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California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) made an unusual intervention on Wednesday to save a Republican-authored bill that Democrats had blocked in the State Assembly that would make trafficking a minor a “serious felony.”
As Breitbart News reported Wednesday, Democrats blocked the bill, which had already passed the State Senate unanimously:
Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield) introduced the bill, SB 14, which also notes that California leads the nation in reported cases of human trafficking of minors. The inclusion of trafficking a minor as a “serious felony” would make that crime ineligible for plea bargaining in most circumstances and would require that the crime be included under the state’s 1990s-era “Three Strikes” law, allowing for life imprisonment after three felonies.
However, Grove noted Tuesday, the Public Safety Committee, led by Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D-South Los Angeles), declined to advance the bill.
