California Democrats are being called pedophiles as they do the right thing | Opinion
Sacramento-area Assemblymember Maggy Krell forced Assembly lawmakers to consider her sex-trafficking bill on the floor last week. It blew up into the biggest controversy Sacramento has seen in a while.
Assembly Democrats confronted a floor maneuver to force a vote on Krell’s bill to treat all solicitations of Californians under age 18 the same, as a way to battle sex trafficking. Democrats amended the bill over Krell’s objections.
Republicans accused Democrats of siding with predators, and even Gov. Gavin Newsom and Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis sided with them, while Democrats have been crushed by public opinion.
McClatchy California Opinion Editor Marcos Bretón and Sacramento Bee Opinion Writer Robin Epley debated the biggest story in Sacramento..
Marcos Bretón: Robin, this whole issue is being portrayed as really stupid politics by the Democrats. Republicans are asking: Why wouldn’t you want to protect 16- and 17-year-olds?
Robin Epley: No one is saying they want 16- and 17-year-olds to be unprotected. It’s already a criminal act to solicit a minor, or even just contact a minor for sexual purposes. I asked Krell why law enforcement needs harsher sentencing laws when they already have them on the books and she told me that the police are too stymied by other laws to make arrests. That’s bunk.
What the Democrats are trying to do here is keep some common sense written into state law so that judges and prosecutors aren’t forced to treat every case the same; keeping prosecutorial and judicial independence in our laws is a good thing.
The fact of the matter is that not every 16- and 17-year-old who has sex is a sex worker, but that’s what Krell’s bill would have made them, legally.
Bretón: But Krell said that this bill wasn’t about cracking down on young people on dates. It was about punishing people who pay for sex with 16 and 17-year-olds.
Epley: We need to understand how Krell and her bill’s co-author, Sen. Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, define “payment.” It’s not the stereotype of money changing hands through a car window or left on a bedside table. The bill sought to consider any financial gift that ends in sex “solicitation. For teens, ignorant of the law, that could mean anything from buying the prom tickets or spotting your date for some French fries. California doesn’t need to make actions like that a felony to catch real predators.
Second, Krell is a former prosecutor, and prosecutors tend to be hammers that see every problem as a nail. Krell may say that this bill isn’t about cracking down on young people on dates, but that’s the exact problem it could cause if California moves forward with a one-size-fits-all approach in this law. A 19- or 20-year-old dating a 16- or 17-year-old isn’t out of the ordinary — maybe they went to high school together and maintained a relationship. Now, those kids could be at risk of becoming felons just for buying their date dinner? I just don’t think that’s fair, and I believe it would be used as a cudgel to persecute out-groups — including families that disapprove of queer or interracial relationships.
I constantly hear Republicans bemoan the lack of common sense and leeway in the law, but that’s what Dems are trying to do here and they’re getting dragged for it. Not every situation is the same and it’s not helpful to legislate that way. We don’t need to use a dragnet across every case of minors having sex to stop the solicitation and prostitution of minors.
Bretón: What constituency are the Democrats protecting here? Who are the nameless/faceless people who are so important that the Democrats are willing to be flogged publicly? They are willing to be painted as people who are protecting sexual predators at the expense of 16 and 17-year-old girls.
Epley: I think it’s the Republicans who are stifling discussion on this issue by using the scare tactic of claiming that Democrats are all perverts and pedophiles who want to abuse 16- and 17-year-old girls. It’s not true, it’s insulting and it distracts from the real issue at hand, so they can score cheap points — a textbook GOP play.
Democrats are listening to the experts. I recently spoke with a senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, Minouche Kandel, and she told me that laws like this have historically been used by law enforcement and prosecutors against communities of color and queer communities, particularly queer men of color.
The nameless and faceless people the Dems are protecting here will quickly gain names and faces if the state moves forward with this — the same way that Trump’s draconian deportation laws would affect nameless and faceless people until we learned about Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, Heidy Sanchez and Andry Hernandez Romero. Bad laws have consequences for good people.
Bretón: It seems like the Democrats have united to put Krell in her place. They amended her bill and removed her name from it. I love Sacramento political parlor games as much as the next person, but Robin, no one in California has done more to combat sex trafficking than Krell. Doesn’t it give you pause that the person who knows most about this issue is getting crushed by her own party?
Epley: I think Maggy Krell was a brilliant prosecutor and is a lovely person. She is indisputably one of the state’s foremost minds on the topic of sex trafficking. But as a freshman assemblywoman? She still has a lot to learn about legislating for 40 million people. Krell knew the history of Grove’s single-minded crusade, and she still chose to side with the firebrand Republican lawmaker and bring back this drama for its third year running.
I also think that, as a former prosecutor, Krell has a viewpoint on this that not everyone shares — but that doesn’t necessarily make her right. There is a serious problem with the sex trafficking of minors in this state, but throwing interracial relationships and queer communities under the bus is not the way to solve it.
It’s a really difficult subject, and it’s hard to fight back against arguments that are both insulting and completely off-topic. The Republicans have pushed on this message not because it’s valid, but because they know that clutching pearls works to rile constituencies up. But this is worth fighting for, and I’m glad to see the Democrats aren’t backing down, even in the face of outright lies and vile threats.
This story was originally published May 5, 2025 at 12:19 PM.
