Assembly Standing Committee on Judiciary

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Assembly Judiciary Committee. The rules for witness testimony are that each side will be allowed two main witnesses. Each witness will have approximately two minutes to testify in support of or opposition to the Bill. Additional witnesses state their names, organization, if any, and their position. As you proceed with witnesses and public comment, I want to make sure everyone understands the Committee has rules to ensure we maintain order to run a fair and efficient hearing.

I hope I don't have to go over those rules in more detail later, but if I do, I will. And so let's go ahead and begin with item seven. Assembly Aguiar Curry. And yes, we'll be beginning as a Subcommitee until we have quorum. Thank you.

Good morning, Mister Chair and Members. I am grateful to the Committee staff for their work on this Bill, and I am happy to accept the Committee's amendments today. AB 2587 strengthens protections for survivors of sexual assault and ensures their ability to fully access the justice system. Members, an act of sexual assault is committed every 68 seconds. And I want to stress sexual violence does not just affect women, it happens to people of every gender, identity, age, and sexual orientation.

The toxic culture of sexual assault spans across all sectors, employment, all sectors of employment in society, and can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere. Unfortunately, and far too often, the trauma from sexual assault is compounded by a culture of cover-ups. AB 2587 will clarify that a perpetrator of a sexual assault and the entity who covered up or willfully ignored the assault are held accountable for the harm inflicted on survivors.

AB 2587 also allows a limited time for survivors to pursue overdue recourse for a trauma they endured, because, as we all know, it can take years to fully realize the impacts of an assault or to gain the confidence to come forward with the allegations. And as we found with AB 2777 survivors need sufficient time to ready themselves and retain counsel to pursue their rights. By exposing these predators, we can prevent them from re offending.

And that means our communities are safer, our families and our neighbors are safer, and the public at large is safer. So before I introduce my witnesses, I want to acknowledge that we have been slower than we had preferred to engage with the opponents on this specific specifics of this Bill. These issues and legal definitions are very complex, but I promise for the record that we will engage with the opposition in much more depth while also tightening the language in the Bill moving forward to address concerns.

With me today to testify and support is Samantha Maloney, a survivor advocate representing The Punk Rock Therapist and Doctor Caroline Heldman, a survivor and advocate representing Stanwood Survivors. I also have Michael Finnegan, attorney and advocate with the Victims Policy Institute to answer any technical questions.

Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Samantha Maloney. In support of this Bill, I am a classically trained percussionist who studied music at New York City's premier music and arts high school, a school you may have heard of, referred to as FAME. I worked in the music industry for over 30 years. I was a drummer with Hole, Motley Crue, Billy Ray Cyrus, and on Hans Zimmer's score of Black Hawk Down.

After 20 years, I moved to the business side of the music industry as a Vice President at Warner Brothers Records. Women soon began coming to me with their stories of the sexual predators working for the record label. One artist told me of an attempted rape. I thought the best way to protect her was to report it to my bosses. I did. They dropped the female artist and kept the male predator. Then it was my turn.

In 2017, a song I co-produced was up for a Grammy, and it was the highest earner for the label. At the Grammys, one of the top three most powerful CEOs in the industry congratulated me. But after some small talk, he sexually propositioned me for a three-way with him and his escort. My stomach sank. After I shared what happened with my boss, I was let go. It is now 2024 and I have not been able to find work with any record label.

But I did find my way here on behalf of survivors of sexual assault, on their behalf, I would like to leave you with these facts. A well cited study found that a majority of rapists go undetected despite being repeat offenders. These repeat rapists averaged 5.8 rapes each. Other criminal justice statistics highlight that out of every 1000 sexual assaults, 975 perpetrators will walk free and only 310 of every 1000 sexual assaults are reported to the police.

Clearly, the criminal justice system needs the civil justice system to help identify the perpetrator, hold them and those responsible accountable, and most importantly, prevent this repeated, heinous harm. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you.

Good morning. I'm Doctor Caroline Heldman with Stand with Survivors, and I strongly support this Bill. Bill, Stand with Survivors has spent years supporting hundreds of survivors of sexual violence. I am also a survivor. As a college student, I was raped by a fellow student in his car, miles away from my dorm.

We both worked at the student newspaper, and when I confided in our editor, my boss, someone I thought was a friend, she dismissed me, calling it a he said, she said, even after my attacker admitted his guilt in an email, I was ostracized and forced out of the paper, I learned the harsh lesson that speaking out about my assault only led to more suffering. So I never went to the police.

