SACRAMENTO — Are California Democrats weak when it comes to protecting minors from sex trafficking?
It’s a question that has caused chaos in the state Capitol for more than a week. But really, it’s a question Republicans have been asking — and answering with a resounding yes — for years.
At the risk of stating the obvious, I’ll let you know that California has some of the toughest laws against sex trafficking in the country, including protecting minors. But there’s long been contention about how laws regarding older teens, those 16 and 17 and still underage, should be written and enforced. I’ll explain why in a minute.
It’s also obvious that teenagers shouldn’t be bought and sold for sex. That makes the issue a perennial winner for Republicans, who regularly put up bills to toughen penalties on sex crimes, have them shot down by Democrats, then wage media campaigns that result in headlines such as the recent “Top California Democrats Fight To Protect Purchasing Sex With Kids.”
Nuance about why some Democrats keep voting down harsher penalties is easily lost and hard to explain when politicians discuss sex trafficking. And Democrats have inflicted this same wound on themselves so many times by following this Republican playbook that the blood won’t wash off.
The most recent manifestation of this long-running drama has a twist — a freshman Democrat in the Assembly wrote the bill that this year turned into the Republican weapon.
Maggy Krell (D-Sacramento), a former state prosecutor specializing in human trafficking, wrote legislation a few weeks ago meant to close a loophole in a previous law that treated the crime of soliciting a minor for sex differently depending on the age of the minor.
A person attempting to purchase sex from a child 15 and under, by current law, is committing a felony. But someone attempting to buy sex from a 16- or 17-year-old is committing a crime that’s a “wobbler,” chargeable as either a felony or misdemeanor on the first offense, at the prosecutor’s discretion — but requiring the minor to prove they are being trafficked for the higher offense.
As they have done in past years when Republicans floated the idea, Krell’s Democratic colleagues demanded the felony part of her legislation be dropped. Krell eventually agreed, a compromise to keep other parts of the bill alive, including a provision to make it illegal to loiter with the intent to buy sex.
But then she backed Republicans when they made a fuss about it last week on the floor of the Assembly, effectively going against her own party.
Chaos erupted, followed by insanity.
Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas stripped Krell’s name off the bill and gave it instead to Nick Schultz (D-Burbank), also a former prosecutor, and another Democrat, Stephanie Nguyen (D-Elk Grove). Republicans had a field day with press releases, speeches and even began running social media ads accusing Democrats of being soft on sex crimes. Bizarrely, Democrats then began running the same kind of ads against Republicans.
Then, on Tuesday, Rivas and Schultz announced a detente with Krell. Buying sex from a 16- or 17-year-old goes back into the bill as a felony — if the buyer is more than three years older than the person being trafficked, and whether or not the minor can prove they are being trafficked.
A committee will hear the new bill on Wednesday, with Krell’s name back on it, and presumably move it forward.
There’s both a political takeaway and a policy takeaway from all of this.
The reason some Democrats say they have blocked the automatic felony in the past is hard to follow. Basically, their argument goes, an 18-year-old could buy Taco Bell or a vape for a younger friend, and that could be considered a felony solicitation if sexual acts ensued. Frankly, I have trouble thinking prosecutors would file these charges, but you never know.
The issue that really underlies this perennial fight and which Democrats seem to have a harder time talking about is a philosophical one. Some folks on the progressive end of criminal justice reform, including some survivors of sex trafficking, believe the best way to combat the abuse is to decriminalize sex work, or even legalize it.
Decriminalization basically means not enforcing many of the laws currently on the books that lead to sex workers and buyers being arrested — like solicitation. It’s not a push to stop arresting those who coerce or force people into trafficking situations.
The idea is that many sex workers, including younger adults and those in the LGBTQ+ community, are sex workers by choice or necessity, that saddling them with long criminal records preventing them from getting jobs or housing isn’t helpful or fair, and going after buyers simply makes their work more dangerous.
That outlook goes hand in hand with the years-long push by Democrats to address the over-incarceration of Black and brown people, which has led to the Legislature rarely adding new felonies to the penal code.
You can agree or disagree with those viewpoints, but they are worth debating. Our current political mood, with Proposition 36 passed by voters and Trump in the White House, has dramatically shifted though.
Sex trafficking is at the center of that shift.
Remember when QAnon spread conspiracies about international human smuggling rings, including that online retailer Wayfair was at the heart of a scheme to sell kids though furniture listings? That kind of panic about sex trafficking has become mainstreamed on the right, though the truth is most trafficked kids are sold by someone they know — a parent, a boyfriend, maybe even by another young person being trafficked themselves.
But tough on crime is back in fashion, and no politician wants to champion decriminalization. I think decriminalization has a lot of pitfalls, but if some Democrats believe it’s the solution, it’s a policy failure to not talk about it — and it leads voters to misunderstand their position as weak on sex offenders.
Krell, who has dedicated her professional life to stopping sex traffickers, strongly believes that buyers need to face more consequences, and she has a point. We can lock up as many sex traffickers as we can find, but as long as buyers feel safe, there will always be a demand.
It was a political failure of the Democratic leadership to think she’d be quietly rolled on this issue. Krell is the rare politician who means what she says and says what she means. It likely stung when her name was removed from the bill, but it only increased her will to fight for a change in law she believes in.
If anyone comes out of this looking good, it’s Krell, who proved herself to be willing to fight even her own party leaders. With the three-year age gap compromise, though, Democrats will likely now show a united front and point to the bill as a success for all involved.
But don’t be surprised if Republicans run the play again next year.