California Is Building a Speech Regulation Machine. AB 1578 Helps Lay the Foundation
AB 1578 04-23-26
Supporters say the measure helps prevent hate speech expressed by public leaders. Critics warn it would give the government unchecked power to label religious and political speech as hateful.
A bill moving through the California Legislature would require every elected official in the state to complete mandatory anti-hate speech training, but the measure never defines what hate speech actually is, a gap that opponents say would hand ideological activists the power to determine which beliefs are acceptable in public life.
AB 1578, authored by Assemblymember Corey Jackson (D-Riverside), passed the Assembly Committee on Local Government last Tuesday by a vote of 8 to 2. The bill would embed one hour of anti-hate speech training into the sexual harassment prevention training California already requires for state and local officials, beginning January 1, 2028. Its reach is broad: from state legislators and constitutional officers down to city council members, county supervisors, and school board trustees across all 58 counties.
The committee referred the bill to the Assembly Committee on Governmental Organization, where a hearing is scheduled for April 22.
Jackson framed the measure as a public safety response to documented trends in hate activity. Drawing on findings from the Commission on the State of Hate, he argued that the words of elected officials carry outsized influence. “Hate speech from elected officials is the primary impetus of hate crimes,” he said in his author’s statement. “We cannot claim to value equality while ignoring the systems that allow hate to persist.”
But the bill’s critics, an unusually broad coalition spanning religious conservatives, gender-critical feminists, and civil liberties advocates, say the legislation’s central term is a constitutional problem, not an oversight.
“Hate speech” carries no legal definition under California law or federal statute. The Supreme Court reaffirmed as recently as 2017, in Matal v. Tam, that no such exception to the First Amendment exists. The bill delegates curriculum design to outside parties without establishing any standards for who may develop the training or what viewpoints it may promote.
Greg Burt, Vice President of California Family Council, said that ambiguity is not incidental. “This bill doesn’t define hate speech because if it did, a court would throw it out,” Burt said. “The ambiguity is the weapon. When the government mandates training on a term it refuses to define, the definition gets written by whoever Sacramento pays to run the program. In California, that means ideological activists, not courts or the Constitution.”
A Definition Written in Practice
Opponents of the bill pointed to testimony at last Tuesday’s hearing as evidence that the definition of hate speech is already being written inside the Capitol and that it sweeps far beyond what most Californians would recognize as hatred.
Jean Chadbourne, an educator testifying on behalf of Women Are Real, a California coalition that advocates for sex-based rights, told the committee that when their witness raised concerns about mixed-sex locker rooms before an assembly panel last month, Assemblymember Quirk-Silva responded that the group was “spewing hate.” Assemblymember Zbur said he was “tired of us hating other kids.” In a prior session, he compared the group’s support for female-only sports to Nazi Germany.
Meg Madden, representing Californians United for Sex-Based Evidence in Policy and Law, was that witness. She told the committee on Tuesday that she has been accused of hate twice during legislative hearings for stating that boys do not belong in girls’ sports, a view she noted commands majority support even among registered Democrats.
“Even if there is only one person left on Earth who knows that sex is real,” Madden said, “we must protect that person’s right to say that, even if it offends some people.”
The exchange illustrated what critics call the bill’s structural danger: the state would mandate training against a category of speech that government officials are already applying to ordinary civic testimony about biology and women’s spaces.
An Unusual Coalition
The registered opposition to AB 1578 cuts across ideological lines in ways that complicate the bill’s framing as a straightforward anti-discrimination measure. Alongside California Family Council and Pacific Justice Institute stand the LGB Alliance Foundation, Women Are Real, Democrats for an Informed Approach to Gender, and Lesbians Advocating for a Resilient Future, organizations that hold sharply different views on many questions but share a concern about undefined government speech mandates.
The bill’s formal support coalition is narrower: Equality California, Chinese Affirmative Action, and the Alameda County Office of Education are the primary registered backers.
California Family Council (CFC) believes the bill poses a direct threat to the ability of people of faith to serve in elected office. Organizations that articulate biblical views on marriage, human sexuality, and gender have been labeled hate groups by the same activist networks likely to design the training curriculum.
“Mandatory ideological training that frames certain viewpoints, particularly traditional religious beliefs about marriage, sexuality, or gender, as inherently hateful would stigmatize these individuals,” stated CFC’s letter of opposition, “and undermine the pluralism that our constitutional system is designed to protect.”
Part of a Broader Push
AB 1578 is not an isolated measure. Its direct companion bill, AB 1803, authored by Assemblymember Lowenthal, would extend identical anti-hate speech training requirements beyond government to all private employers in California with five or more employees. That bill is currently in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
The parallel tracks suggest a coordinated legislative strategy to establish government-defined speech standards across both the public and private sectors simultaneously.
Finnish Member of Parliament Päivi Räsänen faced years of criminal prosecution for publicly expressing biblical beliefs about marriage and sexuality. While she was acquitted in lower courts, Finland’s Supreme Court later issued a mixed ruling, acquitting her on charges related to a Bible verse tweet, but convicting her for a 2004 church pamphlet in which she expressed her views on sexual ethics. The conviction was for “making and keeping available” material deemed to insult a group. The European Union’s Digital Services Act has drawn criticism from some who argue it pressures online platforms to restrict lawful speech under anti-hate frameworks. Critics of AB 1578 argue these cases represent the trajectory, not the worst case.
The bill now awaits its April 22 hearing before the Assembly Committee on Governmental Organization.