its employees about the impact of government efforts to replace them with electric vehicle makers.
Most every company today has political matters pending in government that could impact the company and its workers. Both employers and workers obviously should have the right to communicate their views and hope for agreement. Some companies are particularly activist, politically, with workers routinely pressuring them to support or oppose things they believe in. Attempting to outlaw that is just plain wrong.
Even nonprofit 501 c3 companies are covered by the new law. Most public policy operations on the left and right are 501 c3s, including where I work, Wirepoints. We now can’t discuss government matters at our internal meetings? That’s what we do.
The good news is that the Act is certain to be struck down in court because it’s a shameless First Amendment violation.
The main purpose of the Act was to ban meetings where management discourages union activity. The Act does that, but even if it had been written to cover just that purpose it would be legally questionable on the grounds that only the federal government could do so.
Unfortunately, efforts to muffle free speech by Illinois progressives have become common. Examples:
- Last year the courts ruled against an Illinois law banning pro-life groups from distributing literature near abortion sites. The state’s First Amendment violation was so extreme that a federal judge ridiculed it as “stupid” as well as unconstitutional. That forced Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul to give up trying to defend the law.
- Illinois’ supposed “ban on book bans” is no such thing. It delegated censorship power to libraries or to a national library association that’s run by an open Marxist.
- Pritzker has expressed views particularly hostile to established First Amendment law, saying on CNN that what the government deems to be lies should be subject to criminal prosecution.
- Illinois’ new “anti-doxing” law is horribly overbroad and would penalize speech that should be protected.
- The University of Illinois maintains one of the most onerous “loyalty oaths” for faculty, demanding proof of their active commitment to wokeness.
- Illinois Congressmen have implored social media to do more censorship in at least five separate hearings where tech platform CEOs were grilled.
Sadly, a majority of the public favors more restrictions on free speech, polls say.
This is an extraordinarily dangerous trend and the public better awaken to what’s at risk, which is nothing short of democracy itself.
Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints, an independent research and commentary nonprofit organization.
First published in the Kankakee Daily-Journal on August 10, 2024
