California’s local governments face violent disruption. Officials say they need protection

Nine months has passed since a woman stood outside Los Gatos councilmember Marico Sayoc’s home on a Saturday morning, screaming “ F--- LGBTQ” and “We don’t want you here.”

“To be told that you don’t belong, to have someone show up at your front door...those memories will not leave my family for a long time,” said Sayoc, who supported pro-LGBTQ policies in the Santa Clara County town southwest of San Jose.

At city council meetings last fall, attendees angry about Sayoc’s politics and leadership screamed personal insults at the then-mayor. “You are not God,” one of them shouted. “How dare you force your ideologies on our children?”

During the pandemic, local public meetings in the Golden State and across the country descended into ugly and sometimes violent spectacles. Screaming residents forced city councils, county commissions and school boards into recess or adjournment.

California’s thousands of governing bodies are bound by the 1953 Brown Act, which guarantees the public’s right to attend and participate in meetings. Even though it allows for removal of attendees for “willful disruption,” localities have different ideas about what that means. As do police.

Now, years into the crisis, legislation is making its way through the Capitol in hopes of providing towns and counties with more guidance — and safety — before the next front in the culture wars opens.

SB-1100, introduced by State Sen. Dave Cortese, D-San Jose, would establish a firm framework or “toolkit,” for Brown Act enforcement. Right-wing protesters have not embraced the bill. But a host of local and county agencies see it as a necessary step in response to a crisis.

In El Dorado County, speakers spent local meetings espousing conspiracy theories. In Rocklin, a school board hearing led to a scuffle as Proud Boys and other extremists told board members that mask mandates were a form of “mind control.”

Nevada County Supervisor Heidi Hall, who used to “love” public comment before COVID brought on a “nasty run” of disruption, said: “These people were not interested in learning about the process or having us hear their ideas. They were simply playing performative politics. And their whole point was disruption of our business.”

Dais encounters and restraining orders: the road to a crisis

In his last term on the Santa Clara Board of Supervisors from 2016 to 2020, Cortese carried copies of restraining orders in his briefcase. He said they were sought by multiple area officials who received threats severe enough that a judge “was more than willing” to grant them.

“Was that the norm in the ’90s? No, not for me,” Cortese said. “Was that the norm in the early 2000s, even in a big city like San Jose, when I was on the council or Vice Mayor? No.”

Now, angry constituents contact his office, the senator said, demanding meetings and talking about securing firearms. He called the situation at the local level “perilous.”

Jean Hurst, former Senior Legislative Representative for the California State Association of Counties, said county officials often bore the brunt of pandemic frustration, because counties in California are essentially the state’s public health agencies.

“We saw a lot of tension and anger sort of come up as the pandemic progressed, whether it was stay at home orders, or masking requirements, or vaccinations,” Hurst said.

Even in parts of the state where pandemic restrictions weren’t enforced, tensions ran high. Conservative supervisors in Shasta County, the deep red nook of Northern California, faced constituents who tried to burn surgical masks and threatened them with citizens’ arrest.

In Los Gatos, meetings were sent into recess by the screams of extremist locals.

Before the pandemic hit, these disruptions were “very minor,” according to Sayoc. But when the town locked down in March 2020, locals began to call COVID-19 the “plandemic,” insisting that the mayor was behind the virus and that the quarantine was her scheme to build power.

Sitting at the dais as her constituents screamed, the mayor tried not to give them airtime.

“They would have their three minutes, and I would ignore it,” she said. “I didn’t want to add more fuel to this fire.”

What happened?

Local elected officials said disruption wasn’t new to local governments in California. But several factors took it to another level.

“The first is the pandemic and the rise of conspiracy theories and refusal to accept public health mandates from the state,” Hall said. “And the second is sort of Trumpism — this idea that incivility is OK, disruption is OK, disrespect and name calling is OK.”

In the Legislature, a potential solution

In the early 1950s, Californians were increasingly alarmed by some lawmakers’ practice of doing business in “secret meetings.” The Brown Act was a response.

While SB 1100 has passed the Senate and awaits a vote in the House, it has received push-back from First Amendment advocates opposed to any alteration of Brown.

But broad language limits the act’s usefulness, SB 1100 supporters say. It can result in people disrupting meetings with impunity, or being ejected merely for expressing an unpopular or repellent point of view.

“The Brown Act, as it stands now, doesn’t really define what a willful disruption is,” Cortese said. “And frankly, I think some jurisdictions have interpreted that as somebody saying things they don’t like. We wanted to make sure that willful disruption meant that you’re actually making infeasible the continuation of the meeting.”

Long lines of Californians have given phone testimony against it. Along with some lawmakers, they share concerns that the bill would impede freedom of speech.