Today, we recognize that countless survivors have been silenced by the toxic culture of victim blaming and stigma. Our criminal justice system needs the civil justice system to help prevent sexual violence. When only 1% of rapists will ever spend a single day behind bars. Statistics show us that 120 rapists can be responsible for 1,225 separate acts of interpersonal violence, including rape, battery, and child physical and sexual abuse.

This Bill clarifies that when the Legislature passed prior legislation, both the perpetrator and the entity responsible for the sexual violence are to be held accountable for their actions. We must empower survivors to come forward and seek justice without fear of retaliation or shame. Thank you for hearing my story today and for recognizing the urgent need for this clarity in the law.

Thank you. Is there anyone else here in support of AB 2587?

Good morning. Nancy Peverini, on behalf of the Consumer Attorneys in California in support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Lily Bernard. I'm a visual artist, actor, mother of six, and survivor of Bill Cosby's drugging and raping. I support this Bill.

Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Susan Garcia Spite Mckinney. I'm an organic certified farmer, and I strongly support this Bill.

Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Shira Scott Ashraf. I'm an actress and a writer and I strongly support this Bill.

Thank you.

My name is Helen Taylor. I'm with the Anti Trafficking Organization Exodus Cry. And I strongly support this Bill.

Thank you.

Olivia Burnett with Exodus Cry. Strongly support this Bill.

Thank you.

Madison McQueen with Exodus Cry. And I strongly support this Bill.

Thank you. Is there anyone here in opposition to AB 2587? Can we make room at the presentation table? Just one chair, it seems. Yeah. Thank you.

Good morning, Mister Chair and Members. Jamie Huff, on behalf of the Civil Justice Association of California, respectfully opposing the Bill. While CJAC and our members have the utmost respect, and I want to stress utmost respect for those who have suffered the acts described in this Bill, our focus and our opposition is really centered on the broad drafting of the Bill and the would be defendant's inability to actually defend against these revived cases where evidence has disappeared.

We have significant concerns about disregarding a key element of the civil justice system which is meant to protect the accuracy and the reliability of decisions and safeguard due process. Statutes of limitation are not based on the heinousness of a defendant's alleged conduct or the seriousness of a plaintiff's injury. They're based on the need for judicial system to properly decide cases on accurate evidence. And not that I'm arguing for this or for their inclusion, but this Bill does not apply to public entities.

So state universities are not those victims who are subject to things on state departments. Anything having to do with public entities would not be included in this Bill. California has some of the broadest statute of limitations in the country for these types of cases already, and it seems like every few years we're opening another window for expired claims to come in. We did it in 2022. We did it in 2019. And doing this over and over is tantamount to.

To really stopping statutes of limitations on these cases, which we don't think is in the best interest of justice. We have nothing but respect for the author. We reached out early and provided amendments that we thought would narrow the Bill to get to the perpetrators because we are not advocating that perpetrators should not be covered under these windows whatsoever. But obviously, we've not come to an agreement yet. However, have great respect for the author and her staff and hope to continue those conversations moving forward.

But in the current form, it's just simply too broad. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else here in opposition to AB 2587? Okay, we'll bring it back to the dais. We're still short one for quorum, but we're. If anyone has any questions or comments. Assemblymember Pacheco then we'll go to the Vice Chair.

To the author, I commend you for bringing this Bill forward and to the witnesses testifying in support. Thank you for sharing your stories. I know it's really tough sharing your stories, but thank you so much for being here and for sharing your story. And I know the author has committed to working with the opposition. And so I will be an aye vote today, and I'm looking forward to the outcome, the final version, when it gets to the floor. So thank you so much.

Madam Vice Chair.

Thank you, Chair. I, too, share your stories and certainly have utmost respect for you bringing them out publicly and for the author. Could you give us a little bit more delineation and definition of what these amendments would be?

So do you want to do that.

Morning. Mike Finnegan with the Victim Policy Institute. The amendments would clarify that the Bill applies to perpetrators and to institutions who are legally responsible, while still keeping the cover up language as well, so that you could have for an institution either legally responsible or cover up. And it goes back to and mirrors the language that was there in the last Bill in 2777. And that clarifies that piece of it.

Okay, next question. Why would you exclude or why would you include only private company employees? Why not public employees as well?

The reason is that AB 2587 is building off of AB 277 from wics of last year, and that Bill did not include the public sector. So we are just keeping this right to that previous Bill. And also there are some robust protections that are for public entities and fewer protections for others.

