Antisemitic flyers have been dropped in hundreds of U.S. cities and towns over the past four years, flummoxing local authorities and anti-hate groups that wonder how to respond in light of free-speech protections.
Now, California is taking up legislation that it hopes will curb the practice while remaining on the right side of the First Amendment.
The flyer phenomenon of recent years can be attributed in large measure to one virulently antisemitic, pro-Nazi hate group. Since 2020, the Goyim Defense League has orchestrated a nationwide campaign to disseminate the leaflets onto driveways, lawns and doorsteps, usually in the dead of night. J. has extensively documented GDL’s impact both as an internet subculture and as a widespread distributor of propaganda “in real life,” or IRL.
The group was responsible for nearly 500 incidents of spreading antisemitic propaganda in 2022, according to the Anti-Defamation League, offering a reward — sometimes as trivial as a T-shirt — for followers who often toss the material out of their car windows.
The flyers are starkly and crudely antisemitic. They are colorful one-pagers, printed at home, falsely blaming Jews for the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the coronavirus pandemic, the war in Ukraine and child molestation — and holding Jews responsible for liberal priorities like gun control, abortion rights and the LGBTQ movement.
These are deliberate, targeted attacks that are intended to harass and intimidate victims.
Last year, Florida became the first state to try to curb these types of propaganda efforts by groups like the GDL with legislation that prohibits anyone from “intentionally dumping litter onto private property for the purpose of intimidating or threatening the owner, resident, or invitee of such property.” The law, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, raised some free speech questions, as opponents saw it as government regulation of so-called “hate speech,” a murky category.
Now, California has become the second state to use legislative channels to try to curb the hateful leafleting. It is the state of origin of the Goyim Defense League; the organization’s ringleader, Jon Minadeo Jr., lived in Petaluma before moving to Florida in late 2022.
The new legislation was authored by an assemblymember representing San Diego, a city hard-hit by GDL flyers recently. At least eight instances of antisemitic leafleting were documented last year, according to a press release announcing the new bill. Each “instance” saw many flyers doled out, often clipped to car windshields.
California is taking a different tack than Florida, however. Rather than using the criminal code, legislators are trying to amend or “clarify” a law that already exists in the civil code. If the measure passes, that means it will allow someone who receives hate literature to sue the person who distributed it. The proposed law wouldn’t lead to misdemeanor or felony charges.
“We had a number of conversations with our legal team and with the state Attorney General’s Office,” said Charles Loudon, a legislative director in the state Assembly who worked on the new bill. “We figured out quickly that any time you get into criminal law, you’re going to have some pretty big First Amendment issues. We decided to go with the civil code in order to get damages for the victim.”
Assemblymember Christopher Ward (D-San Diego) introduced AB 3024, the “Stop Hate Littering Act,” which could lead to $25,000 in civil penalties per instance.
“These are not just pieces of paper with words,” Ward said in Friday’s press release. “These are deliberate, targeted attacks that are intended to harass and intimidate victims, dehumanizing them based on their religion, gender or sexual orientation, or other characteristic.”
Ward told J. that a member of the San Diego City Council brought the issue to his attention after “hundreds” of flyers were distributed on neighborhood cars in September.
“We see it in communities across San Diego where there are high densities of Jewish families,” he told J. on Monday. “When you literally are doing this on neighbors’ doorsteps, where they live, on their private vehicles — that takes it another step further, that really warrants a specific protection.”
The press release announcing the measure mentions not only antisemitic literature from GDL, but also anti-Armenian flyers distributed in Los Angeles and other leaflets targeting LGBTQ people.
A spokesperson for the civil-liberties group Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) expressed reservations about the proposed law, echoing complaints raised about the Florida measure.
“One problem with this bill is it refers to ‘hateful materials’ without defining that vague term,” FIRE director of public advocacy Aaron Terr said in an email to J. “The First Amendment doesn’t allow authorities to single out speech for punishment based on their subjective determination that it’s hateful or offensive, which would give the government ample power to suppress speech it doesn’t like.”
The California Legislative Jewish Caucus, a consortium of mostly liberal Jewish lawmakers and allies in the Sacramento statehouse, has not yet released its list of priority bills for the current legislative session, which began in January. A person close to the caucus said that it would “likely” include the measure, but that a final decision had not been made.