Fact Check: Posts incorrectly claim Calif. Democrats blocked bill to make the sex trafficking of minors a felony
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways
Claim:
California Democrats blocked a bill that would make the sex trafficking of minors a felony.
Rating:
Rating: False
Context:
Both sex trafficking of minors and contacting anyone under the age of 18 for sex are felony charges in the state of California. The bill in question, AB 379, aimed to do several things, including increasing a separate charge for soliciting sex from a 16- or 17-year-old to a felony. California Democrats told the bill's author that they would support the bill if she removed that specific provision, which she did.
Current California state law establishes the trafficking of minors for sex as a felony: "A person who causes, induces, or persuades, or attempts to cause, induce, or persuade, a person who is a minor at the time of commission of the offense to engage in a commercial sex act, with the intent to effect or maintain a violation of Section 266, 266h, 266i, 266j, 267, 311.1, 311.2, 311.3, 311.4, 311.5, 311.6, or 518 is guilty of human trafficking."
California law also makes it a felony to contact any person under the age of 18 to engage in sexual activity.
A separate law allows prosecutors to charge anyone who solicits a minor under the age of 16 for sex (or any minor under the age of 18 who is a victim of human trafficking for sex) with a "wobbler," meaning it can be a misdemeanor or felony on the first offense, and a felony on all subsequent offenses.
Some, but not all, California Democrats removed a provision in a proposed bill that would extend the "wobbler" charge to anyone who solicited any 16- or 17-year old for sex, regardless of whether they were a victim of human trafficking. This proposed bill has no effect on the penalties for sex trafficking.
On April 29, 2025, EndWokeness, a prominent conservative account on X, made a post claiming that Democratic lawmakers in California had rejected a bill that made sex trafficking a minor a felony.
The claim spread on social media, and the conservative tabloid New York Post also reported it. Snopes readers searched the site to find out whether the claim was true.
While the claim has some small basis in reality, the facts of the situation were significantly more complex — the claim as it appeared on social media was false.
What is sex trafficking?
It is important to have a clear understanding of the terms being used in the claims on social media and the bill itself. The definition of sex trafficking, and, in particular, who can be found guilty of it, is critical to understanding the nuance at play.
California's existing law on human trafficking defines sex trafficking of a minor as follows:
A person who causes, induces, or persuades, or attempts to cause, induce, or persuade, a person who is a minor at the time of commission of the offense to engage in a commercial sex act, with the intent to effect or maintain a violation of Section 266, 266h, 266i, 266j, 267, 311.1, 311.2, 311.3, 311.4, 311.5, 311.6, or 518 is guilty of human trafficking. A violation of this subdivision is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison as follows:
(1) Five, 8, or 12 years and a fine of not more than five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000).
(2) Fifteen years to life and a fine of not more than five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000) when the offense involves force, fear, fraud, deceit, coercion, violence, duress, menace, or threat of unlawful injury to the victim or to another person.
This law specifically targets people who facilitate commercial sex, but do not participate in it — in other words, pimps.
Meanwhile, because the age of consent in California is 18, a separate state law makes it a felony to contact any minor for sexual activity:
(a) Every person who contacts or communicates with a minor, or attempts to contact or communicate with a minor, who knows or reasonably should know that the person is a minor, with intent to commit an offense specified in Section 207, 209, 261, 264.1, 273a, 286, 287, 288, 288.2, 289, 311.1, 311.2, 311.4 or 311.11, or former Section 288a, involving the minor shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for the term prescribed for an attempt to commit the intended offense.
(b) As used in this section, "contacts or communicates with" shall include direct and indirect contact or communication that may be achieved personally or by use of an agent or agency, any print medium, any postal service, a common carrier or communication common carrier, any electronic communications system, or any telecommunications, wire, computer, or radio communications device or system.
(c) A person convicted of a violation of subdivision (a) who has previously been convicted of a violation of subdivision (a) shall be punished by an additional and consecutive term of imprisonment in the state prison for five years.
Assembly Bill 379
The fight revolves around a state bill, AB 379, that attempts to strengthen penalties for attempting to solicit minors for sex, among other things. The bill did not change the penalties for sex trafficking at all.
Until 2024, California state law separately classified soliciting a prostitute as a misdemeanor offense. That year, the state legislature debated a bill that increased the charge for anyone who solicited a prostitute under the 18 years old to a "wobbler" on the first offense, meaning it could be tried as either a misdemeanor or a felony. (It's always a felony on subsequent offenses.) Democrats agreed to support the bill after further compromise — as it currently stands, the wobbler charge applies only to anyone who solicited minors under the age of 16, or anyone who solicited a minor who was trafficked.
In 2025, Democratic Assembly member Maggy Krell, a former prosecutor and deputy attorney general, authored a bill that expanded the wobbler charge to include anyone who solicited a 16- or 17-year-old, among several other provisions, including making it a misdemeanor to loiter with the intent of buying sex. The bill's summary, as found on CalMatters, read in part (emphasis ours):
Under existing law, a person who solicits, or who agrees to engage in, or who engages in, any act of prostitution is guilty of disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor. Under existing law, if the person solicited was under 16 years of age, or if the person solicited was under 18 years of age at the time of the offense and the person solicited was a victim of human trafficking, the offense is punishable as a misdemeanor by imprisonment in the county jail for not more than one year and a fine not to exceed $10,000 or as a felony by imprisonment in the county jail for 16 months or 2 or 3 years.
This bill would make that increased punishment applicable to any solicitation of any person under 18 years of age.
