A few Democrats in the California State Assembly had a change of heart Thursday regarding SB 14, a bill enhancing penalties for people convicted of child human trafficking, two days after refusing to vote to pass it out of committee. As we’ve reported, on Tuesday the six Democrats on the Assembly Public Safety Committee refused to vote to advance the bill, killing it for the year. After fierce backlash from the general public and questions about the process from both Gov. Gavin Newsom and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, state Senator Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield), the bill’s author, announced Wednesday evening that Assembly Republicans were going to attempt to bring the bill out of committee on Thursday morning for a floor vote.
Before Republicans could do that, though, Assembly Majority Leader (and Public Safety Committee member) Isaac Bryan (D-Los Angeles) made a motion to suspend committee hearing notice requirements so they could convene a meeting of the Public Safety Committee immediately after the floor session so they could again take up SB 14. At that moment Republican Asm. Heath Flora rose and made the motion to bring the bill to the floor instead. Procedurally, though, that wasn’t going to work. The first vote was on Bryan’s motion, and it passed overwhelmingly given the Democrats’…
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