Op-Ed: Rep. Vince Fong: California Coastal Commission’s anti-Elon Musk decision violates the First Amendment

But it didn’t stop there.  When also asked about his vote to deny, Commissioner Mike Wilson continued to attack Elon Musk by saying, “there’s politics and policy and science; they mix in these spaces. It’s real. This company is owned by the richest person in the world with direct control over what could be the most extensive global communication system on the planet. And just last week, that person was speaking about political retribution on a national stage. And it was very glib.” 

As someone who has been in public service for over two decades, I have never seen a more biased basis for a decision.  And more broadly, it does beg the following questions: why does a taxpayer-funded public steward like the California Coastal Commission use the perceived political views of an applicant in its decision-making at all, and how often has it done so? Can the California Coastal Commission be trusted to discharge its duties if its decision-making is based on whether commissioners like or dislike your Instagram, X, or Facebook likes and posts, or your donation to a local campaign that one of the commissioners personally dislikes?

While SpaceX has chosen to sue the California Coastal Commission for infringing SpaceX and its founder Elon Musk’s First Amendment rights, free speech and due process are not the only casualties of the Commission’s decision. The Commission also sacrifices the public good by allowing personal bias to stop important additional launches that our military and commercial space innovators need to compete in the 21st century global space race, and endangers the public trust of the fairness of its decisions past, present and in the future. Without the assurances that there is no place for political and personal bias in its decision-making, the scope and power of the California Coastal Commission should be reevaluated in Sacramento —and also in Washington — given that federal responsibilities in the Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972 have been delegated to the California Coastal Commission when it makes federal consistency determinations and when it disburses federal monies to applicants.  

With an unfair and discriminatory decision like this one, Americans should be wary of the protection of their First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment Rights if this is not immediately rectified. I will continue to push back on this partiality that the California Coastal Commission represents. We cannot tolerate political differences being the basis of judgements that will potentially harm the future of our country.

Rep. Vince Fong represents California’s 20th District in Congress.