SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KERO) — On Tuesday, July 11, California Senator Shannon Grove's SB 14 was voted down in the Assembly Public Safety Committee. The bill had sought to include the sex trafficking of minors on the list of crimes defined as "serious felonies" under California law.
Senator Grove authored the bill, which was approved by the State Senate in May by a vote of 40 to 0. Grove says she was prompted to write the bill after speaking with a survivor of sex trafficking.
"When I met a human trafficking survivor and talked to my district attorney, we decided to run a bill to make a serious felony of human trafficking of minors, of individuals," said Grove. "We amended the bill down to just minors 0 to 17, but it's a start."
SB 14 was voted down in the Assembly Public Safety Committee with 6 Democrats abstaining from the vote and 2 Republicans voting in favor. Committee Chair Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D-LA) said in a statement that "SB 14 makes no new corrective actions or enhancements to the laws already in place."
Grove explains the impact the bill would have had by using the real-life example of convicted human trafficker Kajaun Richardson.
"Mr. Richardson trafficked a 17-year-old minor child down south in Southern California, got in trouble, went to prison, got out in 4 years and then reoffended and came to Bakersfield and trafficked an additional, i think it is 3 minor children," said Grove. "Our district attorney prosecuted Mr. Richardson and he got a longer time in prison for his second offense it would be, but if my bill was in place it would be a strikeable offense and he would not be able to negotiate down a lower prison sentence for his second offense."
The measure was granted reconsideration, and Grove says the future of the bill is fluid right now.
