Bill to make purchasing children for sex a felony in California moves forward, but with some changes

A key California Senate committee on Tuesday moved forward with a proposal to make purchasing a child for sex a felony in the state, but it was not necessarily a smooth process for the bill's author. Because of that, it raises new questions about the future of the proposal.Democratic committee members forced Republican author State Sen. Shannon Grove to make changes to Senate Bill 1414 to only allow the felony classification for the purchase of minors under the age of 16. The Senate Public Safety Committee passed the bill 4-0 on the condition of those changes.SB 1414 would classify the crime as a felony, carrying a maximum penalty of up to four years in prison and a $25,000 fine. Currently, purchasing or soliciting a child for sex is a misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of up to a year in jail, or a minimum of two days in jail, along with a $10,000 fine.Democrats on the dais, against Grove's will, held a vote on the changes before voting to move the amended proposal forward. The vote was moved by State Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley. Skinner, Sen. Scott Wiener and committee chairwoman Aisha Wahab voted to move forward with the amendments as Grove watched in disbelief. Her voice shaking, Grove said she is on the record declining those amendments."To force these amendments on me in front of survivors, to water this down to avoid 16 and 17-year-olds," Grove said.Grove originally said she would not accept the amendment to apply to only children ages 15 and under. She also originally said she would only accept two amendments: removing strict liability language that was in the proposal and removing the requirement for sex registration for first-time offenders.Opponents such as Natasha Minsker with Smart Justice California said the group opposed the bill, arguing the bill doesn't stop at the issue of older adults soliciting children.Minsker said the offense is "committed through words alone" and could lead to an 18-year-old going to state prison for four years, KCRA 3 Capitol correspondent Ashley Zavala, who attended the hearing, reported.Find her full thread in the social media post below.Smart Justice California, a group that encourages policymakers to support criminal justice reform policies, believes that the bill could be used unfairly toward the LGBTQ community.Leslie Houston with the California Public Defender's Association echoed this sentiment, explaining that it would be unfortunate and wrong to force young people to end up in both prison and the sex offenders registry."Make no mistake: Prosecutors have the full ability to use existing laws to send those people to prison for decades," Houston said. "The bill is still flawed."Skinner said she would approve the bill if it protected minor victims under the age of 16, but Groves argued this would not work in the real world. State Sen. Scott Wiener agreed the bill was too broad and that it could sweep people in whether or not they're engaged in sex trafficking.Wiener said he would support Grove's bill with amendments, and Skinner agreed with Wiener in that she wants to "balance unintended consequences."Zavala reported that Grove tried to bring up Santa Barbara deputy district attorney Tyson McCoy as a witness, but Wahab would not allow it while the committee discussion continued. Wahab noted Grove had used her allotted time on other witnesses.The bill would also remove the requirement in state law that those convicted of soliciting a minor knew or should have known that person was a minor. Similar proposals similar to this have failed dating back to 2014.Groves hoped to build off momentum from last year when the Legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom approved a bill that classified child sex trafficking as a serious felony in California, adding to the state's three strikes law for the first time ever. It was ultimately forced into a rare do-over.See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app.