Democrats did the right thing, got attacked for it, then caved.
It’s rare to see politicians of any stripe fight against sex-trafficking overreach—or any tough-on-crime gestures, really. In California, Democrats have been finding out what happens when you do. After pushing back somewhat against an overly carceral bill targeting prostitution customers, they were tarred by Republicans as having voted “to protect predators” and being “a threat to our kids’ safety.”
It’s become “the biggest controversy Sacramento has seen in a while,” notes The Sacramento Bee.
Now, of course, Democrats are backtracking.
Solicitation Law Changes Proposed
The bill—an amended version of which passed the California Assembly on May 1—originally came from Sacramento Rep. Maggy Krell, herself a Democrat and a former prosecutor. Krell worked on a failed case against Backpage and then wrote a book about it, so being tough on prostitution is basically her whole shtick now. But Assembly Bill 379, introduced in February, is a bad bill.
It would create a new prostitution loitering law—the kind of thing that lets cops target people for merely looking like they might be about to engage in prostitution. And it would institute a mandatory $1,000 “Survivor Support Fund” fine on anyone convicted of solicitation or loitering for solicitation (in addition to any other fines they might get).
But those aren’t the controversial bits—most lawmakers in the state’s Assembly were OK with those parts (alas). The big controversy concerns punishments for soliciting someone aged 16 or 17 for sex.
Krell’s proposal would amend a law passed last year that treats solicitation of a minor differently based on whether a minor being solicited is over or under age 16.
Misdemeanor or Felony?
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The sooner I’m out of this mess of a democracy the better for my mental and physical health.
The government is so busy stamping out smoking embers that they don’t realize the entire forest is burning down around them.
If I was Janice, I’d write or type a letter to the new pope in a few months and get the word out to him how the registry in itself is harmful with examples like the letter to Elon Musk. Maybe the pope can persuade Trump and his administration. Even with all these harmful bills being passed to over a million people on the registry. Who knows…
Very depressing to see how this went down. We’re moving into a new dark age. The cognitive dissonance is really ramping up, thinking about who the leader of the Republican Party is right now.
That GOP ad is hilarious. “In California, soliciting a teenager for sex isn’t always a felony.” Pretty sure that’s true everywhere in the free world, because not all teenagers are minors. And does anyone actually believe these girls are scared?