Really? That similar protections are, I guess, similar law that applies only to public sector environments, working environments.

This particular Bill, it was for two on base upon 277, and she, in that particular Bill was not including public sector.

And then. Next question, though. Last question. So by narrowing it, but you're extending the statute of limitations two more years. Why is that necessary?

I've worked with survivors for over 20 years, and survivors need time. When the law opens up, they need time to process that to come forward. Most of them have never told any of their loved ones, their partners, wife, husband. And to make that decision takes time. And then it also takes time for them to contact an attorney and then takes time to process whether or not they do want to make that monumental decision to bring a case, expose that perpetrator, and move forward.

And so the experience has been over the last 20 years, that one year is too short of a time period. And New Jersey in 2019, they also passed adult window. That was two years.

Sorry, one more question. Is there a requirement in law that the victim should have or needs to have filed a police report? Is that required anywhere in the process?

There is not, no. But in the civil system, once they come into the system, all the burden is on the survivor, the victim. So if there's a case that is older and the survivor doesn't have any evidence to prove their case, that case gets thrown out. So that in our civil system, it's survivors that have the burden to prove their case. If they can't prove their case, those cases get thrown out.

Okay. All right. Thank you very much.

Madam Secretary, if you can please establish quorum.

[Roll Call]

We have established quorum. Do we have a motion? We have a motion and a second. Assemblymember Reyes.

Thank you. These are always very difficult because we absolutely want to protect the victim. And you're right, the victims go through so many different periods. There have been other cases where we do open it for a period of time. I think two years is a very reasonable period of time. There's a beginning there's an end, and I'm glad you brought it for the victim's sake.

And when the notice goes out about being able to pursue it, many of them at that point then finally find the courage to do what they feel that they should have done many years ago and felt that they had given up all of their rights. So thank you for bringing it today.

I also want to thank you as Madam majority leader, and I agree with some of the sentiment. We have statute limitations for a reason. Memories fade, and for someone to defend themselves gets a little bit harder the more time that pass. That being said, at the same time, I think there are exceptions to that, especially in the civil realm. We're seeing more and more about how establishments have been part of covering up a lot of these cases, especially in the entertainment industry.

That's the most glaring example that we see. And so I think, as is mentioned, this is a reasonable extension, and it also encapsulates actors that certainly played a role and at least gives an opportunity, as the attorney suggested, as your witness suggested. There's still a burden of proof. The case still has to be proven. But I still believe that these survivors deserve their day in court. And I think ultimately that's what this is about.

And for that reason, I have an aye recommendation and would you like to close?

Thank you, Mister Chair and Members. As Vice Chair of the Women's Caucus, it's very important to me that we continue advocating for sexual assault survivors. And as I hear the stories of my witnesses and other survivors, my heart breaks. I can't imagine what they've all been through. AB 2587 does not change any legal standard or burden of proof with regard to any claim brought before a judge or court. Survivors must still prove all the elements of their claims, regardless of when the sexual assault occurred.

We will continue to work with the opposition to make sure this Bill captures the intent as we move forward. And I appreciate your conversation today. I look forward to working with you and I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you. Take roll call, please. On AB 2587.

Motion is due pass as amended to appropriations. [Roll Call]

Okay, so we'll place that Bill on call until we have more folks.

Thank you.

Thank you. All right, next up we have item six, AB 2460, Assembly Member. Ta.

Good morning. Thank you, Chair and Members of the Committee. I would like to thank the Committee staff for working with my office on this bill to draft amendment to ensure that it is seemly cleanup bill to my AB 1458 passed by this Committee last year and signed by the Governor and I accept the Committee amendment as proposed in the analysis. AB 2460 clarify two minor issues.

First, it addressed an issue request by the Department of Real Estate that we agree with the Governor to clean up this year. Second, the bill clarified association membership may reconvene the reduced quorum meeting and not solid board. This is critical as I have learned that several SOA board have refused to recognize a new lower quorum threshold of fear of being unseated when the vote are tallied. We need to ensure that the integrity of the voting process is in the hand of the association membership to guarantee that a cash flow are counted. And I have Louis Brown with the Committee Association Institute here to testify in support. And I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, Members of the Committee. Louis Brown here today on behalf of the Community Association's Institute, California Legislative Action Committee. I want to express the appreciation of the Committee staff in working with us on this bill and also the the governor's office in working with us last year and then to provide the language from the Department of Real Estate that you'll find in AB 2460.

