(SACRAMENTO, CA) The California State Assembly passed a resolution authored by Assemblymembers Noreen Evans (D-Santa Rosa) and Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) calling upon the United States Congress to enact a shield law for America's journalists.  The vote occurred exactly one week after the House Judiciary Committee began its review of a proposed federal shield law.

Assembly Joint Resolution (AJR) 24 passed with a vote of 74-0.  It now moves to the State Senate for further review.

“We just sent Congress a unified message of support for its efforts to protect a free press,” said Evans.  “It’s disgraceful when our federal government sends or threatens to send a journalist to prison for reporting the news.  The lack of a federal shield law undermines our ability to protect a free press under state law because no protections exist for California’s journalists subpoenaed to a federal court.”

A journalist's promise of confidentiality to a news source is often the only way the public learns about waste, fraud and abuse within government and the private sector.  Absent legal protections from the forced disclosure of confidential news sources, potential whistle blowers may remain silent.

“The framers of the Constitution understood very well that a truly free society demands a press without government obstruction,” said Leno. “In an age when our cherished freedoms are vanishing at the hand of our own Federal Government, we must do everything in our power to uphold the democratic principles upon which our country was founded. Without a federal shield law, we live with a dramatic and chilling effect on our freedom of the press and journalistic integrity in America.”

Forty-nine states and the District of Columbia have either statutory or common law shield protections.

California's shield law was enacted in 1935.  In 1980, it was incorporated into our state constitution by the voters through Proposition 5.  In 2000, legislation broadened the shield in two basic ways.  First, a journalist subpoenaed in any civil or criminal proceeding must be given at least five days' notice, except in urgent circumstances.  Second, during a criminal trial wherein a journalist is subpoenaed as a witness and asserting shield protections, a judge must set forth findings on the record stating why the journalist's testimony about a confidential source is essential to guarantee a defendant's right to a fair trial.

There are currently two companion measures pending in the United States Congress to establish a federal shield law for journalists, H.R. 2102 and S. 1267, called the Free Flow of Information Act.

AJR 24 is sponsored by the California Newspaper Publishers Association.  Further information about AJR 24 can be found online at http://www.leginfo.ca.gov.  Further information about the pending federal Free Flow of Information Act can be found online at http://thomas.loc.gov.