https://www.newsweek.com/california-democrats-block-bill-make-child-trafficking-serious-felony-1812674

A Democrat-majority committee in the California state assembly has declined to advance a bill that would make child trafficking a serious felony in the Golden State.

Democrats on the Assembly Public Safety Committee decided not to advance the proposed legislation on Tuesday in a move that could mean the bill won't pass into law this year.

Republican Senator Shannon Grove introduced the bill, which passed with unanimous bipartisan support in the state Senate and would classify child trafficking as a serious felony, making that offense subject to the state's "three strikes rule."

Under that rule, a person convicted of at least three serious felonies is punished with a prison sentence of between 25 years and life.

The Public Safety Committee, which has a Democratic majority, declined to advance Senator Grove's bill—known as SB14—on Tuesday and some members expressed concerns about the effectiveness of the "three strikes rule" and longer sentences.

The committee, which has eight members, v**ed down the proposal with two Republican members v****g in favor and six Democrats abstaining.

Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who is considered a possible future p**********l candidate, has weighed in on the matter and spoken to Grove by phone about the bill. He said on Wednesday that he was surprised about the committee's decision.

"I want to understand exactly what happened yesterday," Newsom told reporters. "I take it very seriously."

Senator Grove issued a statement on Tuesday saying: "After passing the Senate with a unanimous, bipartisan v**e, I had hoped Democrats on the Assembly Public Safety Committee, led by Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D-Los Angeles), would agree to make sex trafficking of a minor a serious felony."

"I am profoundly disappointed that committee Democrats couldn't bring themselves to support the bill, with their stubborn and misguided objection to any penalty increase regardless of how heinous the crime," she said.

Newsweek has reached out to Jones-Sawyer, chair of the Assembly Public Safety Committee, via email for comment.

Jones-Sawyer issued a statement on Tuesday about the committee's decision.

"The Three Strikes model of sentencing is ineffective in preventing crime and protecting the public's safety. We will not build on a deeply flawed sentencing system that unfairly punishes disadvantaged communities," the statement said.

"SB14 makes no new corrective actions or enhancements to laws already in place. Ultimately, members of the Assembly's Public Safety Committee understood the author's intent but recognized this bill needs considerable work and granted reconsideration," Jones-Sawyer's statement concluded.

"Longer sentences don't actually stop things from happening," said Assembly Majority Leader Isaac Bryan, a Democratic member of the committee, during Tuesday's hearing.

"All they do is increase our investment in systems of harm and subjugation at the expense of the investments that the communities need to not have this be a problem, to begin with," Bryan said.

Jones-Sawyer and Grove met on Wednesday afternoon in what she described as a "productive meeting" that ended without an agreement. Grove wants the bill to be v**ed on without changes.

"The bill needs to be brought to the Assembly floor," she said on Wednesday. "And it needs to be v**ed on as is."

An astute reader will note that this statement fails to define the expression "disadvantaged communities."

It may refer to the popular woke-condition now influencing decisions made in the interests of society, but really made in the name of a d******e ideology affecting race relations.

This belief system purports to identify the source of active discrimination as the dominant white society acting subterraneanly against the cohort of so-called people of color.

The activists pushing this ideology rest its existence on a back-formation, wherein the condition of present discrimination has its roots in the overall historical operation of society under white folk. Thus, the advocates of this view blame a "systemic" influence skewing the entirety of social, civil, political, and legal forces shaping every moment of present activity to suit the interests primarily of white folk.

In turn arises the claim of so-called white privilege that favors white folk in every way. This dogma naturally pits white folk and black folk against each other every passing moment. It puts the burden on white folk of today to change their own behavior to rub out prevailing difference and discrimination, doing so by every means possible.

This dogma harkens to a similar ideology known as egalitarianism, under which all experience sameness of condition and outcome in daily life.

By this avenue, and not far off, lies the social and economic order of c*******m under which all have the same and nobody has more than another. This approach eng****rs strife among the populace, as history tells.

I offer in substitution that we Americans, all of us, consider the national motto of E Pluribus Unum (Out of Many One) as the unifying idea of our dear country under democracy.