UPDATE 4/26/23: CA Senate Judiciary Committee Approves SB 809 [ACSOL 4/26/23]
UPDATE 4/24: The 4/25 hearing for SB 809 is still scheduled! However, when you click here to look at the schedule you will see there are 3 priority “special order” bills that will be heard starting at 9 AM. It is unlikely that they will be finished before the 12-1:30 lunch break, but when those 3 bills are completed then the committee will immediately start on the rest of the bills. As you can see in the list, SB 809 is #33 in the main list of bills. Some bills are skipped over if something happens (like the author doesn’t show up). The bottom line is that there is no way to predict with accuracy what time between 9 AM and 5 PM that SB 809 will be heard. Frustrating, yes, but like making sausage, making bills is a messy process.
- This afternoon (4/24) until 5 pm you can call in to Senator Smallwood-Cuevas’s office (SB 809 author) at 916-651-4028 and verbally say you support SB 809.
- This afternoon (4/24) until 5 pm email a letter (see below)
- On 4/25, call in to the hearing at 888-808-6929 (Access Code 7362833) and listen. When they say for you to use the unmute code they will give you, you can verbally on the phone tell them you support it.
- On 4/25, drive to the hearing in person and walk up to the podium when it is time for people to give their support of the bill.
UPDATE 4/19: Below is a PDF download of the letter of support written by ACSOL. You can use this to help write your own letters (cloned letters don’t carry as much weight. Paper letters carry the most–see below where to mail one)
SB 809 – Sen Jud Comm – Support04192023.pdf
Also, you can email a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee at this address:
sjud.fax@sen.ca.gov
UPDATE 4/18: Can’t come to the Sacramento hearing? Write to the Senate Judiciary Committee members. Click here for a list. Write to one or more of them (especially of one is your senator–click here to find your senator). To get to their website, just click on a name in the list of members. Most have a way to fill out an email letter form.
[Janice’s note: Please show up in Sacramento to support Senate Bill 809 at its hearing to give registrants and others with a conviction history a chance at employment]Source: Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO)
On behalf of our Ban the Box coalition I am reaching out to request your support for the Fair Chance Expansion and Protection Act: SB 809 (Senator Smallwood-Cuevas).
We are set for the Senate Judiciary committee on April 25th.
SB 809 would build on the Fair Chance Act (2017) to ensure that conviction history does not prevent qualified candidates from employment. Employers would be prohibited from conducting criminal background checks on job applicants and in making employment decisions on that basis, unless otherwise authorized by state or federal law. Below is a fact sheet for your reference.
Please show up to Sacramento and state your support for SB 809.
Time: April 25 (but verify the schedule before coming) sometime after 1:30 PM
Location:
Senate Judiciary committee
1021 O Street
Room 2100
Sacramento, CA
IMPORTANT: The day before, please click here to read the agenda to confirm SB 809 is scheduled. Scroll down the page to the April 25 section and click View Agenda. if it is not listed, scroll further to find the rescheduled date. If you don’t double check the schedule you may arrive to find the bill is not being heard that day. Sorry, but that’s how bills work in Sacramento.
Thank you for your support!
Roy Ballard
Advocacy Fellow
Center for Employment Opportunities
713 9th Street
Sacramento, CA 95824
Janice , it’s not so much the back ground check per se because if the criminal offense is older than 10 years or even seven years in some instances it will not show , it’s the federal freedom of fair credit act that is really disenfranchising registered citizens. Because under that act when a third party runs background check for credit etc the Magen web site comes into play in a big way ! At that point is when it’s discovered and reported to potential employers. If the law restricts that check making it illegal to display information from the Magen list us citizens would have a 10 fold chance not being discriminated upon . I’ve experienced it first hand . Yes there are assessments the employer must go through etc etc but you know and I know once your name , DOB and other matching information is on blast a registered citizens chance of landing that job is less than 1/3 rd that person will be offered that position he or she has applied. Qualification, experience etc. at that point doesn’t matter !
This is a big step forward for us. It has no carve outs for people on the 290 registry. That alone is amazing. As the owner of a recruiting business I know well how hiring managers and HR professionals act.
This bill takes the Ban the Box here in LA County to the next step. Banning the use of social media, requiring employers not to consider background for promotions as well as hiring, and banning the asking about conviction record and consideration of convictions (except for those positions required by law) for employment is big. And this bill makes many steps forward for all justice involved people. There are some weaknesses, but they should not prevent any of us from supporting this bill Afterall, Rome was not built in a day. The bill, by my reading requires that employers not check social media sites for convictions, and not consider any information learned from other sites/sources. That is a difficult ask and difficult to monitor. I know for a fact that some HR professionals and hiring managers look at social media (not just LinkedIn), and they look at Google Maps at where you live. They make judgements based on what they see. They may even look at the Megan’s Law site. And while this bill would require them not to do so, it is an impossible thing to monitor. And if a Google search shows a link to a “sex offender” listing site, they cannot unsee what they have seen. In LA County and City with a ban the box ordinance, employers that do not want to employ felons simply reject for other reasons or don’t give a reason for the offer to be withdrawn. A convenient loophole. Thanks to several large law firms in Los Angeles that provide employment/labor law advice to employers for free via their blogs, a hiring professional can easily learn how to get around the Los Angeles ordinance. This state bill (SB 809) tries to plug some of those loopholes.
