SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Protecting California’s most vulnerable kids is the goal of a bipartisan bill heading through the statehouse.
Sen. Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield) introduced Senate Bill 1414 in February along with two of her Democratic colleagues, senators Anna Caballero and Susan Rubio.
SB 1414 proposes making penalties harsher for people who solicit children for sex, cracking down on the act of solicitation — regardless of whether any sex actually happens.
Lawmakers agree this is a worthy cause, though there’s disagreement over the details.
Testifying at the Senate Public Safety Committee hearing Tuesday, advocate and sexual abuse survivor Sandy Esparza shared her story of being trafficked as a teen.
“At 14, I was first sold to men and purchased for sex throughout my teenage years. I was lured, tricked, threatened and forced to use drugs. At no point or at any age did I choose to be there,” she said, speaking in favor of SB 1414. “Perhaps the justice ship has sailed for me. I'm okay with that. I'm not here for me. I'm here for them. For the children still out there being bought and sold, feeling afraid and forgotten. Aren't they worthy of protection?”
SB 1414 could, if passed, make harsher penalties for people paying for sex with a minor.
“Currently in California, any person who solicits, agrees to engage in or engages in any act of commercial sex with a minor is charged only with a misdemeanor,” said Grove, the bill’s author. “We are not discussing statutory rape or romantic relationships. We're talking about commercial sexual exploitation of children. I hope we can all agree here today that repeatedly buying children for sex should be considered a felony in the state of California.”
Currently, someone convicted of paying for sex with a minor faces a misdemeanor, with a maximum penalty of one year in county jail and a fine of up to $10,000, though the law right now says someone can spend as few as just two days in jail.
Grove’s bill would, if passed as is, make solicitation of a minor a felony, with at least two years behind bars and a fine of up to $25,000.
“This bill is incredibly over-broad, in my opinion,” said Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), who sits on the Public Safety Committee.
He and others expressed concerns the bill was so broad that it could have unintended consequences.
“I think human trafficking, we should be throwing the book at people. This bill will sweep in a lot of people who are not trafficking. This bill will send people to state prison; put people in the sex offender registry, which is basically — effectively, in many ways — the end of their life for people whether or not they're engaged in human trafficking, and, again, even if there's no physical contact whatsoever,” Wiener said.
Ultimately, against Grove’s wishes, the committee amended Senate Bill 1414, approving harsher penalties for people trying to buy sex with teens, though they changed the age to 15 and under, when Grove's original bill was 17 and under.
To make these amendments was “to water this down,” Grove said, “to say that 16, 17-year-olds don't matter.”
She was upset the committee forced all of these changes of her bill. She had agreed to two of the committee’s amendments, hoping to find middle ground, but the committee passed the bill along even with the amendments she didn’t like.
For their part, committee members say this is middle ground. Some still have concerns about possible unintended consequences of her bill, but feel the changes are fair.
“This buyer situation is a random person driving down the road, seeing a kid that looks like they're 12 or 13 and say, ‘Hey, 50 bucks for this.’ That's the guy I want to go after,” Grove said.
The amended bill will now go on to the Senate Appropriations Committee.
