The Senate Education Committee today unanimously approved Senate Bill 26. The bill will next be heard by the Senate Public Safety Committee on April 18.
The Committee made its decision despite testimony from ACLU lobbyist Natasha Minsker, civil rights attorney Nicole Pittman and ACSOL board member Roger Hunnicutt. During their testimony, the individuals expressed significant concern regarding how the bill will harm juveniles as well as registrants who are parents of school children.
“The Education Committee today made a grave mistake that will harm children,” stated ACSOL executive director Janice Bellucci. “We will continue our opposition to the bill before and during the Public Safety Committee hearing.”
Registrants, family members and supporters are now urged to send letters and make phone calls to the offices of Committee Chair Nancy Skinner as well as the remaining six committee members.
Related Media
Bill Protecting Schoolchildren from Sex Offenders Passes Education Committee
Action Items:
SB 26 OPPOSITION LETTER (pdf)
SENATE PUBLIC SAFETY COMMITTEE
Senator Nancy Skinner (Chair)
State Capitol, Room 2031
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: (916) 651-4009
Fax: (916) 327-1997
Senator Joel Anderson (Vice Chair)
State Capitol, Room 5052
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: 916.651.4038
Fax: 916.651.4938
State Capitol, Room 4085
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: (916) 651-4035
Fax: (916) 651-4935
Capitol Office
State Capitol, Room 2032
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: (916) 651-4019
Senator Holly J. Mitchell – Co-Author
State Capitol, Room 5080
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: (916) 651-4030
Fax: (916) 651-4930
State Capitol, Room 4062
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: (916) 651-4028
Fax: (916) 651-4928
Senator Scott D. Wiener
state Capitol, Room 4066
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: (916) 651-4011
i guess I cant keep up with so any Bills–wasn’t this just placed on indefinite hold?
I have much more faith in the Public Safety commitee as they have more of a grasp on SOR issues. It didn’t surprise me at all the Education Comm passed this. I think it will be much tougher in the PSC
I will make sure I can attend this meeting. Had a conflict and wasn’t able to attend today’s meeting.
I am sure that education committee is weighted by the education communities. These educators and employees need have something to distract parents, while they themselves are sexually abusing their kids. One positive note, a few more was educated with facts and really of life.
@ davidh & steve
In this Match for Freedom of Privacy, The Right to Resuscitate to Life the Soul (nephesh)* Of The American Person there will be Surprizes.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephesh
As evidenced by the unanimous actions of the Senate Education Commitee in taking no regard of empirical facts and electing Ad Hoc Logic to guide the futures of innocent family members of the state of California
These Commitee members demonstrate they suffer from Systemic Errors of Thinking for choosing to for go “Probability Judgments” and in return elevate “Limited Human Intuitive Judgments” on the serious issues at hand.
Your focus, discipline, and unwavering imposing well are called to a Rightous Duty.
I speak Truth
As Yehovah Lives, so should we
Caught the tail end of the hearing on live video…
– the dark haired lady testifying in support… “despicable” she calls the fact that 100,000 parents in California are “allowed” to be involved in their children’s schooling! Stated that 1 out of 3 girls are sexually assaulted. She did not explain where that figure comes from or how this bill would improve that. But she was into it. I got neither her name nor organization.
– ACLU representative did not lodge firm opposition to this bill, rather some aspects of it. Correctly pointed out the stigma these children / students have to bear. Education (!) Committee not swayed. Oh well.
– ACSOL representative was AWESOME. Coherent, factual, compelling. Citing emotional damage to children, legal conflicts with existing law, lack of public safety issue, etc etc. If the Committee members are not convinced after that they just won’t be. Two thumbs up!!! If this is the “Roger” that posts here – great job and thanks!
– 3 or 4 brave souls stepped up to the microphone in opposition, on video. Thanks and congrats on your guts.
– Sen. Leyva closing (I missed her opening) with the ever popular “if we save just one child we will have done our job”…. yawn.
On to Public Safety!
I noticed that many of the groups that opposed AB 558 were not in opposition to SB26. Anyone have any idea why?
Here is the video of the meeting:
http://senate.ca.gov/media-archive
sad to say, but I’m not surprised in the least…politicians will fight tooth and nail to keep up the hysteria surrounding registered citizens and using us for their own gain by pointing at all these laws and telling citizens “look what we’re doing to keep you safe!” The only chance this madness will end will come when courts finally insist on empirical evidence rather than theory with no substance.
One question I would really like addressed is how many students in school have been assaulted by parents that are RSO’s that came to school to support their child? this must be happening quite often to merit such a bill. Please have them provide the data. I tell you they won’t, because I will guarantee if there is even one such case I will be surprised. I am certain that there have been more instances of teachers with DOJ clearances having inappropriate contact with students than any RSO parent.
When Roger spoke, he referred to us as Registered Citizens. I thought it was interesting that Sen. Leyva asked Roger who he meant by Registered Citizen? “Were you referring to Registered Voters or Sex Offenders” she asked him. I think she knew who he meant but just wanted to make him say “sex offenders”. A better response would have been that he was referring to “both”. Our politicians need to be reminded that we are a large block of voters. If we all voted, we as a group can make changes to the laws. Most laws pass and fail by less than the 100,000 votes we represent here in California. As I already stated, you really did a great job Roger.
isn’t this a public school district and doesn’t that mean that each and every one of us pays taxes to support that system?? someone needs to file suit for all the taxes we pay for all these places we are prohibited from…if I as an tax paying citizen can not attend meetings or school activities where I have a legitimate reason for attending then I believe we should not be expected to pay for these public services…
Right now this bill is only supported by personal hate. There is no data that supports a single word of this bill. There are laws already in place that cover this topic. If it passes it will just waste more money this state cannot afford. And long term – more angry messed up kids for society to deal with and not at the fault of the parent. I always wonder how many of these people have/had kids. I guess they have bundles of hate.
