California delegation quiet on federal bill allowing removal of online LGBTQ content

Good morning and welcome to the A.M. Alert!

AS KIDS ONLINE SAFETY ACT GAINS SUPPORT, HOW DOES CALIFORNIA’S DELEGATION STAND?

California’s U.S. Senate delegation has yet to take a position on a bill that critics say would empower conservative attorneys general to target online LGBTQ content for removal.

The Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, was co-authored by Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Tennessee Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn.

The bill is intended to address the crisis of teenage mental health in America, specifically social media’s role in contributing to it.

“KOSA provides families with the tools, safeguards, and transparency they need to protect against threats to children’s health and well-being online,” according to a one-page document provided by Blumenthal and Blackburn’s office.

The bill has the endorsement of several organizations, including the American Psychological Association, the Internet Accountability Project and Common Sense Media.

It also has 45 co-sponsors, including 23 other Republicans and 22 Democrats. Senators as ideologically diverse as Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, and Josh Hawley, R-MO, have signed on.

So what’s the controversy?

“Simply put, KOSA as currently written would allow (Texas Attorney General) Ken Paxton and other red-state attorney generals to bring frivolous lawsuits against any content they believe is harmful to kids — which includes LGBTQIA+ content in their view. The states are already passing state laws to censor the internet, but a federal law would give them much more leeway,” said writer and commentator Charlie Jane Anders in an email interview with The Bee.

“And the current text of KOSA imposes guardrails made of tissue paper against malicious or bigoted lawsuits by state AGs — the law is written to give them maximum scope of action, with no oversight,” Anders said.

Anders and others in the LGBTQ community have led the charge in rallying opposition against the bill, on the grounds that it will be used to erase, or demonetize and delist, queer content online. Anders believes a simple fix is to remove the authority in the bill from the attorneys general and place it in the hands of the Federal Trade Commission.

Anders said that the same people who are banning books and going after teachers are looking for tools to censor the internet, and that KOSA “would be an ideal tool for them to use.”

“As a trans woman, but also as someone who has found community and fellowship in many ways online, I am desperate to protect the internet from the new wave of repression that KOSA would bring,” Anders said.

And it’s not just the LGBTQ advocates that believes this bill can and will be used to target that community. The hard right Heritage Foundation believes it as well, tweeting in May that “keeping trans content away from children is protecting kids.”

Blackburn herself intends this use if it becomes law, saying in an interview that the bill is intended to protect children “from the transgender in this culture.”

It’s unclear what position new Sen. Laphonza Butler, herself a lesbian, will take on the bill. The Bee was unable to reach the senator’s office.

As for Sen. Alex Padilla, a spokeswoman for his office told The Bee that he is “closely monitoring the legislation, but has not taken a position as of yet.”

Given that this bill is still in committee — in a sharply divided Congress — it may be a while before it makes it to the floor for a vote. That means Reps. Adam Schiff, Barbara Lee and Katie Porter — the frontrunners to be the next senator from California — could be in office before it goes for a vote.

But none of the three candidates responded to a Bee inquiry by deadline Friday.

WILL HE OR WON’T HE RESIGN

Via Gillian Brassil...

Ousted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will stick around Congress, his office said Friday, after reports that he considered resigning circulated online.

“McCarthy is not resigning,” Brittany Martinez, a spokeswoman for McCarthy, told The Bee.

McCarthy, 58, was the first speaker of the House to be removed by a vote from his colleagues. The Bakersfield Republican struggled to win the gavel in January and continued to have troubles with his far right flank throughout his nine months.

If he were to resign, McCarthy would not be the first speaker in recent times to leave before his term was up.

In 1989, Speaker Jim Wright, a Texas Democrat, resigned the office after ethical questions were raised about what opponents considered excessive speaking fees and a deal involving copies of his book.

It took Democrats a week to name Washington’s Tom Foley as a successor. A few weeks later, Wright resigned his congressional seat.

In 2015, Republican John Boehner resigned as speaker and as a member of Congress, exhausted after battling conservatives in his own party over budget cuts.

McCarthy, a fourth-generation resident of Kern County, has had far less trouble in his Bakersfield district. He hasn’t had a close congressional election since he joined the House in 2007, and wouldn’t if he ran in 2024.

McCarthy still has supporters who want him to run again for the speaker job, including Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Elk Grove.

Thursday, McClintock railed against the decision to depose his friend and leave the House without a speaker, saying in a statement that “the only workable outcome is to restore Kevin McCarthy as Speaker under party rules that respect and enforce the right of the majority party to elect him.”

Eight Republicans who helped cause his downfall would have to back off. Restoring McCarthy to the job “depends entirely on several of the dissidents to disenthrall themselves from their decision and to repair the damage before it is too late. I appeal to them to act while there is still time,” McClintock said.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“The current Republican Party has changed from the old conservative coalition of economic, military, and social conservatives of the Reagan era to a mix of these old style conservatives interested in policy plus a new generation that includes performance artists worried more about the attention and money they can get from social media buzz.”

- Cal State Fullerton Professor Stephen Stambough, in a statement responding to former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s ouster.

Best of The Bee:

• Saying they are “ashamed and embarrassed” by the ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy, four California GOP lawmakers joined 41 other House Republicans to strongly urge changes in how a speaker is selected and retained, via David Lightman.

• More than 75,000 health care workers ended a three-day strike against Kaiser Permanente in seven states at 6 a.m. Saturday. Company and union negotiators will resume bargaining this week, via Cathie Anderson.

• A week after a scathing audit of Capital Public Radio’s finances was released, more than half of its board of directors resigned Wednesday night over what they said was a failure by Sacramento State leadership to “engage with the board in good faith,” via Sam Stanton.

• Some California workers are in line to earn more sick days starting in January, as Gov. Gavin Newsom handed labor advocates another victory, via Maya Miller.