There’s hot-takes, and then there’s this insanity
Simplistic, fear-based messaging helped the GOP get a rare win. https://t.co/ix4Q4h3f5q
— Capitol Alert (@CapitolAlert) July 17, 2023
There’s a big time paywall, so, you can read it in full at Yahoo News
California Democrats spent the final few days before summer recess in an unusual spot: embroiled in a legislative fight with Republicans, who typically operate in the shadow of the state’s blue supermajority.
The cause? A bill to strengthen penalties for child sex traffickers that lawmakers killed ahead of a looming legislative deadline.
By the time they left Sacramento last week, Democrats had doubled back and advanced Senate Bill 14 in an emergency hearing of the Senate Public Safety committee, likely at the behest of both Gov. Gavin Newsom and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, D-Hollister.
And Republicans were celebrating a “win for law and order in California” with bill author Sen. Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield.
How did a party with almost no power in California manage to achieve a political win?
In part by employing simplistic, fear-based messaging that exploited the divide between progressive and moderate Democrats on criminal justice reform. Social media posts amplifying the bill’s failure suggested Democrats are soft on crime, especially related to children.
Democrats had voted AGAINST a bill that protected children from child trafficking. And, without that messaging, the GOP would have had zero power. They cannot do anything in the California general assembly. And Democrats would have simply moved on
Their arguments in favor of the bill also carried a whiff of the far-right GOP conspiracy theory related to Democrats and pedophilia.
Now, just imagine that it was the GOP who voted against significantly increase the felony penalties on child traffickers. How would the SacBee frame that?
California has spent the past 15 years moving away from the tough-on-crime sentencing laws that created overcrowded prisons filled with Black and brown people. A panel of federal judges in 2009 ordered the state to begin reducing the incarcerated population.
That resulted in a series of changes that reclassified some lower-level crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, shifted some prison inmates to county jails and increased opportunities for people to earn credits and reduce their sentences.
Progressive Democrats have been hesitant to support bills that would increase penalties, wanting to avoid a return to policies promoting mass incarceration.
And look at what this has gotten California. But, we’re also talking about trafficking children, and Democrats are so soft on crime they refused to strengthen the law.
Human trafficking has long been a strong issue for Republicans. This is especially true in far right corners of the party, where conspiracy theorists have perpetuated myths that Democratic leaders are trafficking children.
Maybe there wouldn’t be a conspiracy theory if Democrats weren’t so weak on protecting kids, much less crime overall. The authors call this a political issue. It shouldn’t be, but, Democrats are batshit insane, and no matter how much their pet media wants to position it, most of the parents in California do not want to go soft on child traffickers.
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