Steve Maviglio, spokesperson for Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, sent this item over to me in response to the Spitzer piece and my commentary today:
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There’s a reason the Attorney General, California Police Chiefs Association, and the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault supported AB 50 – and strongly opposed the unanimous decision by Assembly Republicans to remove $23 million for GPS surveillance of high-risk sex offenders and SAFE teams to monitor sex offenders.
• The Runner legislation says an offender cannot live within 2000 ft. of a school. It does nothing to stop offenders from trespassing near a school, while AB 50 does. The 2000 ft. requirement will require offenders to live in rural and suburban areas that lack the services designed to keep offenders from committing more crime (and fewer visits by parole officers and counselors).
• The GPS provision of the Runner legislation is unenforceable. Hundreds of thousands of offenders would be required to wear GPS devices – effectively rendering the technology useless (law enforcement has testified that they will not be able to tell one offender from another).
• The controversial provision of the bill re: 100 pieces of child pornography was added at the request of Republican Assembly Member Todd Spitzer. The amendments to further reduce the number were presented by Democrats.
In its January 5, 2006 editorial, The Bakersfield Californian, one of the state’s most conservative newspapers, said this about the "Jessica’s Law" initiative. “This idea must be blocked in the Legislature first, and then at the ballot box. There are other, better ways to deal with this issue.
AB 50 is the better way.
(The first comment below is a response from WIll Smith, the Chief of Staff to State Senator George Runner, Author of Jessica’s Law…)
February 1st, 2006 at 12:00 am
First, let’s talk for a moment about just a few of the key differences between AB 50 and Jessica’s Law: It lacks true mandatory minimums in sentencing, does not eliminate good time credits that sex offenders currently have, and consequently allows these child rapists to serve less than a full 15 to 25 years before being considered for parole. AB 50 does nothing to address the flaws of the Sexually Violent Predator law that keeps releasing the most dangerous predators into our community. Sure, it strengthens the penalties for Internet luring, but doesn’t change the underlying law that is so poorly written that prosecutors have yet to be able to convict one predator caught through law enforcement stings. And it lacks any significant movement on GPS. Sex offenders cannot loiter around schools but how is law enforcement going to know when the predators are there if they are not wearing a GPS unit?
In response to the specifics of Maviglio’s missive, allow me to state the obvious: of course law enforcement supports AB 50 (they also strongly support Jessica’s Law). It contains a few good policy changes which the Democrats have killed for years and now want Californians to believe they support, like making child pornography possession a felony. It is important to note that the legislative Democrats have resisted making possession of pictures of child rape a felony for years despite the efforts of many in the law enforcement community, so the fact that they now are getting tough on child rapists is a bit hard to believe.
We continue to strongly believe in the 2,000 foot sexual predator free zone because we do not believe that children should have to walk by the homes of child molesters on their way to school and the rural myth that is being perpetuated by Dems is completely fallacious. Just last year these same members voted in favor of a ½ mile zone around schools for high risk sex offenders and no one expressed concerns about this issue at that time (besides, since when did San Francisco Dems start caring about the public safety of rural families!).
Additionally, just because Democrats say something emphatically and loudly does not make it true. There are not hundreds of thousands of sex offenders who will be required to wear GPS, it will only apply to felony sex offenders on parole and those released in the future. The fact is there are just under100,000, and according to an investigation by the Associated Press, nearly 25,000 of them are missing, having failed to register under Megan’s Law, thus making the clear case for the need for GPS technology which doesn’t appear to be failing in our phones and cars.
Let’s face one important fact. The only reason this debate is taking place, the only reason that Democrats have suddenly decided to posture themselves as tough on crime, is because Californians are signing petitions (nearly 10,000 per day) for Jessica’s Law and the Democrats find themselves on the wrong side of the issue.
Will Smith, Chief of Staff to Senator George Runner – Author of Jessica’s Law
February 2nd, 2006 at 12:00 am
Mr. Speaker,
If your spokesperson is speaking for you, he should know his facts. Here they are: in April 2003, Carol Liu (D-Pasadena) introduced AB 1499 which made 10 items of child pornography a wobbler: either a felony or a misdemeanor. At that time, myself and Assmb. Jay La Seur abstained on the bill because we did NOT THINK THE BILL WENT FAR ENOUGH. FOR NEARLY THREE YEARS WE HAVE BEEN ARGUING THAT ONE PIECE OF CHILD PORN SHOULD BE A FELONY.
That is on the record.
You , Mr. Speaker, made sure that Liu’s bill was killed in Assembly Public Safety, chaired by Mark Leno. In fact, you have staff that sits in the committee and is responsible for ensuring that your vision is carried out. The bill only passed out the following week, on April 8th, 2003, after Carol Liu was forced to amend her bill to 100 items of child porn.
