Californians received a reprieve from a bill that would force workers to get COVID-19 vaccines, yet the state’s residents still face proposals to make similar mandates permanent in other areas of life.

On March 29, Assembly Member Buffy Wicks withdrew AB 1993 less than 24 hours before its first reading in a committee hearing. Had the Legislature passed AB 1993, all employees and contractors would have to prove they received two doses of an approved COVID-19 vaccine within 45 days, as FrontPage Magazine reported. The state’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing, the Department of Public Health and the Division of Occupational Safety and Health would determine exemptions.

But Wicks and her fellow members of the self-proclaimed Vaccine Work Group introduced six other bills that would turn California into a medical dictatorship. The all-Democratic group includes Assembly Members Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, Evan Low and Akilah Weber, and Senators Josh Newman, Richard Pan, and Scott Wiener.

Three weeks into the Legislature’s current session, the Vaccine Work Group went to work. On Jan. 20, Wiener and Pan introduced Senate Bill 866, which would enable teens aged 12-18 to get COVID-19 vaccines without their parents’ knowledge.

Pan followed Jan. 24 with SB 871, which requires children to be immunized against COVID-19. On Feb. 7, Weber introduced AB 1797, which forces doctors and pharmacists to send vaccination information on children to the state’s immunization registry. That information must be grouped by race and ethnicity.

Wicks joined Aguiar-Curry, Low and Weber to introduce AB 1993 on Feb. 10. Four days later, Low presented AB 2098, which would allow the state to suspend the license of any doctor who spreads “misinformation” about COVID-19 or vaccines. Pan finished the onslaught Feb. 18 with two bills. SB 1464 would require police and sheriffs to enforce public health orders or lose state funding. SB 1479 would force all schools to test teachers, students and staff members for COVID-19.

Ironically, all that legislation contradicts the science that Democrats claim to revere. Four of the bills concern children and teenagers, yet The Lancet indicated that children are far less likely to contract COVID-19 because they have natural immunity, a fact that the British Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization reinforced.

In June, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) followed by publishing data that showed the mRNA vaccine’s dangers for children and teenagers. The chance of developing heart problems increased dramatically for anyone aged 12-17 who received a second dose of a COVID-19 vaccine with mRNA. A second study published in September revealed similar findings. In both studies, boys experienced an especially dangerous risk.

A Brazilian study published in February determined that the mRNA vaccines increase the production of substances that trigger myocarditis and sudden death.

Stephanie Seneff, a senior research scientist from MIT, and Kathy Dopp, an independent policy analyst, found even more frightening tendencies after analyzing vaccination data. Children and teenagers were 51 times more likely to die from the vaccine itself than from COVID-19 if they had never been inoculated. Seneff and Dopp also found that the mRNA vaccines actually increase the chance of contracting and dying from COVID-19.

That finding corresponds with a study published in August in the Journal of Infection, a peer-reviewed magazine from the British Infection Association. The study found that the mRNA vaccine increased the chances of being infected with the Delta variant. The researchers even recommended that manufacturers change their vaccines to reduce the risk.

In December, the Journal published another study showing that a second COVID-19 shot failed to increase immunity in anyone who had the disease and already had been vaccinated.

In its Feb. 24 report on COVID-19, the United Kingdom’s Health Security Agency revealed that between Jan. 24 and Feb. 20:

— 72.8 percent of vaccinated British patients contracted COVID-19, including 50.5 percent of the triple vaccinated.

— Among patients hospitalized with COVID-19, 72.8 percent took the vaccine, and 53.5 percent received three shots.

— 88.5 percent of those who died from COVID-19 were vaccinated, including 64.2 percent of the triple vaccinated. Out of the total number of deaths, only 11.5 percent were not vaccinated.

Given their own research, Seneff and Dopp reached a logical conclusion.

“There is no evidence that vaccines reduce community spread and transmission,” they wrote. “Thus, vaccine mandates are not based on sound science and are ill-advised.”

So why does the Vaccine Work Group and its Democratic allies promote them? Because instead of working for the people those legislators represent, they work for the drug companies that fill their campaign treasuries.

As FrontPage Magazine reported in “The Coming Medical Dictatorship,” four members of the Vaccine Work Group plus two of AB 1993’s co-authors received substantial donations from pharmaceutical corporations and trade associations for the legislators’ 2020 campaigns. FrontPage Magazine also revealed in the same article Big Pharma’s attempts to influence not only state legislatures but such federal agencies as the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control.

Campaign contributions, however, pale compared to raw power. The Vaccine Work Group’s activism represents the Democratic Party’s embrace of despotism to promote the supposed common good. As Breitbart’s John Hayward wrote, extending a public emergency and instilling mass fear become effective techniques for amassing power.

“Perpetual states of emergency have replaced perpetual states of war as the preferred vehicle for increasing authoritarian power,” Hayward wrote. “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.”

Submission also demands suppressing information, as AB 2098 would do.

“The pandemic greatly increased the free world’s appetite for ‘controlled’ authoritarianism,” Hayward wrote before continuing in a sarcastic vein. “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.”

Now imagine that most of the Vaccine Work Group’s remaining legislation, if not all of it, passes. As FrontPage Magazine asked, how far would California’s Democrats go, given the Left’s alliance with Silicon Valley?

ResearchandMarkets.com provides a terrifying answer. In December, the website began offering a report that shows the opportunities in the emerging social credit market. Social credit is the technological system China uses to monitor its citizens and enforce politically acceptable behavior.

The COVID-19 pandemic provided the impetus for massive interest in social credit systems, the report stated. Those systems would provide $16.1 billion in investment opportunities by 2026, when social credit will become mainstream, the report added. Such systems would include advanced computing, AI and biometrics. Optical equipment alone represents a $723 million opportunity.

Among the companies the report mentions are Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Tencent and Toshiba.

“Social credit systems represent the ability to identify (mostly people but also some ‘things’) and track activities for purposes of grading behaviors and applying ‘social credit’ scoring,” ResearchandMarkets.com summarized. “A given grading/scoring methodology depends largely on social credit system objectives and metrics.”

So if legislators are willing to accept campaign contributions from Big Pharma, why not from Big Tech firms that want to implement the kind of societal oppression Democrats increasingly favor?

Hayward provided the obvious answer:

Beware the myth of Benevolent Authoritarianism, because it’s never benevolent at all, not even at the outset. Those managing the system simply cannot respect their subjects as equals, even if they claim to love them and want the best for them.

Liberty dies, absent respect.

Joseph Hippolito is a freelance writer and a regular contributor to FrontPage Magazine. His commentaries have appeared in The Federalist, The Stream, Wall Street Journal, Jerusalem Post and National Post.