NEW YORK Governor Kathy Hochul signed a bill into law Sept. 9 that makes it illegal to "falsely impersonate" a union or union representative in the state. The law empowers the state attorney general with subpoena authority to seek $1,000 per violation and allows unions to sue individuals or groups deemed in violation, regardless of where they operate.
The legislation's primary target is the Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit that has spent years educating government workers about their rights under the 2018 Supreme Court decision Janus v. AFSCME, which established that government workers cannot be forced to pay union dues as a condition of employment.
The Freedom Foundation's campaigns, using clearly branded materials, inform workers they can opt out of union membership. The strategy has produced results. More than 5,000 public employees in Oregon alone dropped union membership in 2025 following the group's outreach.
Freedom Foundation CEO Aaron Withe called these membership losses a "budget crisis" for unions and characterized the New York law as "a hit job."
New York's approach mirrors Oregon's HB 3789, which permits unions to sue for up to $6,250 per mailer sent to employees. The Freedom Foundation calculated that one statewide mailing in Oregon could expose it to roughly $1 billion in theoretical liability under that law. A federal district court dismissed the foundation's challenge to the Oregon statute on ripeness grounds, finding no union had yet filed suit. The foundation has appealed to the 9th Circuit, which will examine whether a state can prohibit fraud without restricting truthful speech.
California enacted similar legislation in August. Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 2624, which expands the state's Safe at Home program to include immigration-services providers and penalizes individuals who post their information with intent to harass. The measure directly targeted videographer Nick Shirley, whose investigations into taxpayer-funded daycare and immigration-services programs prompted lawmakers to act.
