The state of California went to war with a middling social media influencer and lost. After “Mr. Reagan” (real name Christopher Kohls) created an AI-generated parody of Vice President Kamala Harris that was a little too on-the-nose, California rushed to pass a bill banning election-related media that digitally alters a candidate’s voice or likeness for 120 days before an election and 60 days after it — half a year.

California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) signed the bill (AB 2839) into law on September 17, just in time to ruin meme observances of International Talk Like a Pirate Day on September 19. Kohls challenged the law the same day. And, hardly two weeks later, Federal Judge John A. Mendez on Wednesday granted a preliminary injunction that blocked state officials from enforcing most of the law “except for the audio only severed portion of the statute.”

The George W. Bush-appointed judge recognized the state’s compelling interest in “protecting free and fair elections” but found that “AB 2839 does not pass constitutional scrutiny because the law does not use the least restrictive means available for advancing the State’s interest here,” namely, “counter speech.”

“When political speech and electoral politics are at issue, the First Amendment has almost unequivocally dictated that Courts allow speech to flourish rather than uphold the State’s attempt to suffocate it,” Mendez declared. “However, most of AB 2839 acts as a hammer instead of a scalpel, serving as a blunt tool that hinders humorous expression and unconstitutionally stifles the free and unfettered exchange of ideas which is so vital to American democratic debate.”

In fact, Mendez reasoned, “AB 2839 by its own terms proposes other less restrictive means of regulating artificially manipulated content,” such as carveouts for parodies that “implement labelling requirements.”

However, even the carveouts run into constitutional issues. They require “a disclosure ‘no smaller than the largest font size of other text appearing in the visual media’” for the entire duration (emphasis added), the judge observed. “In Plaintiff Kohls’ case, this requirement renders his video almost unviewable, obstructing the entirety of the frame.” Additionally, the judge found “these provisions lacking any objective metric and … difficult to ascertain,” which is par for the course in the vague, sweeping bill. The requirement that parody videos include a giant disclaimer also “forces parodists and satirists to ‘speak a particular message’ that they would not otherwise speak, which constitutes compelled speech that dilutes their message,” Mendez added.

“While a well-founded fear of a digitally manipulated media landscape may be justified, this fear does not give legislators unbridled license to bulldoze over the longstanding tradition of critique, parody, and satire protected by the First Amendment,” wrote Mendez. He cited a 1988 Supreme Court decision (Hustler Magazine v. Falwell), “Despite their sometimes caustic nature, from the early cartoon portraying George Washington as an ass down to the present day, graphic depictions and satirical cartoons have played a prominent role in public and political debate.”

Mendez extended the logic, “YouTube videos, Facebook posts, and X tweets are the newspaper advertisements and political cartoons of today.”

It’s more than a little embarrassing for the mighty state of California to be humbled by a parody creator “with roughly 80,000 followers on X and 360,000 subscribers on YouTube.” Of course, the whole point of the Bill of Rights was to protect the rights of the minority from encroachments by the majority. What makes this outcome embarrassing for California is that it felt threatened enough by Kohl’s videos to make him a target in the first place. Parody only stings when it hits close to home.

Kohls was the first plaintiff to challenge California’s unconstitutional law, but not the only one. On Monday, Alliance Defending Freedom filed suit on behalf of The Babylon Bee. But that Christian satire outfit missed its chance to be the hero of this story by droning too long around the hive; this preliminary injunction was granted before The Bee even got its day in court. Shed a tear for all their sick lawyer jokes now rendered useless, but celebrate with them that humor is back on California’s political menu. (I kid of course; The Babylon Bee’s lawsuit was not slow so much as this injunction came with lighting speed.)