A Democratic lawmaker has made an impassioned plea to push through a bill to send pedophiles who buy sex with children to prison.
California State Senator Susan Eggman declared that “we have a moral responsibility to say: enough, enough,” as she called the chamber into session for unanimous approval.
Outdated state laws mean that people who solicit underage prostitutes can only be charged with misdemeanors and receive only two days in jail.
The bill SB 1414 would make it a misdemeanor, punishable by two to four years in prison, $25,000 in fines, and registration as a sex offender.
However, a group of rouge Democrats led by Senator Scott Wiener watered down the bill in the Senate Public Safety Committee.
California State Senator Susan Eggman has made an impassioned plea to push through a bill to send pedophiles who buy sex with children to prison
Eggman lashed out at rebel lawmakers in her own party in her fiery May 23 speech after they spoke out against a bipartisan majority and Gov. Gavin Newsom, who want the bill to remain as strict as intended.
“As a progressive, proud member of this body for the past 12 years, I would like to say I am done,” she said.
‘I’m done with having to protect people who want to buy and abuse our children. I’m ready.’
Wiener’s rebels worried the law would send too many more people to prison after warnings from legal groups about unintended consequences.
But Eggman disagreed, after many other efforts to update California’s laws were stymied over the past decade.
“I don’t want to send more black and brown men to prison. “I don’t want more people in jail,” she said.
‘But I don’t want people to buy girls. I don’t want people buying little girls anymore. And I’m tired of saying it’s okay and we should protect the men who do it.”
An anti-pedophile protest in St Paul, Minnesota
Eggman said that in her pre-political experience as a social worker, she met too many young victims of sexual abuse who were “wounded to their core.”
She said victims were often abused by those close to them, who they “love and who try to protect them” – and when parents failed, the law had to step in.
“I’m not saying we should open the gates and flood our prisons with people, but I’m saying we have a moral responsibility to say enough, enough,” she said.
‘We’ve given away enough in this area and we need to move back to the center or we’ll all look like fools and laughers. And what do we stand for?’
Eggman referenced the documentary Escaping the Blade, which examined underage sex trafficking in Sacramento.
State Senator Shannon Grove, author of SB 1414, appeared in the documentary and used it as a key part of her effort to get it passed in the chamber.
“Guys get a little slap on the hand or a few days and then they come back out and do the same thing,” Eggman said.
‘They get caught again and again. And somehow that’s okay. It’s not okay. It’s not okay anymore. And I’m not looking anymore.’
Eggman lashed out at rebel lawmakers in her own party in her fiery May 23 speech after they went against a bipartisan majority and Governor Gavin Newsom, who want the bill to remain as strict as intended.
Eggman will leave the Senate at the next election due to term limits, and urged her colleagues to continue the work after she is gone.
‘I am leaving. But the rest of you who are going to be here for a while, let’s get our shit together and really start focusing on some important things,” she said.
“We talk about learning and we talk about being safe. This is like the core of it. And many of these children can be disposable children.
“They’re poor kids, they’re kids of color, but they shouldn’t have to live lives defined by what happens to them at a very young age by others and the Democratic Party of California needs to say, it’s OK.
‘It’s not okay. And I don’t do it anymore. And I hope none of you do either. We have to be able to draw a line. And for me I draw a line. I urge your vote.”
Shortly after Eggman and many others expressed support for SB 1414, the bill passed the Senate 36-0.
The bill now heads to the state Assembly, where Grove and most others from both parties hope it will be restored to its original form.
Grove designed the bill to make soliciting underage prostitutes a crime across the board, following up on an earlier bill that targeted pimps and sex traffickers.
In addition to increasing penalties, the bill also eliminated the need for suspects to know or reasonably know that the sex worker was a minor.
Eggman said that in her pre-political experience as a social worker, she met too many young victims of sexual abuse who were “wounded to their core.”
But after the Public Safety Commission, controlled by Wiener’s rebels, was done with it, it was so diluted that Grove wanted to take her name off.
‘That’s rubbish, rubbish. I don’t know what to say. Maybe I’ll take my name off the bill. It’s not my bill. They hijacked my account and turned it into something that was palatable to them,” she said.
Instead of a misdemeanor, the crime would be a “wobbler,” meaning the court can decide whether the suspect is charged with a misdemeanor or misdemeanor.
The need to know or reasonably know that the sex worker was a minor was restored and first-time offenders were not always required to register as a sex offender.
The most controversial change was to make the law essentially inapplicable if the victim was 16 or 17 years old, leaving the crime a misdemeanor in those cases.
The changes were in response to criticism from the ACLU and the California Public Defenders Association, among others, about unintended consequences.
“The core problem is that this bill is not limited to requests by adults or even adults,” said Natasha Minsker, policy advisor for Smart Justice California.
“This bill applies to words spoken by 16 or 17 year olds to another 17 year old.”
State Senator Shannon Grove, author of SB 1414, wanted to take her name off after it was watered down in committee
The CPDA said the bill punishes some defendants more severely, even if they did not intend to have sex with a minor.
“This change will unfortunately lump some defendants into the category of sex offenders, with lifelong consequences for them and their families, even if the intent is completely lacking,” the report said.
The bill will be debated by the state Assembly in the coming months and some or all of Grove’s facilities could be restored.
“The crime of purchasing a child, of any age, for sex in the state of California should be a prison sentence,” she said after the weaker version was passed.
“We must restore this bill in the Assembly to protect every child in the state of California from the heinous crime of sex trafficking.”