CV NEWS FEED // Democratic California senators continue to alter bipartisan legislation that is aimed at punishing people who buy sex from minors.
KCRA reports that California State Sen. Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield) authored legislation, Senate Bill 1414, in February that would strengthen the punishment of people who buy sex from minors. She proposed that soliciting prostitution from a minor should be punished as a felony, instead of a misdemeanor, as it currently is.
Democrats, however, have made multiple alterations to the bill to soften the punishments for the offender.
While the original bill specified that anyone who solicited a person 17 years of age or younger should be punished, Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), under the Senate Public Safety Committee, changed the bill to apply to anyone who solicited minors 15 or younger.
This change occurred even though the age of consent in California is 18 years.
After pushback from Grove, the bill was altered to include 16- and 17-year-olds, but offenders will only be punished as felons if the 16- or 17-year-old was also a victim of sex trafficking. KCRA states that prosecutors say that it is very hard to prove if somebody was a victim of sex trafficking.
The chairman of the Public Safety Committee, Assemblymember Kevin McCarty, told Grove, “I support your bill and I’m here today to make it stronger. This is a business where you don’t always get everything you want.”
Grove was not satisfied with the change. She said it was “political showmanship” and that the negotiations were not made “in good faith.”
“I think Kevin McCarty is looking for a way to put 16- and 17-year-olds back in the bill and say he was successful, but he only damaged them further,” she told KCRA. Grove says she will continue to fight to restore the bill to its original form.
