Good jorb, California:

“Everybody Is Freaking Out”: Freelance Writers Scramble to Make Sense of New California Law

If a freelance journalist writes for a magazine, newspaper or other entity whose central mission is to disseminate the news, the law says, that journalist is capped at writing 35 “submissions” per year per “putative employer.” At a time when paid freelance stories can be written for a low end of $25 and high end of $1 per word, some meet that cap in a month just to make end’s meet.

Huh.

This sure seems like a massive violation of the First Amendment, and thus should get smacked down by the Supreme Court. But then…in California pistol and rifle magazines are capped at ten rounds, so clearly the Supreme Court is cool with California putting limits on the things otherwise free people can do. Still, this *really* seems like more of a Britlander law than an American one. But it’s a California law, so…

An obvious solution presents itself, for those freelancers who can pull it off. Write the twenty stories that you normally crank out in two weeks… then submit them as one solid block. Not optimal, of course; journalism is often about what’s happening Right Now, and waiting days to weeks to turn in a story would be a killer. Another alternative: break California up into five states, one of which being a strip from San Fran down the coast past Los Angeles. Let CalCoast pass whatever craziness they want and let everyone else live like regular folks.