Dems Try to Defang California Bill Making Child Sex Trafficking a Felony Because It Might Ensnare LGBTQs

California legislators are considering a bill that would make child sex trafficking a felony in the Golden State — but the bill was watered down by far-left Democrats who fretted that it might lead to prison time for LGBTQ individuals.

The Legislation

Senate Bill 1414, which passed the California Senate in May and the Assembly Public Safety Committee on Friday, aims to increase the penalties for those purchasing minors for sex or soliciting sex from them. According to KCRA, “SB 1414 would classify the crime as a felony, carrying a maximum penalty of up to four years in prison and a $25,000 fine. Currently, purchasing or soliciting a child for sex is a misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of up to a year in jail, or a minimum of two days in jail, along with a $10,000 fine.”

Furthermore, reported KRCR:

If the bill were to be enacted, beginning on January 1, 2025, any individual aged 18 or older who is found guilty of soliciting a minor, and who already has a prior conviction for the same offense, will be required to register as a sex offender every year for a period of 10 years. This requirement also applies if, at the time of the offense, the individual was more than 10 years older than the minor they solicited.

Two Democrats, Senators Anna Caballero and Susan Rubio, and one Republican, Senator Shannon Grove introduced the bill. One would think such a bill would sail through the Legislature. However, this is California, where, as KCRA noted, lawmakers have been trying unsuccessfully for a decade to pass similar legislation.

Bill History

In April, Democrats on the Senate Public Safety Committee, over Grove’s objections, passed an amendment to the bill that excludes 16- and 17-year-olds from its protections unless they can prove they are victims of sex trafficking. “The vote was moved by State Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley,” wrote KRCR. “Skinner, Sen. Scott Wiener and committee chairwoman Aisha Wahab voted to move forward with the amendments as Grove watched in disbelief.”

“To force these amendments on me in front of survivors, to water this down to avoid 16 and 17-year-olds …” Grove said.

It’s no surprise that the openly homosexual Wiener backed the amendment. He is, after all, the same senator who pushed bills to make California a “sanctuary state” for transgender minors from other states (and the adults who enable them to travel to California) and, according to journalist Abigail Shrier, to give

LGBTQ-identified foster kids the rights, among other things, to abortions, contraception, and medical treatment for sexual assault, “without the knowledge or consent of any adult.” Included in this bill of new “rights” was this one: “the right to ‘access to computer technology and the internet.’” Suddenly, foster parents found it impossible to police the Internet activity of their foster kids….

As a result of this law, adult sexual predators of all orientations in California gained greater access to child victims.

Anti-trafficking activist Marisa Ugarte told Shrier that Wiener is turning California into “a sex-trafficking paradise.”

Why Defang the Bill?

Progressive politicians weren’t alone in trying to weaken, or even kill, SB 1414. “Smart Justice California, a group that encourages policymakers to support criminal justice reform policies, believes that the bill could be used unfairly toward the LGBTQ community,” KCRA reported in April. Similarly, a litany of left-wing organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of California, testified against the bill in the Assembly last week, warning that it could “disproportionately impact marginalized communities,” including “black and brown individuals” and “members of the LGBTQ community,” all of whom suffer under “systemic biases in the criminal-justice system.”

Why should a bill that merely penalizes — and still not very strongly — soliciting sex from a minor raise the ire of so many leftists? HotAir’s David Strom suggests the following:

Members of the alphabet mafia are degenerate groomers and disproportionately likely to solicit minors for sex, so let’s not punish the traffickers in children more than we already do….

Democrats are in a tizzy about the bill because it puts them in a bind. They don’t want to outright ADMIT that they are fine with pedos purchasing sex from kids … but they don’t want to punish the actual sex offenders. So they have been on a mission to water down the bill. 

Not All Democrats Support Sex Trafficking

To be fair, not all California Democrats support sex trafficking or are “fine with pedos purchasing sex from kids.” As noted above, members of both parties introduced SB 1414. In addition, it boasts a bipartisan collection of co-authors.

Outgoing Democratic Senator Susan Eggman, in fact, made a blistering speech on the Senate floor in May, chastising her own party for its opposition to the bill. Said the former chairwoman of the California Legislative LGBT Caucus:

As a progressive proud member of this body for the last 12 years, I’m done. I’m done with us protecting people who would buy and abuse our children. I’m done. I don’t want to send more black and brown men to prison. I don’t want more people in prison. But I don’t want people buying girls. I don’t want people buying little girls anymore. And I’m tired of saying it’s okay and that we have to protect the men who do it.”

“We have a moral responsibility to say, ‘Enough, enough,’” she declared. “We have given away enough on this area, and we’ve got to move back into the center or we all look like fools.”