The Assembly’s Appropriations Committee today failed to release the Tiered Registry Bill (SB 421) from its suspense file. As a result, the bill is dead and will not move to the Assembly floor for a vote.
“We are disappointed that the State of California will continue a lifetime registry for virtually all registrants,” stated ACSOL Executive Director Janice Bellucci. “The Appropriations Committee had an opportunity to correct this 70-year-old mistake, but instead decided to continue it.”
The Senate passed the Tiered Registry Bill earlier this year, including all committees and a floor vote. One Assembly committee also passed the bill, however, approval by the Appropriations Committee was necessary for the bill to move forward.
“We thank all of the registrants and family members who helped move the Tiered Registry Bill so far,” stated Bellucci. “It is because of their support that the Tiered Registry Bill almost became law. We will repeat and build on those efforts in 2019.”
Related Media
http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-ca-essential-politics-updates-bill-to-reduce-names-on-california-s-1504292042-htmlstory.html
Thank you for the post and effort, Janice. Thank you and all your staff and everyone that tried to help. It’s an unfortunate day for all RC’s.
Two questions: Any idea on why it wasn’t released? And why a two-year wait to start something new?
Was there an explanation on why this wasn’t released?
Well, I am on the fence on what to think about this decision. Part of me wanted this bill to come into effect if it gave hope for at least some to be removed from this unconstitutional list, and the other part was against it since it would somehow indicate that a registry, any registry is acceptable, even if amended. A registry is never acceptable and we need to work on making it unconstitutional. Maybe, the Colorado court case came at at the right time, and maybe we will have a better chance now to abolish the registry rather than amending it with the ever present risk of added “punishment”. I am curious to see what all of your opinions are.
I’m going to consider this a blessing in disguise. Although this bill would have benefited me, it was still incredibly flawed with the endless amounts of changes that made it harder for anyone to get off the registry. There were no guarantees of anyone’s petition getting granted. I’d rather take my chances and probably have a higher probably getting off the registry with a CoR in 2020 than wait an extra year with this tiered proposal.
The news out of Colorado is probably the foundation for this organization to move forward with completely abolishing the registry at its core.
Fine, they wanna keep a registry so overblown that the public doesn’t use it? Great. Isn’t that something we’d prefer?
After reading the bill and its amendments, I am glad it died. I am sorry, but I don’t care about anyone else but me, and it screwed me over, maybe not as bad as lifetime, but then there’s not much difference between a head shot and a gut shot. I am leaving U.S. as soon as I possibly can, so I am just counting the days.
My deepest thanks and gratitude go out to Janice, her team, the Board et al. I can’t thank you all enough for fighting on our/my behalf. Everything you’ve done and are doing is so deeply appreciated.
As a beneficiary of this bill, I have been hesitant to comment since I knew my benefit was another registrant’s burden (i.e. those who would be worse off with its passage). I would have been eligible to come off in the first year. So yes, this is a very devastating day for some (maybe many?) of us. And yet I totally understand that some may be quietly relieved.
I hope we can do a post-mortem and figure out what happened. I don’t know the deliberations that go on in Appropriations, but I just didn’t think it would die there. It had navigated so far with many powerful proponents (including our LA DA). The decision today has taken the air out of my lungs. I promised myself I wouldn’t let that happen, but it did anyway. I guess it’s back to the COR for next year, but legislation would have been the just outcome. I hope more can be discussed about where we go from here on that front.
But thank you Janice and Team. Your work changes lives. Please fight on if you can!
i dont know what planet you are from but a blessing in disquise “yeah right” this registry is waaaaaay over rated!!
Something tells me the Colorado ruling had something to do with this. After all, they said in the senate that they know this as it is, is unconstitutional. They were only moving to a tiered system as a means of preserving the registry itself. But then the ruling comes along when it’s on a tiered registry, and a reasonable person would conclude “what’s the point?”
with all the support from law enforcement, parole officers,judges,woman support group,some public officials,the general people,district attorneys, am i missing something to why it would not pass? is it to literally keep people in the system because it takes money out of the system? would it cost to much on manpower to take every one off? is it to create more government and city jobs in and around to monitor people? all these rules and facts that were passed by local cities were now in doubt from what they originally passed, im not sure what channel the committee was on or what newspaper they were reading but they all need a big time reality check, wake up and see whats going on..
With ruling in CO, I think it is best, now to take down the registry and there will not need for tier bill.
hey counting the days,, see ya !!!!! you won’t be missed, there’s no reason at all for you to stay here, pack up and get out, there’s just another registry waiting specially for you wherever and whenever you go!! so all your talk,,,,, is just talk..
Hope all that opposed are happy now, I am done visiting this site….It offers nothing but false hope and depression constantly.
