Grove's anti-human trafficking bill shelved on suspense file, awaits Thursday hearing

It’s decision time in Sacramento on Thursday, as hundreds of potential bills tied to new spending face the proverbial ax in the Legislature’s suspense file.

This includes Senate Bill 1414, a bill proposed by state Sen. Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, which would make the purchase of a child for sex a felony in California, punishable by two to four years in prison, up to a $25,000 fine and mandatory registration as a sex offender for 10 years.

The legislation was placed on suspense file because its up to $500,000 initial price tag was more than the $50,000 spending threshold set by the committee.

In a social media post on X, Grove urged “every Californian” to petition their legislator to support the bill.

“We will continue to fight until there is not one more child bought or sold in the state of California,” she wrote.

In California, lawmakers introduce about 2,000 bills a year. The process of clearing the suspense file, held across two hearings each year — once in May and again in late August — allows the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee to cull hundreds of bills in rapid succession.

The procedural move was widely used during California’s deficit years as a way for lawmakers to weigh the benefits of proposals amid leaner budgets.

As of Tuesday, 341 bills in the state Senate and about 670 in the Assembly are set for review in the suspense file, with the number expected to grow by Thursday.

State Senate bills that survive advance to the Senate floor — ditto for the Assembly. Last May, the Senate passed more than 300 bills — about 78% of them.

Without testimony or discussion, it’s one of the most pivotal — and most secretive — parts of the legislative process, aimed at bills that cost the state more than $50,000 from the general fund or $150,000 from any of the state’s special funds.

This comes as California is facing a deficit that Gov. Gavin Newsom has estimated at $27.6 billion in 2024-25, followed by a $28.4 billion shortfall the year after.

“These are propositions that I’ve long advanced, many of them. These are things that I’ve supported,” Newsom told reporters Friday. “But you’ve got to do it. We have to be responsible. We have to be accountable. We have to balance the budget.”

Analysts examining Grove’s bill anticipate $5 to $10 million ongoing costs to the state’s general fund, spent in additional law enforcement for handling increased sex offender registrations, as well as a higher backlog in state trial courts and prisons.

It costs on average about $29,000 a year to incarcerate someone at a county jail in California — $133,000 in a state prison, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

Along with cuts to anti-poverty programs and homelessness funding, the governor’s 2024-25 budget proposes a $493 million drop in prison funding.

S.B. 1414 previously emerged from the Senate’s Public Safety Committee with three amendments, including one that left it to a prosecutor’s discretion to charge a misdemeanor or felony — a wobbler, as state Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, coined it — for the first time someone solicits a child under the age of 16 for sex. Only on the second offense would it be a straight felony, Skinner added.

The bill returned to the Senate, but Grove added after the hearing that she considered whether to withdraw the measure after reviewing the language of the amendments.