For Tara Thornton, co-founder of Freedom Angels, a far-right group known for spreading vaccine misinformation and protesting California’s public health response, the Brown Act is flawed, but not because of its removal provisions. In testimony this spring against SB 1100, Thornton said Californians were “locked out” of the democratic process when the pandemic hit.

“The Brown Act was supposed to be there to keep an open channel for electeds and the citizens,” Thornton said. “And that didn’t happen. I think that this bill needs to be completely stopped, put aside, and let’s look at how to solve the breakdown in voices of the children, the businesses, the churches, the elders.”

Thornton’s voice likely won’t stop lawmakers from passing the bill. But crowds have protested at the State Capitol against Gov. Gavin Newsom’s orders during the pandemic. The term anti-vaxxer,” which once described “a fringe cohort,” has now drawn “legions of supporters by tapping into the anger, exhaustion, grief and frustration,” Time magazine wrote earlier this year.

This tense political climate, according to professor Henrik Minassians, could doom SB 1100.

“We have gotten to the point that the idea of civility, when it comes to politics... has disappeared,” said Minassians, who teaches urban planning and studies at California State University, Northidge. “So the Senate bill is trying to bring some form of civility. But most probably, it’s going to do kind of the opposite, because you’re going to alienate a segment of the population that want to voice themselves.”

When asked about a better solution, Minassians didn’t think much could be done, not when the public “has lost its trust” in the political process.

A ‘balancing act’: safety and the First Amendment

While crafting SB 1100, lawmakers faced a constant struggle: making clear to Californians that they weren’t crossing any free speech lines.

First Amendment considerations are a frequent factor on the local level when meetings erupt into chaos. In some towns, officials understand when they are allowed to remove a rowdy attendee. Others fear being the lawmaker who violates the First Amendment.

Kurt Wilson, Executive Director of the Western Riverside Council of Governments, noted that often, local governments will be tempted to show someone the door.

“But the governing body was very concerned because there’s a constant balancing act between someone’s freedom to speak and someone’s right to be able to feel safe in that environment,” Wilson said. “It’s tricky.”

Cortese emphasized to his staff that the bill was to include no content-based regulations. In other words, citizens couldn’t be ejected for positions they were taking; rather, the bill would focus on whether they kept a meeting from continuing.

He had reason to be careful; meeting protection laws elsewhere have drawn legal challenges. In Ohio, a school district lost a federal lawsuit because its restrictions — on “antagonistic,” “abusive” and “personally directed speech” — violated the First Amendment.

Courts look more favorably on removal based on disorderly conduct, as long as it isn’t content-based. In Acosta v. City of Costa Mesa, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a person’s speech should actually disrupt a meeting before steps are taken for removal.

The bill faces skepticism from other angles, too. Some lawmakers have expressed concern that it gives the state too much control over local matters.

In a hearing, State Sen. Andreas Borgeas, R-Fresno, said he’s spent “a good amount of time” dealing with the Brown Act.

“This is a true matter of local control,” Borgeas said. “The Brown Act is open disclosure and open meeting requirements. Decorum setting is largely decided by the chair or that respective body.

“I understand why you’re doing this. I don’t think this is an appropriate use of state power to give locals what they have inherently.”

Other measures aimed at modifying the Brown Act have faced opposition due to concerns it would become easier for lawmakers to hide from constituents.

AB 2449 would allow governing bodies to convene remotely, something previously permitted only under Newsom’s emergency pandemic orders, or if officials posted where they would be meeting. The bill has drawn criticism from journalists who use in-person public meetings to interview lawmakers sometimes otherwise unavailable.

“Video conferencing should not become an excuse for public board members to avoid constituents,” the Bay Area News Group’s Editorial Board wrote last month. “During the pandemic remote meetings, important interactions in the local government decision-making process were lost.”

What’s the future of local government in California?

Tom Hogen-Esch, political science professor at California State University, Northridge, predicted that events of the last several years will steer Californians away from running for local office.

“I’m quite sure that members of local government, who are not paid very much in most instances… probably feel like given the current environment, maybe it’s not worth it to serve in local government, if they’re going to be subjected to this kind of abuse, threats of violence against themselves,” he said.

Hurst said right now, local officials fear members of their own community. Demonstrators are the same people they see at the grocery stores, she said.

“It makes it difficult to attract and retain county staff because they feel intimidated,” Hurst said. “It makes it difficult to recruit good people to run to office.”

Ideally, SB 1100 proponents say, the bill would create a more supportive environment for local lawmakers, because there would be a common understanding of how they can protect themselves.

“I don’t think this will save the world,” Hurst said of the bill. “And I still worry about the level of vitriol and public discourse. But at the very least, maybe we’ve offered a more clear tool to manage these situations.”

As for Sayoc? This is her last year on the Los Gatos City council. She will not run for re-election.