SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Proposed legislation aimed at enacting harsher penalties for people who solicit sex with a minor went through changes this week to the dismay of the bill’s author.
Sen. Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield) introduced Senate Bill 1414, which would make soliciting sex with a minor a felony. 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 said someone can spend as few as just two days in jail.
Grove's bill would make solicitation of a minor punishable as a felony. She wants this to apply to someone soliciting sex with anyone under the age of 18, but this spring, Democratic senators changed it to 15 and under, saying it was otherwise overly broad.
“As you know, I introduced Senate Bill 1414 with the intent of making solicitation or purchase of minors for sex a prison felony,” Grove told members of the Assembly Public Safety Committee Tuesday.
Asm. Kevin McCarty (D-Sacramento) chairs the committee. This week, he and Sen. Aisha Wahab (D-Silicon Valley), who chairs the Senate counterpart, came to what they believe is middle ground between Grove’s original bill and the Senate amendments.
“This is a business where you don’t always get everything you want,” McCarty told Grove during Tuesday’s hearing.
They added an amendment that would make soliciting sex with a 16- or 17-year-old punishable as a felony only if prosecutors could prove those older teens had been trafficked.
“The individual doesn’t have to prove it; it’s the prosecution,” McCarty said. “If they want to charge this person with this new crime — with this up-to-a-felony on the first offense — they can.”
The amendment allowed the bill to pass out of committee, but Grove stands by the original language of her bill.
“I just want them all inclusive: a 17-year-old is a 16-year-old is a 15-year-old. I want it all inclusive,” she said. “But we can’t get there, and I am trying to get there.”
A person testifying in favor of Grove’s original bill wept as they appealed to committee members.
“Today, I stand as one, but I come in the name of thousands that have been abused,” they said, breaking into tears. “Please, stop the problem that is costing people’s lives.”
SB 1414 will go before the Assembly Appropriations Committee next month.
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