It also provides one more clarification just to provide the opportunity for Members of association to adjourn a meeting and call for another meeting where the reduced quorum can be enacted. Technical clarifications provided to make sure that last year's bill works and we would ask for an aye vote and here for any questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else here in support of AB 2460? Is anyone here in opposition to AB 2460?

Good morning. I'm Marjorie Murray, Center for California Homeowner Association Law. We are a nonprofit advocating for homeowners who live in associations. The Committee might well ask, why is it even considering the issue of homeowner association elections in a Judiciary Committee? That's because associations are not social clubs. They are actually quasi governmental entities that have taxing authority. They have extraordinary power, legal authority over the property and behavior of people who live in associations. So we actually had an have an opposed if amended, position on this bill.

We would like to see some changes because it deals with the quorum issue, and quorum, of course, deals with the fact that there needs to be at least a minimum number, this is in the corporations code, minimum number of homeowners participating in the electoral process because that is their sole avenue for creating restraints on the power of the boards.

So one of the improvements or amendments we would like to see in this bill, which we have offered to the author, is that there be much better notice given to homeowners in the form of operating rules, which are part of the governing documents. So we would like to see the issue of reduced quorum, how it's going to be done, where it's going to be done, when it's going to be done, put in the election operating rules which create the framework for the elections.

So right now, notice is through general notice, which is posting it on a remote bulletin board somewhere. We want to see that change to individual notice. My colleague, Tom Sur will describe some of the other important amendments that we would like to see in this bill.

Thank you.

My name is Tom Sur, and I'm a member of the center's legislative committee. Last year, we opposed the underlying legislation, AB 1468, but now that it is law and this bill before you seeks to clarify the language of 1468. We are seeking to further improve the underlying law and process by offering specific amendments, which we've got written up in detail, to six subsections of the Davis Sterling Act with three purposes.

The first, Ms. Murray has already explained, which is expanding notice to HOA members. That should help improve the voter participation. Secondly, to provide detailed procedures for safeguarding the integrity of the voting process by mandating that the inspector of elections first count the number of ballots submitted to determine if a quorum has been met.

And if a quorum has not been met, the inspector is to safeguard the submitted ballots unopened and to make sure that the ballots are not opened and tallied until a quorum has been met. This will ensure that partial results are not revealed until all balloting has been concluded. And thirdly, clarifying that the reconvene meeting, where there's an extended period to vote, that that may occur twice, but only twice. The bill in its current form does not indicate whether that process may be repeated at all or without any limitations.

So we think that this clarification is very important. So finally, we do believe that these amendments provide needed guidance in implementing the new procedure, and it will also reduce the chance of legal challenges being brought due to lack of clarity and due process protections. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Is there anyone else here in opposition to AB 2460? All right, we'll bring it back to the Committee. Yes, Assembly Member Reyes.

I do remember when the initial bill was introduced and you had some valid concerns. Today's bill, as I understand it, is very technical, very, it's just correcting some of the terms.

And I think that probably what you are describing, if it's not accepted by the author, and I don't see that he would, would be to introduce your own legislation, because the initial part of this, the most important part of the law, has already passed, and the author, knowing that there were some issues with the technicality, has brought it back to us so that we can vote to work with him to get the terms clarified.

But I do appreciate your comments, and I know you're trying to protect your members. The more participation we get, the better it is. But my colleague's bill is very well taken, and with that, I would move the bill.

A motion and a second? Assembly Member Essayli.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It sounds to me your objections are with the bill as passed last year, which really fundamentally changed the rules, right?

Well, if I may. No, we accept the fact that the bill last year passed and that this procedure is going to happen with a reduced quorum.

I see. I understand you're trying to improve.

So all we're doing is trying to protect the process more, improve it.

I understand. I actually agree with you. I don't think anything you've said is unreasonable. I mean, I think providing notice. I don't think you should be perpetually reconvening meetings just to get a quorum. There's a lot of shenanigans that happen at HOAs. So I support my colleague's bill, but I encourage my colleague to maybe engage and see if we can make the process better.

And I like the idea of not opening the ballots until you have a quorum, because that will invite board members to play games with whether to reconvene or not or call for a new election. So there's a lot of shenanigans that happen at boards. So I support the bill as is. But I would encourage you to continue dialogue with the author, and there's no reason why this bill can't be used as a vehicle to make our system better. This Legislature is no stranger to putting multiple issues and concerns in a single bill. So with that, I support the bill today. Thank you.