Were we happy about what you did? Of course not. But for more than three years as a member of the Assembly Public Safety Committee, I have seen bill after bill to protect Californians guided by your office to the bone yard. Examples?: 1) my AB 35 would have listed all sex offenders on the Internet; 2) Reduced prison credits for sex offenders (Bogh-R); 3) Felony for illegal drug use around children (Aghazarian-R); 4) Outlawing the public display of sexual material in a motor vehicle ie. DVDs (Benoit-R); 5) GPS for child molesters granted bail (Walters-R); 6) Reduce number of victims necessary for Sexually Violent Predators (Wyland-R).
At the same time, we have watched your magic as you let out bills that reward criminality and lack of societal responsibility: 1) Parolees go free–Removes discretion of Dept. of Corrections to keep parolee on parole for three or five years if parolee has no violations for one year of that period (Leno-D); 2) Prison Officials Mandated to Give Prisoners material on how to avoid child support payments and how to seek modification orders (Bass-D); 3) Reduction of crack cocaine penalties (Dymally-D).
When AB 50 (Leno-D) came to committee, he did not include ANY provisions on child porn possession, Internet luring, GPS tracking/funding, or sex offenders trespassing on school campuses. I spoke to Mr. Leno about this and he was very receptive to working with me to add these provisions. Mr. Leno asked me to put these provisions in writing which I did and there are copies obviously in your possession.
The key misunderstanding on your part is this: do you really think anyone believes that because I cut and pasted the Liu bill with 100 pieces as a starting point for discussion, knowing that was THE ONLY BILL, MR. SPEAKER, YOU WOULD LET OUT OF COMMITTEE, that I, personally, support 100 items as the threshold for a felony? When Leno was more than happy NOT to include child porn possession in his bill at all? And when I am on the record in 2003 not supporting the Liu bill in its introduced version with 10 items as a felony because it did not go far enough?
I know that Mark Leno has told you the truth but you are obviously refusing to listen, instead using your spokesperson to produce spin. I made it unequivocally clear to Mark, that if I were to join him as an author on AB 50 that he could never say that it was a bi-partisan effort in resolving this area of the law. In fact, I told Mark twice that I would 1) continue to be a co-chair of the Jessica’s Law Initiative; 2) that I would support hostile amends on AB 50 to make it stronger knowing full well that Mark would only go so far i.e. 100 items of child porn (in fact, why don’t you ask Mark if the democrats now find 100 items so objectionable, why did he amend his bill to be 100 items—why did he not protest and state it should be lower if the dems find that number to be too high?); 3) that I would speak out against AB 50 saying it is not tough enough.
Last Friday in the Press Enterprise, I acknowledged frankly and openly that when I informed the Rep. Caucus that I was considering AB 50 in its amended form with the three limitations described above, not one person supported my decision. In fact, they predicted what has come true: that the dems would use my credibility and credentials in the law enforcement arena to argue that AB 50 is the answer and Jessica’s Law is flawed.
But when Mark Leno stood on the floor last Thursday and in response to Assemblymember Mountjoy’s questions about how the number 100 pieces of child pornography was determined as the threshold, instead of pointing to any public policy rationale given it is HIS BILL, Mark answered by stating that I had asked for it. What Mark failed to tell the members and the public was that I gave him the Liu language because it was the only language you, Mr. Speaker, let out of committee; he never told the rest of the story- that I have always objected to any number but one image as the threshold.
Mr. Speaker. No matter how you spin it, no credible news agency or political commentator is going to believe that I was fine with 100 pieces of child porn for a felony. But what choice have we had when your Assembly Public Safety Committee would only allow 100 items to come to the floor? My track record in the public safety arena speaks for itself. Isn’t that why Mr. Leno wanted me to be a joint author in the first place?
When hostile amends by Mr. Vargas and Mr. Umberg are offered on the floor to reduce the threshold to one image of child porn, and you are telling Mr. Leno from the rostrum that he will accept those amendments. When Mr. Harman than asks Mr. Leno if he will take those amends and Mr. Leno will not answer the question- in other words, your command is ignored. When Mr. Frommer than has to make a motion and offer language that he has not drafted, but is reciting new language on the fly…Yeah, we get the picture: the democrat caucus has always supported possession as a felony. It just took you nearly three years to figure out how to articulate it and it was very clear that you had control of the issue in your caucus because the motion to go to one image of child porn from your starting point of 88,000 items last week (and three years ago) only took five hours of debate. And oh, by the way, Jessica’s Law being ready to qualify, Mr. Vargas getting blasted on San Diego radio and having to explain himself while running against an incumbent Congressman, Mr. Umberg now being challenged by Mr. Correa, Ms. Daucher and Mr. Tran…that wouldn’t have anything to do with your sudden ability to protect children when three years ago you and your Assembly Public Safety Committee told Ms. Liu it wouldn’t happen.
Todd Spitzer,
Assemblyman, 71st District