These bills are so random like the thoughts of the originators. When one stands back and looks at the topic of sex offenders and laws it is chaos. This bill SB26, along with many others, is so diametrically opposed to our Constitution. I do not know Janice, who picked up the ball on these challenges, but my God what an amazing person. We need to protect out Constitution from these people.
Leyva used the same venal verbiage to describe registrants that we’ve heard 1000 times already. These people must use the same script. It seems like Ms Pittman, while very eloquent in her presentation was attacking a straw man. The ACLU representative was on point but showed a bit too much restraint and willingness to compromise. Roger, however was forthright, authentic and very fluent in expressing our concerns. Thank you, thank you.
Aye, aye aye, aye
(I guess the next committee will be the decider anyways)
man taxation without representation, no lawmakers represent us or protects are rights, and now denial of public services that each and everyone of us have to pay for through forced taxation…I want a refund and some type of reparations for my losses…
These are the modern Jim Crow laws.
Ah c’mon people, let’s not do reverse bigotry and claim all teachers are molesters. My daughter and her fiance are teaching, and she says that fear of molestation has gone too far all around. She says it makes for a bad environment when teachers are afraid any normal contact can be construed to be something illegal — and now especially male teachers are afraid to go into the field.
I sent my letters to all of them today.
What do you folks think? What is the best way to contact people like this? Letters? Phone calls? Faxes?
these laws are effectively making anyone with a reasonable mind and a grasp on reality of what’s going on and who are good people completely steer clear of any activity that includes children…guess whos left??? i do not mean to paint with a broad brush because like timmer says there are still a lot of good people who are willing to take the chance to help kids, but if you look at it reasonably the current scheme is weeding out people like timmer stated for fear of being labeled a sex offender so the remaining people who are involved with kids must either love them enough to take the chance or guess what, the other ones that are left have nefarious intentions…
It was my honor to read ACSOL’s case against SB 26 before the Senate Education Committee. I knew it would be a tough sell. This committee hasn’t heard us in person before, so they don’t understand how useless that anti-RC bills are. That’s why I was not too surprised at how much the committee– especially Sen. Galgiani– gushed over Leyva’s bill, and unanimously passed it on to the Senate Public Safety committee. It matches the stereotype of politicians passing bills to solve nonexistent problems to so they can wave the flag and get votes.
On the plus side, I was pleased that the ACLU sat next to me raising issues with the bill. And I was encouraged that the committee at least pretended to make a note of some of the issues that I and the ACLU raised (in past years a lot didn’t even listen). And I was glad to have three ACSOL members with me (I will comment on this in a separate post).
Politicians like Leyva and Galgiani focus on beating up on RCs, which are only 5% of sex offenders, and ignore the 95% most likely to harm a child, including teachers and coaches. The focus on the “easy target” 5% is even more silly when you consider that no registrant has ever gone on school campus to assault a child.
Therefore, this is the analogy that I’m going to put in my letters against SB 26:
Imagine a medieval town long ago. The citizens told the mayor that they wanted a wall built around their city to protect their children from barbarians who had never actually attacked the city but they wanted to feel safe. To their shock the mayor just built a short length of wall that was only 5% of the circumference of the city. To make it worse, she regularly proclaimed that she was planning to add yet another lock to that tiny piece of wall, and boasted how the populace should reelect her because she was saving the children from harm. “See? There are no barbarians attacking us because of this wall! ” When challenged about the silliness of not building 95% of the wall, she would pivot to talking about how evil the nonexistent barbarians were.
I’m not in despair that we didn’t stop SB 26 in the Senate Education Committee because it was a bonus opportunity to stop it. The real opportunity is in the Senate Public Safety Committee. They understand much better the hypocrisy of bills like SB 26.
I have real hope that they might stop it!
So let’s all write letters and make phone calls ASAP! Let’s ask our family and friends to do the same.
We are all in this together!
Together we can do what would be almost impossible alone.
And the bottom line is that together, we feel hope.
I have not read the bill for myself but I am assuming that it also applies to Sunday schools and any schools located on Church properties …… which would make it really difficult for some of us who attend larger churches that have their own schools or rent out their facilities for private schools.
This sh!t just never ends, does it!? 😲
you’re all Damned !! And will never be free i know everybody wishes that there was light at the end of the tunnel but they’re never going to change their laws they will continue to hunt down registered citizen and terrorize them your going to need alot of money to even be able to kind of live a regular life
Senator Galgiani’s dismissive statement at the end of the hearing was such a perfect example of why these unconstitutional laws have been so very easy to pass. What they are selling to the public is not physical safety, but emotional security , and the media and politicians are quite adept at exploiting that. It isn’t even about real threats anymore but possible and potential threats and however minuscule. That’s why real recidivism rates don’t really matter to them because if one dwells in the land of possibilities, even a mirage can turn out to real at some point. And that mirage is very very important to them.
You could almost hear her muttering under her breath ” my right to be free from concern and worry trumps their freedom”
Why can’t they just rename this bill to reflect the truth?
Children of Sex Offenders Have No Value Law.