Democrats on the California Assembly’s Public Safety committee have made some terrible votes this session, which is saying a lot given the number of bad bills the supermajority has passed. This year, while the state is in the midst of a surge in violent crime and fentanyl deaths they’ve blocked bills which would classify domestic violence as a violent crime and increase penalties for fentanyl dealers, seemingly because Republicans either sponsored them or heavily supported them.
That streak of terrible votes continued Tuesday when the committee blocked SB 14, which would have made human trafficking of a minor a serious felony in the state. The bill cleared the state Senate with bipartisan support back in April, but none of the Assembly Public Safety Committee’s six Democrats voted to move it out of committee. Of the two Republicans, the only one in attendance, Asm. Tom Lackey, voted yes.
As KCRA’s Capitol correspondent Ashley Zavala wrote, a victim sobbed in the audience as the bill died.
Why the big shift in support? Even Sen. Scott Wiener, the Democrat who’s infamous for pushing legislation that would harm minor children, voted for it in the CA Senate. Could the hubbub around the movie “Sound of Freedom,” which does an incredible job of exposing just how prevalent the sexual trafficking of minors is worldwide and highlights the United States as the largest consumer in this abominable industry, have played a role? After all, over the last two weeks there’s been a steady stream of media declaring that the only people who really believe that the sexual trafficking of minors is happening on a large scale are those who believe in QAnon conspiracies. So if the Democrats in Sacramento passed this bill, they could be seen as giving credibility to the issue – even though they heard from actual victims during their hearing (and re-victimized them with their vote).
https://redstate.com/jenvanlaar/2023/07/11/ca-dems-block-bill-that-would-make-human-trafficking-of-a-minor-a-serious-felony-n774872