In regards to the end of the road for SB421, some of these comments expressing relief that it died have been very articulate. I don’t agree with them but I guess as a 62 year black man / African American I don’t know how to be relieved with losing an opportunity for change in the hope that something better will come along tomorrow. After 24 years on this registry I tried not to get my hopes up but I admit to falling into that hope trap. I guess I’ll need to find a career other than Addiction Counseling. Good effort Janice and team.
I’m sorry for all those this would have helped, and like others on here I hope you’ll look at the bright side.
With all of the recent decisions across the country in our favor, this setback just helps the case for Californian’s on the registry to challenge the core of it in a class action suit. The fact it is lifetime for all gives you even more ammunition to challenge it than other states.
We’ll have to see what Janice says in the future. I haven’t heard her opinion on a challenge to the entire scheme, as everything has been directed at stopping bad legislation or supporting smaller steps forward.
This was only a small hope for some. We were settling for a registry that is in itself unconstitutional. Every single person here has paid their debt. Why is selling drugs to children, carjacking someone, shoving a gun in someone’s face and threatening to kill them for heir money, grabbing an old woman’s purse, or driving drunk any less a danger than looking at photos or having minor contact? The entire registry in unconstitutional. My crime an punishment should be dealt individually with my actions. I should not be paying the price for something that someone else did or might do.
Can California RSO start a Class Action Lawsuit related to the Colorado and Indiana Lawsuit?
https://all4consolaws.org/2017/08/co-judge-finds-colorado-sex-offender-registry-unconstitutional/
and
https://all4consolaws.org/2017/09/in-judges-find-2015-law-unconstitutional-as-applied-to-registered-sex-offender/
Just my opinion and why I went with the ACSOL position of this bill. Sweeping government actions are great, but even they are vulnerable to the culture biases. If you want a type of permanent change you have to change the cultural mores, and that is done best by increments, not one revolutionary action. Our Bill of Rights came about by centuries of case law. Cultures evolve, they just don’t spring into being. The culture of America was in the making, including some bad parts of it (Hey, Salem witch hunters), long before the Declaration of Independence. Lincoln freed the slaves and African Americans for about 8 years after had a measure of freedom, being elected to legislatures and founding schools, before the forces of oppression gathered strength and the government lost interest in Reconstruction to cater to the expansionist dreams of monopoly industrialists (hey, native peoples, move aside, we need your lands for our tracks), in effect recreating a form of slavery that was legal, chain gangs, segregation, institutional poverty enforced with mass incarceration, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
Like it or not, the registry will not just disappear tomorrow. It will never disappear unless the majority of citizens oppose it or at least see it as more trouble than value.
Dear Janice et al THANK YOU for your extreme efforts thus far. I was hoping and praying for a better outcome today, but I’m not giving up hope. Shake it off, something better is coming!
I am so thankful and grateful to have you on our team. This is not the end.
Strength and courage aren’t always measured in victories. They are measured in the struggles they overcome. The strongest people aren’t always the people who win, they are the people who don’t give up when they lose. I am proud to say that I participate in the struggle which ACSOL represents and I am grateful for everyone who has has worked on SB 421, especially those not on the registry. I have found great comfort in knowing that I am not alone in my desire to make this world a better place and have known the love of all those who care about all registrants. While all the crybabies and naysayers can find great comfort in knowing they got what they wanted in opposing this bill–exactly nothing–I see all the attention this bill has attracted and the media which is reporting on this issue. I heard the voices of many people today speak on behalf of those who are still incarcerated and who should be eligible for good-time credits but are being denied. I shall grieve at this loss for a short time and then regroup to see what we and others can do to continue our fight for we are not quitters.
Thanks to Janice and ACSOL and Sen. Wiener and everyone who lobbied for this bill with calls and attending hearings. The tide is rising and I think this has brought the necessary attention to a serious problem. Next year I hope someone’s courageous enough to rewrite a more fiscally sound bill that will get through Appr.
The governor would not have signed it anyways !!!
My most humble thanks to Janice and everyone else who dared to stand up and make a difference. In my eyes you are all angels!
I’m very disappointed, but there looking at it from a longer term perspective, I see the progress that we have made. We have been stopped in the Assembly Appropriations Committee before. We have been stopped on the floor of the Assembly. We have been stopped for lack of an author. Each time we’ve been stopped we learned a little bit more.
I think our lesson this time is that the bill is too complex. When we read a bill and see complexity, others read the bill and see cost. I know that we no longer drive this car, but to the extent that we have contact with those who do, we should urge them to simplify, simplify, simplify. For example, I think they should rip out the entire DA review process. Maybe do something simple like misdemeanors are 5 years, non-serious felonies are 10 years, serious felonies 20 years and SVP 30 years.
It is up to other and not me. But to those who want this to pass: simplify.
I am so glad this bill was stopped, because in truth, it was NOT a good bill for us. Now they have an opportunity to try again next year with a better version that hopefully isn’t amended to the point it creates more confusion and delays implementation for years and years. We should all be relieved, not bemoaning this. It was going to create more problems than it fixed.