California’s Capitol lost its mind over a disputed sex trafficking bill | Opinion

Based on the howls from Gov. Gavin Newsom and social media hyperventilating from Republican leaders, it would seem Democrats in the California Assembly had just abandoned young victims of sex trafficking by refusing to ever stiffen sentences of those who solicit them.

In truth, the Democrats have enhanced the penalties, albeit in a modest way. And the real policy question is whether what the Democrats have done is enough. Not to mention a bigger question: How does California heal a broken deliberative process vulnerable to being hijacked in a court of public opinion that cares more about divisive politics than the substance of our proposed laws?

Sacramento Assemblymember Maggy Krell, a Democrat, set off a social media feeding frenzy, perhaps somewhat inartfully, as a rookie member of the Legislature with a wealth of experience on the topic as a former state prosecutor. She authored a complex piece of legislation, Assembly Bill 379, that targets multiple dimensions of the sex trafficking of teens, which is all too prevalent in the state.

Rage-baiting California politics

The fundamental question here is whether soliciting teens under age 18 should be prosecuted as felony deserving prison time, a misdemeanor in jail for no more than a year, or a “wobbler” that allows the prosecutor to select the severity of the crime. While there’s a lot of chatter out there about felonies, Krell wanted all teen solicitations to be wobblers in her legislation. This nuance was lost in the rage-baiting by some who may not have bothered to read Krell’s bill.

This issue requires some careful thought to truly achieve justice.

Sadly, Sacramento seems to have lost the capacity to have a rational legislative conversation about sex trafficking — or just about anything when it comes to criminal justice. And there’s plenty of blame for both sides of the political aisle.

Currently in state law, anybody who solicits a teen under age 16 for sex can be charged with either a felony or a misdemeanor. That same solicitation to a 16- or 17-year-old, however, is normally just a misdemeanor. It can be elevated to potential felony status if that teen is also a victim of sex trafficking. And that connection to sex trafficking has to be demonstrated at trial.

This parsing of prostitution was a legislative compromise that resulted last year when state Sen. Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, sought the possibility of tougher consequences for solicitations of teens via SB 1414. Newsom signed it into law, despite that SB 1414 contained “the added requirement that minors who are 16 and 17 must be proven to be victims of human trafficking.”

Krell feels the requirement created a “loophole” that could prevent prosecuting those who “purchase minors for commercial sex.”

She decided to revisit the issue this year in AB 379, with Grove as co-author. Krell went straight to the third rail of the issue, the 16- and 17-year-olds. Krell wanted to make any crime of purchasing a minor for sex apply to any victim under the age of 18.

“I don’t care whether my name is on the bill, but I would proudly support it if it includes protections for 16-to-17-year-olds, if it treats them as victims, because they truly are,” Krell said on the Assembly floor on Thursday.

Newsom, who is drifting to the right seemingly with each passing podcast, couldn’t help but join the fray: “The law should treat all sex predators who solicit minors the same, as a felony, regardless of the intended victim’s age. Full stop,” he said in a statement.

Gavin Newsom isn’t helping

That Newsom would make such a comment now, after signing SB 1414 last year, with the requirement that 16-to 17-year-olds must be proven to be victims of sex trafficking, tells you all you need to know about a governor using the remainder of his tenure to bolster his conservative bona fides.

Any time legislators mandate that an alleged crime be tried solely as a felony, a prosecutor loses the ability to try that case as a misdemeanor and a lesser penalty. Likewise, if an offense can be no more than a misdemeanor, the court system is restricted as well.

Along with muddying the issue, Newsom — like many people screaming now — misses the point over what is at dispute in the bill Krell authored.

Krell wanted to remove the requirement that it be proven in court that 16-to-17-year-olds were the victims of sex trafficking for the case to be a potential felony, and Democrats are not ready to do that yet.

This is where real legislating, and not ranting, comes into play. After all, a social media tweet about a politician siding with pedophiles over teenagers is sexier than a politician seeking to get the complexities of a law right.

Cooler heads in Sacramento are not prevailing.

Democratic leadership stripped Krell of her own bill on Thursday, as Republicans maneuvered to force a floor vote. As a former prosecutor, Krell is undoubtedly an outcast with some in her party caucus. She will need to develop relationships to make legislation as opposed to headlines, and a true caucus would welcome her expertise and commitment.

AB 379 a low point for Sacramento

Assemblymember Nick Schultz, the Burbank Democrat who chairs the Assembly Public Safety Committee, told The Bee Editorial Board on Monday that he expects more legislation on this matter as soon as this week. It’s smart for the Democrats to try to get this issue behind them.

But there are reasons for a cerebral policy disagreement here. Prosecutors are on record wanting more cases of teen solicitation to be wobblers so they have latitude to deal with individual cases. Democrats, meanwhile, have had concerns about prosecutors abusing such discretion.

The unresolved crux of the matter appears to be this: How much does it make sense to treat differently a 15-year-old who is solicited under the law, as opposed to a 16-year-old or a 17-year-old? The cries to make all such solicitations as felonies (and not wobblers) would lead to too many injustices.

The Democrats did themselves a disservice by hijacking Krell’s bill, and the Republicans are creating trouble because the sound bites are better than the truth — taking advantage of the optics of a petty intramural fight. Find a way to give Krell her bill back if she wants it. And if Schultz has a different idea, he should make his separate case in his own bill. This is what was once practiced in a more democratic Sacramento, and was known as lawmaking.

This story was originally published May 6, 2025 at 5:00 AM.