The California Legislature is having brain tumors for breakfast again.
Last Friday, Governor Gavin Newsom signed big, bad AB379 into law, affirming legislators’ priority to “fight trafficking”—a misnomer that actually means “arrest sex workers,” which under the new administration also means “deport immigrants.”
AB379, an ambitious piece of legislation, introduces a swarm of new and harmful statutes.
For example, it creates a new offence—to “loiter in any public place with the intent to purchase commercial sex.” This is almost certainly a violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, which protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures.
One of the bill’s proponents, Rep. Jesse Arreguin (D-Berkeley), admits it’s created a deportable crime, but says that fighting traffic