In recent years, various bills passed by the Democratic-led California legislature seem to have the suspicion of “leniency towards criminals or enabling offenders”. Faced with increasingly radical agendas, even senior Democratic lawmakers cannot fully agree, with some openly stating they have had enough.
To crack down on child sex trafficking and child prostitution crimes, California Republican state senator Shannon Grove introduced Senate Bill 1414 (SB1414), initially aimed at defining soliciting minors for prostitution as a felony.
However, the Senate Public Safety Committee forcefully modified the content of the proposal, seemingly diluting the punishment for offenders.
While the law stipulates that anyone under 18 is a minor, the modified proposal includes excluding 16 and 17-year-old teenage victims from the definition of “minors”; crimes apply only to defendants who were 18 years old at the time of the offense; turning the felony into a “wobbler,” allowing local prosecutors to decide whether to charge it as a misdemeanor or a felony based on the circumstances; and mandating that there must be a 10-year age gap between the offender and the victim for prosecution, among other changes.
Regarding the forceful modifications made by the Senate Public Safety Committee, Grove told an Epoch Times reporter in English, “I believe their purpose in doing this is to make me withdraw this bill, but I will not do so. I will continue to fight for the children in our state.”
Several lawmakers have expressed deep disappointment over the modified content and emphasized the need to protect all children.
Perhaps due to the shocking nature of the modified content, a dramatic scene unfolded when the Senate debated the proposal last Thursday, May 23: Democratic state senator Susan Talamantes Eggman criticized her fellow party members who had modified the proposal.
“I want to say that in the past 12 years, as a proud member of this legislative body who stands for progress, I have had enough,” Eggman stated during the meeting. “I don’t want to protect those who buy and abuse our children anymore.”
Eggman supports stricter oversight of child sex offenders: “I don’t want people to buy little girls anymore. I am tired of anyone tolerating this behavior and even protecting those involved in sex trafficking. Let me reiterate, I am not saying we should open the doors of the prison and shove everyone in, but I am saying we have a moral responsibility to stop crime.”
She believes that the Democratic Party’s leniency towards child sex trafficking and child prostitution crimes has tarnished the party’s reputation, urging her colleagues not to stand by party lines but to reconsider how to protect children, or else these actions will become a joke.
Besides Eggman, many lawmakers from both parties have clearly expressed support for the original content of SB1414 and the need to crack down harshly on child sex trafficking and child prostitution.
Democratic state senator Susan Rubio said, “We cannot tolerate harm to minors, so this is an important bill that I think we should all support. These criminals are running rampant, harming the most vulnerable group in our society.”
Critics of the SB1414 proposal argue that it is unfair to some offenders who might not have known that the victims were minors.
Democratic state senator Steven Bradford explicitly stated, “I may not fully support life imprisonment, but anyone who harms a child should be locked up; these people are beasts and do not deserve to walk the streets.”
The initiator of the proposal, Grove, thanked her Senate colleagues for courageously opposing the modified content of the bill. She said she would work with her colleagues to restore the proposal to its original version.
She also urged California residents on social media to call their state legislators in their respective districts and express the public’s demand to restore the original proposal of SB1414, “Adults who buy children for sexual purposes should be charged with a felony and imprisoned. This issue shouldn’t be this complicated! Stop abusing children.”