Savannah Hulsey Pointer, FISM News
[elfsight_social_share_buttons id=”1″]
California is set to enact a number of progressive laws that many believe will bring harm to state residents. Governor Gavin Newson signed about 1,000 bills into law in 2022, many of which will be enacted early in 2023.
Included in the laws are the legalization of jaywalking and prostitution-based loitering, as well as laws that will make it harder for law enforcement officers to identify those who are the victims of human trafficking and limit the use of rape kits.
Other new laws include preventing doctors from sharing medical records of youth who travel to the state for “gender-affirming care” with other states that prohibit such procedures, a ban on the production and sale of new fur clothing products, and the removal of any requirements that new police officers by citizens or legal residents of the United States.
The regulations, which will be implemented in early 2023, will hurt citizens, according to some state officials who spoke to The Daily Mail. Senate Bill 357, which would remove the existing rules that forbid loitering in the state with the intention of engaging in prostitution, will make prostitution easier in California. The legislation was written by Democratic Senator Scott Wiener to prevent the criminalization of prostitutes.
The lawmaker asserted that the current law targets the LGBT and black communities “for simply existing and looking like a ‘sex worker’ to law enforcement.”
By detaining “people for discriminatory reasons, such as wearing revealing clothing while walking in an area where sex work has occurred before,” he claimed that law enforcement abuses its authority.
People who are currently serving time in jail for crimes linked to loitering may be able to have their sentence overturned. The bill’s opponents had issued a warning that the new law would make it more difficult for law enforcement to identify human trafficking victims.
In the meantime, Governor Newsom backed the legislation and insisted that it does not legalize prostitution.
“To be clear, this bill does not legalize prostitution,” Newsom previously said. “It simply revokes provisions of the law that have led to disproportionate harassment of women and transgender adults. Black and Latino women are particularly affected.”
Assembly Bill 2147, introduced by Assemblyman Phil Ting (D), struck down the present rule that prohibits jaywalking in California, which several Democrats say targets persons of color. According to the new regulation, an officer cannot stop a pedestrian who is crossing the street illegally unless they are in immediate danger of death because they are moving into oncoming traffic.
Ting said that the present legislation discriminates against people of color and highlighted a study that revealed that black Californians were more likely than the general population to receive a jaywalking citation.
“People who need to walk in their neighborhoods should not be penalized for decades of infrastructure neglect and auto-first street design that fails to consider the needs of users who aren’t in cars,” the analysis reads.
Asserting that “California has the greatest total number of pedestrian fatalities in the nation,” Newsom previously vetoed a similar bill. The new bill, according to law enforcement officials, will only lead to more fatalities.
Officers will soon not be permitted to use a victim’s DNA to link them to past crimes under a new law protecting rape victims. Sen. Wiener’s Senate Bill 1228 was reportedly designed to assure rape victims could use kits without fear of punishment.
In a San Francisco case, a rape victim’s DNA was used by the police to link her to another crime, according to Wiener.
“It’s already hard enough for sexual assault survivors to make the decision to come forward, report a crime, and undergo an invasive rape kit exam at the hospital,” Weiner wrote in a statement. “The last thing we need is to send a message to survivors that if they come forward, their DNA sample may be used against them in the future. We need to be clear and unequivocal that we support survivors and that providing a rape kit DNA sample will be a safe and respectful process.”
HIGH IN GOVERNMENT REGULATION, LOW IN CHARITY
A recent report by The Epoch Times, despite being one of the most affluent states in the union, California is also one of the least charitable states. According to the WalletHub World Giving Index, California is one of the least charitable of the 50 states, ranking close to the bottom.
In this year’s rankings of the 50 states, California comes in at number 42. It continues the pattern of border states performing poorly, such as Arizona (50th) and New Mexico (48th). While a few border states were towards the bottom of the list, the top three most generous states are spread across the nation. The top three were Utah, Minnesota, and Maryland.