California Democrats spent the final few days before summer recess in an unusual spot: embroiled in a legislative fight with Republicans, who typically operate in the shadow of the state’s blue supermajority.
The cause? A bill to strengthen penalties for child sex traffickers that lawmakers killed ahead of a looming legislative deadline.
By the time they left Sacramento last week, Democrats had doubled back and advanced Senate Bill 14 in an emergency hearing of the Senate Public Safety committee, likely at the behest of both Gov. Gavin Newsom and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, D-Hollister.
And Republicans were celebrating a “win for law and order in California” with bill author Sen. Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield.
How did a party with almost no power in California manage to achieve a political win?
In part by employing simplistic, fear-based messaging that exploited the divide between progressive and moderate Democrats on criminal justice reform. Social media posts amplifying the bill’s failure suggested Democrats are soft on crime, especially related to children.
Their arguments in favor of the bill also carried a whiff of the far-right GOP conspiracy theory related to Democrats and pedophilia.
Here’s what to know as Democrats continue to deal with the fallout.
California human trafficking
Human trafficking occurs when people are forced or coerced to perform work. Most reported human trafficking cases deal with sex trafficking, or forced sex work, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
During her testimony before the Assembly Public Safety Committee on July 11, Grove called the state a “hub for human trafficking.”
Trafficking is under-reported, but data from the National Human Trafficking Hotline shows California’s share of national cases declined from 2015 to 2021, the PPIC reported. The state accounted for about 18% of cases nationwide in 2015, a number that dipped to about 13% by 2021.
The Trafficking Hotline in 2021 identified 1,334 cases in California involving 2,122 victims. Its demographic data collection is not complete, but 978 identified victims were adults and 246 were children.
Trafficking sentencing reform
Child sex trafficking is already a felony in California, but it is not on the list of crimes considered “serious felonies.”
People convicted of child sex trafficking currently face five to 12 years in prison and a $500,000 fine. The penalty jumps to fifteen years to life if the crime involves violence, coercion, fear or threats.
Crimes considered serious felonies are eligible for sentencing under California’s controversial “three strikes” law, which significantly increases prison time for repeat offenders.
Grove last year authored a broader bill that attempted to add human trafficking to the lists of violent and serious felonies. The measure died in the Senate Public Safety Committee. This year, she amended SB 14 to more narrowly apply to those trafficking minors.
California lawmakers have tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully since 2007 to create more stringent penalties for human traffickers, according to reporting by CalMatters.
The tricky nature of reclassifying trafficking crimes was on display at the July 11 hearing.
Sharmin Bock, a former Alameda County district attorney, testified that Grove’s bill is necessary because child sex traffickers rarely serve their entire prison sentences, emboldening them to re-offend.
But survivor April Grayson of the Sister Warriors Freedom Coalition tearfully opposed the bill, saying it can unintentionally sweep in victims forced into acting on behalf of their traffickers.
Republicans back Democrats into a corner
California has spent the past 15 years moving away from the tough-on-crime sentencing laws that created overcrowded prisons filled with Black and brown people. A panel of federal judges in 2009 ordered the state to begin reducing the incarcerated population.
That resulted in a series of changes that reclassified some lower-level crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, shifted some prison inmates to county jails and increased opportunities for people to earn credits and reduce their sentences.
Progressive Democrats have been hesitant to support bills that would increase penalties, wanting to avoid a return to policies promoting mass incarceration.
This has created an opening for Republicans, who have spent much of the year attacking Democrats and Public Safety Committee Chair Reggie Jones-Sawyer, D-Los Angeles, for opposing measures that would add prison time for fentanyl dealers.
Jones-Sawyer had to back down this spring and hear the series of fentanyl bills he previously declined to bring before the panel. Members still killed the measures that would have strengthened penalties for dealers.
But when it came to SB 14, four Democrats reversed course and joined two Republicans to vote in favor of SB 14 at the emergency meeting on July 13.
That may be due in part to a messaging war the GOP undertook after the bill failed.
Republicans pushed social media messages saying Democrats rejected efforts to make trafficking of minors a serious felony. The posts did not include any context around existing penalties or what a serious felony means in California.
The posts and news stories spread far enough to attract the attention of Twitter owner Elon Musk, who replied to a tweet about the situation, saying, “A. How is it not already a serious felony? B. Wtf!?”
Human trafficking has long been a strong issue for Republicans. This is especially true in far right corners of the party, where conspiracy theorists have perpetuated myths that Democratic leaders are trafficking children.
Assemblyman Heath Flora, R-Modesto, alluded to this during the July 13 Assembly floor session, when he asked his colleagues to choose a team: “Pick pedophiles or children.”
Jones-Sawyer told reporters after the bill passed out of his committee that some members had received death threats after the July 11 meeting.
Assemblyman Isaac Bryan, D-Los Angeles, was one of two committee members who declined to vote on the bill during the second hearing.
“The number of times in the last day people have suggested my Fiancé & family be sex trafficked is a reminder that this was not a policy conversation,” Bryan said in a Twitter post.
SB 14 now heads to the Assembly Appropriations Committee after the Legislature returns from its summer recess on Aug. 14.
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