Thank you. Yes, and thank you, Assembly Member, for it. This is like your area of expertise now as you bring some cleanup legislation here. I appreciate it. And I think that since, as mentioned, the bill last year just went into effect, it may take a couple years to see if the fears are realized or if it's working as intended.

And there'll be plenty of opportunity to do more legislation in this arena. But in the meantime, yes, please continue to have dialogue. And I do appreciate the loyal opposition for continuing to voice their concerns. Would you like to close?

Yeah. I really appreciate all the comments about this bill, and I really appreciate that you continue to raise your concerns at my office. We open to have any dialogue, to continue to address any concerns that you have, and I respectfully ask for your aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Madam Secretary, would you take roll call on AB 2460?

Motion is do pass as amended. [Roll Call]

All right, that bill is out. Thank you. All right, up next, Senator Alanis, AB 3080, file item 16. Go ahead.

I will try my best. Thank you, Mr. Chair and Members. I'll be accepting the Committee amendments today, which I believe provides needed clarity and privacy assurances, making this bill even better. I also want to thank Committee staff for their work on this very important issue. After this bill was passed out on Privacy Committee earlier this month, I directed my team to immediately reach out to the opposition, specifically the Free Speech Coalition, to arrange a conversation to discuss their concerns as well as mine.

The conversation was honest and frank, and I believe the conversation was productive. And while we may not have solved all the problems in this equation now, it was only the first steps of many I hope to undergo in this process. It is 100% of my goal to continue those discussions, to seek common ground, because I believe protecting our kids is worth it. The bill before you today, with the amendments that I am accepting, further solidifies that this bill is a measured approach.

AB 3080 simply aims to protect minors from harmful online content, while also respecting adults' rights to access the content. Once again, with me to testify and support, I have Iain Corby, the executive director for the Age Verification Providers Association. And to my right, I have Joseph Comb, policy director for the Family Policy Alliance.

Thank you.

Well, good morning, Chair Kalra and Members of the Committee. My name is Joseph Comb. I'm an attorney and the director of public policy at Family Policy Alliance. We're a nonprofit organization based in Colorado Springs that focuses on advancing family values through legislation across the nation, and we are really proud to support AB 3080. This is a bill that is desperately needed to help protect children from the unlimited access they currently have to age inappropriate pornographic material online.

Right now, the average age of first exposure to pornography is between seven and 13. And by the age of 17, about 75% of children have been exposed to pornography. And we know now that pornography does harm children. Over 88% of pornographic videos depict sexual violence, while over 48% of those same videos include some kind of verbal abuse. Research also shows that a plurality of male and female children believes the lie that pornography is an accurate portrayal of sex.

And what this means is that they are learning about sexuality from a perspective that portrays sex as physical abuse. And worst of all, studies reveal that pornography has the same effect on, and is as harmful to the brain as hard drugs or opioids. And most children first access all this pornography unintentionally. But AB 3080 offers all of you the chance to make a dramatically positive difference in this crisis, and consequently in the lives of our children and families.

And to do so in a constitutionally sound way. The age verification requirements AB 3080 institutes would prevent the pervasive, unintentional exposure I just described, and consequently all the damage that that exposure causes. It would also reinstitute the ability of California parents to be the primary guardians of their children's innocence. And the way it does this is also robustly constitutional. Because of the dangers I have described, states have a compelling interest in protecting children by enacting age verification requirements.

Such requirements are also not a substantial burden on adults and their First Amendment rights to access pornography. And recently, this has all been affirmed by courts, particularly the Fifth Circuit Court in Texas. So to conclude, I just ask that we strongly support this bill, and thank you, and I'll stand by for questions.

Thank you.

Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Chair. My name's Iain Corby I'm the executive director of the Age Verification Providers Association. We represent 30 suppliers of privacy preserving age verification, or AV technology. And our mission is to make the Internet age aware. That's age aware, not identity aware. Online age verification can be done, and indeed is already being done, at scale, anonymously, effectively, inclusively, conveniently, and cheaply.

If American technology can put a man on the moon, then it's perfectly possible for internet users to prove their age without disclosing their identity. And that's the essence of age verification, proving your age to a digital service without disclosing who you are. Now, the basic way we accomplish that is by using independent third parties to check a user's age, and then those third parties simply tell the digital service yes or no whether the user is over 18.

AB providers can and should be independently audited against approved international standards such as IEEE 2089.1. And they will check that the results are not only accurate, but also that any data used in the process is processed securely and not retained after the check is completed, as the bill now explicitly requires, with heavy penalties for retaining personal data illegally. There are an ever growing number of ways to prove your age. We can just look at your ID, showing it to your phone locally.

