California tried to make politics and religion off-limits at work meetings. The 9th Circuit just said no

California's SB 399 punished any employer who disciplined a worker for skipping a meeting, but only if the employer used that meeting to share an opinion on politics or religion. Tax-paperwork meetings stayed mandatory. Opinion meetings didn't.

On Thursday a unanimous Ninth Circuit panel (two Clinton appointees and one Trump appointee) kept the law blocked. The court said you can't tell whether the law was broken without checking what was said, so it regulates speech, not conduct. Because it targets only political and religious topics, it's content-based and faces strict scrutiny, and California's "captive audience" theory didn't come close. No court has ever used that theory to uphold a content-based limit on private speech in a private setting.

Why it matters: the state doesn't get to pick which subjects are too dangerous to discuss. Workers who don't like a boss's views can still leave, push back, or organize. What California can't do is put whole categories of opinion on a blacklist.

The injunction stays in place while the case continues. Case: California Chamber of Commerce v. Bonta (9th Cir., Oct. 29, 2026).

Sources: Courthouse News | Volokh Conspiracy at Reason