As states and nations dispense with vaccine and mask mandates against COVID-19, California’s Democrats seem determined to make them permanent features of life.

Within one week, Democratic members of the Assembly, the state Legislature’s lower house, not only introduced bills that would grant state authorities more power over medical decisions. Gov. Gavin Newsom also announced a state program to fight what he called “propaganda” about COVID-19 and vaccines.

On Feb. 10, four Assembly representatives introduced AB 1993, which would link employment to vaccination status. Full-time employees and independent contractors would have to supply proof they received two doses of an approved COVID-19 vaccine within 45 days. The state would grant medical and religious exemptions, but the Department of Fair Employment and Housing, the Department of Public Health, and the Division of Occupational Safety and Health would determine those exemptions.

One of those representatives, Rep. Buffy Wicks, tried to rewrite her own transportation bill into one mandating vaccines just before the Legislature adjourned in September.

On Feb. 15, Rep. Evan Low introduced AB 2098, which would revoke the license of any doctor who spreads what the bill calls “misinformation” about COVID-19 or the vaccines designed to fight it. In August, Low tried to rewrite his own bill regulating telephone medical services, AB 1102, into one mandating vaccines.

Six Democrats are sponsoring both bills: Assembly members Wicks, Low, Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, and Akilah Weber; and state Sens. Richard Pan and Scott Wiener. AB 1993 includes four other Democrats as co-authors: Sens. Bill Dodd and Josh Newman, and Assemblymen Bill Quirk and Mark Stone.

Since Democrats control 75 percent of the Legislature, and since Newsom arbitrarily imposed emergency pandemic restrictions for nearly two years, both bills could become law.

Not to be outdone, the governor announced Feb. 17 he would establish “a brand new unit in state government working full time” to counter the “propaganda machine” that criticizes COVID-19 policies and vaccines. Newsom said he has members of the Department of Health and Human Services “battling in the trenches and on social media trying to push back.”

Among the members of that so-called “propaganda machine” is Fox News with its “propaganda lineup,” Newsom said.

Why do California’s Democrats advocate such measures while evidence increasingly shows COVID-19 vaccines to be counterproductive and dangerous? One answer is money.

Of the six Democrats supporting both Assembly bills, four received sizable campaign contributions from drug companies during 2020. Aguiar-Curry collected the most, at $46,950. Following her were Low ($38,100), Pan ($31,700), and Wiener ($19,000).

Such amounts can “have a significant impact on a smaller, cheaper, and less scrutinized state election,” wrote Lev Facher from STAT News, which covers the medical profession.

A STAT News survey showed that 81.7 percent of California’s legislators collected campaign contributions from pharmaceutical firms or trade organizations in 2020. Only Louisiana (84.4 percent) had a higher percentage. Pfizer donated $1.27 million to more candidates than any other firm or industry group: 1,048 in 33 states.

Those investments appear to be collecting dividends. Low’s revised AB 1102 specified the “Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Janssen vaccines” as most effective. Pfizer sent $1,500 in campaign contributions to Low for the advertising.

“It’s pathetic,” an unidentified insider told the California Globe. “The progressive legislators play ‘Vax for the win’ while the people of California have to walk down urine-soaked streets and needle-strewn parks. Pathetic.”

But COVID-19 means a financial windfall for vaccine manufacturers, who use President Joe Biden as cover.

“Biden wants to inoculate as many people as possible,” Christopher Cole, the FDA’s executive officer for medical countermeasures, told Project Veritas. “There’s a money incentive for Pfizer and the drug companies to promote additional vaccinations…. It’ll be a recurring fountain of revenue. It might not be that much, initially … but if they can get every person required [to get] an annual vaccine, that is a recurring return of money going into their company.”

That includes children, though the Lancet shows children to be the least likely among all age groups to get COVID-19.

“Schools are going to mandate it,” Cole said. “Just from everything I’ve heard, they’re not going to not approve it…. I mean, it hasn’t been formally announced yet because they don’t want to rile everyone up.”

Beyond money, however, is the Democratic Party’s increasing embrace of despotism for the sake of an ostensibly progressive agenda. Public health has become merely an excuse to accrue power.

“Perpetual states of emergency have replaced perpetual states of war as the preferred vehicle for increasing authoritarian power,” wrote Breitbart’s John Hayward. “Emergencies also encourage a more submissive mindset, which is essential for political power to grow. Obedience is the necessary fuel for power…. Submission nourishes obedience.”

That kind of submission demands suppressing information, as AB 2098 would do.

“The pandemic greatly increased the free world’s appetite for ‘controlled’ authoritarianism,” Hayward wrote. “A good emergency can be kept rolling indefinitely. People are prone to consuming misinformation and turning against their wise rulers. They can thwart the noble efforts of visionary politicians by voting them out of office.” (READ MORE: Gavin Newsom’s Surplus of Bad Ideas)

But if both bills pass and the governor succeeds in creating his new agency, how far would California’s Democrats go, given the Left’s alliance with Silicon Valley? Would they demand vaccine passports on smartphones? What would happen to Californians who refuse to get COVID-19 vaccines or to doctors who refuse to prescribe state-mandated treatments?

Most importantly, would California’s Democrats stop at COVID-19?