I will support this bill, I will write and call. While not perfect, it makes a giant leap forward.
As long as the bill doesn’t contain any exceptions for registered citizens, I’m in.
👍🏻 I sent my email encouraging support for SB 809. 👍🏻
While this is a step in the right direction, and I do support it as positive change, it falls far short of addressing the bigger picture.
As we all know, any employer can look at the website and take that into consideration, despite this being technically illegal. However, it doesn’t end there. The website can not just prevent you from getting a job…it can take a won job away at any moment. Just one coworker Karen/Darren can make keeping the job impossible, and potentially dangerous.
PFRs will never really be able to feel secure in any aspect of a normal life so long as the Registry exists. Even if the website and all it’s clones were to disappear, the Registry could still show up to wreck havoc at upon any Registrant and their family at any time.
You get rid of the website, you make the registry data amazingly valuable. So valuable that the data thieves who keep getting our phone numbers for the phone scam people, a lot wealthier.
I can only imagine what a PFR identity is worth in the UK. You know that if Nigel and Hermione could pay £££ to find out who all the PFRs are in their neighborhood…some would be willing to pay. If Karen and Darren didn’t get this for free, they’d pay for it as well.
Also, If there was no website of any kind, no public disclosures of any kind, how much would you pay to keep your little secret safe from your neighbors and employer? $100? $1,000? $10,000? Whatever it takes or whatever you could… whichever limit you hit first?
You sure you wouldn’t regret not paying? How sure? Willing to bet your life on it?
So long as a person is registered, they are at the mercy of all who know this. In fact, any person who was ever registered will forever be at the mercy of all who know this.
I knew a man who was a professional Identity Thief, met him in my court ordered “Therapy” sessions. I wonder if he could find some former registrants? I further wonder if he could find some people who, could be made to look like former registrants…you know to their neighbors and employers? Good thing there would be absolutely no value for someone like that doing something like that? How could that possibly be used to make money? No way, right?
What was an ID thief doing in my sessions? Cops came to his house to get his computers to find proof of his business. After taking them back to the cop shop and digging through them for awhile….guess what else they found on his computers? Who knew he was…doing that….as well? Imagine how lucky those cops must have felt when they found not just the ID theft evidence…but also all those pictures.
No new pictures, just the same old stuff they’d seen on hundreds of other computers…stuff they had copies of on their computers…there at the cop shop they took his computers to. Guess this ID thief is going to have to register until the day he dies…you know….for the pictures, and nothing else!
What good fortune they have to find those pictures that they knew nothing about until after they got his computers back to the cop shop. Too bad they didn’t find his coast hugging capable, cabin cruiser sailboat he had in a stolen identity name…or the 3 million in cash and overseas bank accounts…in various names. Yeah, lots of names…like the different names he had on his various passports and Driver’s Licences….all his picture….just different names.
I think he may have got an FTR at some point. Not sure, I…lost track of him at some point. 😉
Any way to support this effort without being in attendance? Can’t go, but would love to express support.
Is it possible for this bill to be changed after like our tiered registry bill? I just fear they will magically change it. I guess we may as well try and nothing to lose!
Sent a email to my Senator who sits on this committee.
For what it’s worth and If it’s any help my son happens to have a direct and personal friendship with the said Senator, I will ask him to reach out on this issue as well
I also support this bill but as others have noted, it is so easy for anyone to look us up and ruin everything we have worked so hard for in the blink of an eye. I just recently got fired from my job because someone looked me up, called the cooperate office of the company and they told me that i was no longer allowed to work for them. I was working for an electrical company inside a sub-station in the middle of nowhere. All my co-workers found out in a matter of seconds it seemed, and it the blink of an eye I was without a job and all the friends I thought I had made were gone as well. I have worked so hard to get to where I am today and the fear of losing it all never goes away. I thank you all for your hard work and dedication to help us registrants and our loved ones. I keep praying that one day we will all be able to live normal peaceful lives free just like everyone else. May God bless you all.
Every American who’s paid their debt to society after a conviction deserves the right to work without bias or severe scrutiny if they possess the necessary skills to perform what’s required for a job they’re applying for. Granted this bill will have to have certain guidelines as to the type of jobs that are not eligible but not restrict certain types of licensing to advance a career opportunity. Everyone within certain limits deserves a second chance in life, and in fact if granted will in most cases be a model employee and or owner operator if given said chance to.