In a speech on May 23, California State Senator Susan Eggman made an emotional appeal to her colleagues in the chamber, urging them to support a bill that would send pedophiles who buy s*x with children to prison.
The bill, SB 1414, aims to address the state’s outdated laws that currently allow individuals who solicit underage prostitutes to be charged with misdemeanors, resulting in a mere two days in jail.
Senator Eggman, a progressive Democrat who has served in the state legislature for 12 years, expressed her frustration with the current system. “I’m done with us protecting people who would buy and abuse our children. I’m done,” she declared.
The proposed legislation, authored by State Senator Shannon Grove, would make soliciting underage prostitutes a felony punishable by two to four years in prison, a $25,000 fine, and mandatory registration as a s*x offender. However, the bill faced opposition from a group of rebel Democrats led by State Senator Scott Wiener, who watered down the bill in the Senate Public Safety Committee.
Eggman, who previously worked as a social worker, recounted her experiences meeting young victims of s*xual abuse who were “wounded to their core.” She argued that when parents fail to protect their children, it is the law’s responsibility to step in. “I am not arguing that we open the gates to flood our prisons with people, but I am arguing that we have a moral responsibility to say, enough, enough,” she asserted.
The senator referenced the documentary “Escaping the Blade,” which exposed the underage s*x trade in Sacramento and served as a key component in Senator Grove’s push for the bill. She continued to criticize the current system, stating, “Men are being given a little slap on the hand or a couple days and then they’re back out again and they do the same thing. They get caught over and over and over again. And somehow that’s OK. It’s not OK. It is not OK anymore.”
Eggman, who will leave the state senate at the next election due to term limits, called on her colleagues to continue the fight against child s*xual exploitation. She emphasized the importance of focusing on core issues and not allowing the Democratic Party of California to condone such crimes against vulnerable children, particularly those from poor and minority backgrounds.
Following Eggman’s speech and the support of many others, SB 1414 passed the state senate unanimously with a 36-0 vote, per Newsweek. The bill will now move to the state assembly, where Grove and supporters from both parties hope to reinstate its original, tougher provisions.
The bill initially aimed to make soliciting underage prostitutes a felony across the board, removing the need for suspects to know or reasonably know the s*x worker’s age. However, the Public Safety Committee, controlled by Wiener’s rebels, significantly weakened the bill, turning the crime into a “wobbler” that allows courts to decide between felony or misdemeanor charges. The amended version also reinstated the need to know or reasonably know the s*x worker’s age and exempted first-time offenders from mandatory s*x offender registration.
The most controversial change made by the committee was to essentially not apply the bill when the victim is 16 or 17 years old, leaving the crime a misdemeanor in those cases. These changes were made in response to criticism from groups such as the ACLU and the California Public Defenders Association, who raised concerns about unintended consequences and the bill’s potential to punish defendants more harshly even when intent to have s*x with a minor is lacking.
Senator Grove expressed her disappointment with the watered-down version of the bill, initially considering removing her name from it. “That’s garbage, garbage. I don’t know what to say. I may pull my name off the bill. It’s not my bill. They hijacked my bill, and they turned it into something that was palatable to them,” she stated.
As the bill moves to the state assembly for further debate, Grove remains committed to restoring its original provisions. “The crime of purchasing a child, of any age, for s*x in the state of California should be a prison felony,” she asserted. “We must restore this bill in the Assembly to protect every child in the state of California from the horrific crime of s*x trafficking.”
The fate of SB 1414 now lies in the hands of the state assembly, where lawmakers will have the opportunity to strengthen the bill and send a clear message that California will not tolerate the s*xual exploitation of children. As Senator Eggman declared, it is time for the state to take a moral stand and say “enough is enough.”
