A bill seeking to make child sex trafficking a felony in California was looming as an example after it passed the Senate in April with large bipartisan votes, but as it moved to the Assembly, a group of Democrats were going to let the proposal die, and the governor had to step in to save it.
The bill, SB14, finally passed a majority on Thursday in the assembly’s Public Safety committee as it was about to become a political scandal.
When the bill passed in April, SB14 author Sen. Shannon Grove, a Republican, of Bakersfield, hugged fellow Democrats who supported it, including Nancy Skinner and Scott Wiener.
The approval became an example of how senators put the well-being of Californians first, after they heard from survivors of child sex trafficking.
Child trafficking is currently considered a non-serious crime in California because Proposition 57, passed in 2016, reclassified that crime by not using physical violence.
The California District Attorneys Association, several individual prosecutors, at least 74 state organizations, the California Police Chiefs and Sheriffs Associations, city and county governments, among many others, have expressed their support for SB14. .
But when the initiative passed to the first of two committees of the assembly or lower house on Tuesday of this week, the two Republican members voted in favor and the six Democrats did not vote against it, but abstained from voting as a block.
Without that approval, the proposal died before reaching the appropriations committee, which would decide its budget before delivering it to the plenary session of the assembly.
“Children trafficked on Figueroa Street and throughout California will continue to be raped and victimized until Assembly Democrats take action,” Senator Grove said angrily. The six abstentions were clearly due to the fact that the proposal had been submitted by a Republican.
The senator mentioned Figueroa Street because the chair of the committee that rejected the proposal is from the Los Angeles area, Reggie Jones-Sawyer, and he is followed by the group of Democrats on that committee.
“After passing the Senate with a unanimous bipartisan vote, I hoped that Democrats on the Assembly Public Safety Committee, led by Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer, would agree to making sex trafficking of a minor a felony. ”, the senator said in a statement.
The text of SB14 states that “California consistently ranks number one in the nation in the number of human trafficking cases reported to the National Human Trafficking Hotline.”
“The California Attorney General (Rob Bonta) points out that California is one of the largest sites for human trafficking in the United States, recognizes the serious nature of this crime and has defined it as ‘modern slavery'” points out the initiative .
“Human trafficking is among the fastest growing criminal enterprises in the world and is estimated to be a $150 billion a year global industry. It is a form of modern day slavery that profits from the exploitation of our most vulnerable populations.”
After Democrats on the public safety committee let SB14 die, Sen. Grove said she was “deeply disappointed.”
Governor Gavin Newsom met with reporters Wednesday on another matter, but was questioned and declared “very surprised” by the attitude of Democrats on that committee. “We are going to see what can be done,” he said, without providing details.
“We will follow up on that and we will have a lot more to say about it shortly,” said the governor when speaking before the Sacramento Press Club, accompanied by the president of the assembly, Robert Rivas.
Rivas said that “we are already taking care of it and we will report as soon as we have results.”
The California Republican Party meanwhile issued a statement saying Tuesday was “a happy day for criminals,” the assurance that they could traffic children and face only a lesser sentence.
“Thanks to Gavin Newsom and the California Democrats, you can consider the Golden State a haven for criminals,” that party said in a statement.
Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer apologized, commenting that Democrats on the committee don’t think imposing longer sentences for child traffickers is the solution, contrasting even with Democrats on the same committee but in the Senate.
The governor said he spoke to Jones-Sawyer on the phone Wednesday night. Thursday morning the public safety committee voted again, and SB14 passed with six votes in favor and two abstentions from Democratic members.
The initiative now goes to the assembly’s appropriations committee. If approved, it will then be submitted to the plenary for a vote.