The bill would require a person who commits prostitution with the intent to receive compensation, money, or anything of value from another person to, for a first or 2nd violation of those provisions, be offered a diversion program pursuant to specified provisions. The bill would make it a misdemeanor for any person to loiter in any public place with the intent to purchase commercial sex, as specified. The bill would make any person who violates that crime or who commits prostitution in exchange for providing compensation, money, or anything of value to the other person subject to an additional fine of $1,000, and would establish the Survivor Support Fund and require that additional fine be deposited in the fund.
According to CalMatters reporting, other state Democrats rejected specifically the wobbler provision for 16- and 17-year-olds in Krell's bill (in bold above), and asked her to amend the bill by removing that provision in order to pass it through committee — which she did. This is what the social media posts incorrectly simplified to "blocking" the bill.
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that he supported the full original bill, including the wobbler charge for soliciting 16- and 17-year-olds.
Why were some Democrats against the bill?
Assembly member Nick Shultz, the chairman of the legislative body's public safety committee, told Sacramento news station KCRA-TV he was concerned the bill was being rushed through the chamber without adequately considering its potential effects. However, he told the Los Angeles Times he did not "have any opposition to the premise of the problem of what Assemblymember Krell is trying to solve."
The LA Times article noted several arguments from opponents of the bill. One group was concerned that parents of teenagers in LGBTQ+ or interracial relationships who did not approve of such relationships might abuse the law. A survivor of child trafficking said she worried that increasing the penalties for soliciting would put sex workers in danger — the potential of a felony charge for simply propositioning might lead people paying for sex to take more risk and be more aggressive toward sex workers.
In conclusion …
Because the 2025 bill was introduced by a Democratic state lawmaker and was also supported by the Democratic governor, it is important to note that this issue was something Democrats, who hold a supermajority in the state legislature, disagreed on. Furthermore, the bill is still continuing through the state Assembly — Democrats were only opposed to the provision in the bill that increased penalties for soliciting 16- and 17-year-olds.
Existing state law makes it a felony to contact a minor for sex, and this bill, if passed in its original form, would add an additional wobbler charge for solicitation. The bill would not affect charges for sex trafficking. As such, because sex trafficking remains a felony in California, the claim is false.
Sources:
"22 U.S. Code § 7102 - Definitions." LII / Legal Information Institute, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/22/7102. Accessed 5 May 2025.
AB 379- AMENDED. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB379. Accessed 5 May 2025.
Associated Press. "What to Know About California's Fight Over Harsher Penalties for Soliciting Sex From Older Teens." US News & World Report, 1 May 2025, https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2025-05-01/what-to-know-about-californias-fight-over-harsher-penalties-for-soliciting-sex-from-older-teens.
Ayestas, Jonathan. "New Coalition Pushes for California Bill That Targets People Who Buy Children for Sex." KCRA, 21 Apr. 2025, https://www.kcra.com/article/california-ab-379-sex-trafficking-bill-coalition/64541727.
California Code, PEN 236.1. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=236.1.&lawCode=PEN. Accessed 5 May 2025.
California Code, PEN 288.3. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=PEN§ionNum=288.3. Accessed 5 May 2025.
California Code, PEN 647. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=647.&lawCode=PEN. Accessed 5 May 2025.
"California Cracks Down on Sex Trafficking of Minors." Governor of California, 26 Sept. 2023, https://www.gov.ca.gov/2023/09/25/sb-14/.
"California Gov. Gavin Newsom Steps in to Help Revive a Stalled Bill on Child Trafficking." AP News, 12 July 2023, https://apnews.com/article/california-gavin-newsom-child-trafficking-e4bde1ada68261e8b6bf5c299e93241c.
"California Governor Signs Law Increasing Penalty for Soliciting Minors to a Felony." AP News, 26 Sept. 2024, https://apnews.com/article/california-soliciting-children-bill-felony-c7c67ae1a4b1d957c8f7c2580bd932bb.
Downing, Jared. Calif. Lawmakers Block Bid to Make Paying for Sex with 16- and 17-Year-Olds a Felony. 30 Apr. 2025, https://nypost.com/2025/04/29/us-news/calif-lawmakers-block-bid-to-make-paying-for-sex-with-16-and-17-year-olds-a-felony/.
Federal Law | National Human Trafficking Hotline. https://humantraffickinghotline.org/en/human-trafficking/federal-law. Accessed 5 May 2025.
Kuang, Jeanne. "Why Are California Democrats against Higher Sentences for Child Sex Crimes?" CalMatters, 2 May 2025. calmatters.org, http://calmatters.org/politics/2025/05/california-democrats-teen-sex-solicitation/.
Macht, Daniel. "Gov. Newsom Signs Bill Making It a Felony to Purchase a Child for Sex in California." KCRA, 26 Sept. 2024, https://www.kcra.com/article/sb-1414-sex-trafficking-bill-becomes-law/62395919.
Nguyen, Tran. "What to Know about California's Fight over Harsher Penalties for Soliciting Sex from Older Teens." Washington Post, 2 May 2025, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/05/01/california-newsom-democrats-sex-trafficking-teens/44a1d8fc-26ef-11f0-ae6d-e4db528eba27_story.html.
"What Is Human Trafficking?" State of California - Department of Justice - Office of the Attorney General, 6 Jan. 2012, https://oag.ca.gov/human-trafficking/what-is.
X, et al. "In a Break from Other Democrats, Newsom Says Soliciting Older Minors for Sex Should Be a Felony." Los Angeles Times, 30 Apr. 2025, https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-04-29/in-break-from-progressives-newsom-says-soliciting-16-and-17-year-olds-should-be-a-felony-in-california.
Zavala, Ashley. "California Lawmakers to Block Effort to Make It a Felony to Buy 16 and 17-Year-Olds for Sex." KCRA, 29 Apr. 2025, https://www.kcra.com/article/california-lawmakers-block-ab-379-sex-trafficking/64614165.
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