We can estimate your age from your face. We can look at authoritative databases like your bank or your cell phone network. And recently, the National Institute of Standards and Technology has been testing facial age estimation and has demonstrated extraordinarily positive results. These checks take just a few seconds, and our industry is cooperating to implement interoperable checks which are reusable across multiple services with no further action required by the user.

And these are technically anonymized using cryptography, which is now required by the latest amendment which has been made to the bill. This innovation and general competition is also driving down the cost dramatically to being no more than perhaps 12 cents per check. Thank you very much for this opportunity.

Thank you. Is there anyone else here in support of AB 3080?

My name is Helen Taylor with the anti trafficking organization Exodus Cry. In strong support of this bill.

Thank you.

Olivia Burnett, with anti trafficking organization Exodus Cry and a mother, in strong support of this bill.

Thank you.

Madison McQueen, also with Exodus Cry and a mother. I strongly support this bill.

Thank you.

Jose Lupe Chavez, Central Valley resident. I firmly support this bill.

Thank you.

Pastor Brandon Campbell, Northern California director for Baptist for Biblical Values in support.

Thank you.

Christine Campbell, concerned parent in strong support.

Thank you.

Greg Burt, vice president of the California Family Council, in support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Tina Veer, mother, strongly support.

Thank you. Is anyone here in opposition to AB 3080?

Thank you, Chairman Kalra, Members of the Committee. My name is Greg Gonzalez and I'm legislative counsel for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, also known as FIRE. FIRE is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting the free speech rights for all Americans. I'm here to express FIRE's concern about the age verification provision in AB 3080. Based on well established Supreme Court precedent, this bill will violate the First Amendment and will not survive judicial review.

AB 3080 would require every Californian, including every adult, to verify their age and consequently their identity before they can access adult content online. This content includes speech that is fully protected by the First Amendment. When they're challenged in court, content-based restrictions on speech like in this bill are subject to strict scrutiny. Under this standard, it is not enough to show the law would address the Legislature's goal.

You must be able to prove that there's no other way to achieve the goal without putting an even greater burden on First Amendment rights. The Supreme Court has already considered whether age verification provisions like those in this bill can survive strict scrutiny. In Ashcroft V ACLU, the Supreme Court reviewed the Child Online Protection Act, a law that similarly required age verification of users to access adult content online.

After lower courts blocked the legislation, the Supreme Court upheld the injunction on grounds that the government was unlikely to be able to show COPPA could pass constitutional muster. Specifically, the court found it unlikely that age verification is, quote, the least restricted means among available effective alternatives, end quote. To meet the Congress's goal of preventing minors from accessing this content, the court noted an available alternative. The government could promote the use of internet filtering technology by parents.

The court said that this will allow, quote, adults without children to gain access to speech that they have a right to seek without having to identify themselves or provide their credit card information, end quote. COPPA was ultimately struck down on these grounds. FIRE urges you to stand up for free speech and reject this bill. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Good morning. My name is Allison Bowden. I am resident of District 12 and the Executive Director of the Free Speech Coalition. We represent the websites impacted by AB 3080. I deeply appreciate Member Alanis's commitment to protecting kids and his willingness to engage in productive conversations about his bill, which I very much look forward to continuing.

At this time, FSC remains in respectful opposition to the bill due to its remaining constitutional defects and because it's completely impractical for Californians to verify their age multiple times on individual websites rather than doing it once on their device. In the 16 months since bills like this started going into effect in other states, we've learned a lot about how they work in practice.

And one of the very important things that we've learned is that online age verification is so complicated and invasive that less than 1% of users actually complete this process. What they do, according to our data, is hit the back button and find a site that doesn't comply with the law. So traffic to legitimate sites that implemented age verification has dropped substantially.

We've looked at where it's going and found that since the Texas law took effect in September, for example, traffic to a very large overseas site that openly defies all U.S. law grew 55%. Traffic to a site that hosts "leaked" videos without verifying the age or identity of the people depicted in them grew 1,500 percent. We need to protect children online, but we do not do that by sending adults to dangerous websites with illegal content. The only solution that protects free speech and Californians' privacy is at the device level, and I respectfully ask the Committee to vote no today. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else here in opposition to AB 3080?

Hello. My name is Jiz Lee, and I'm an adult film performer and producer, and I'm also. I have nieces and nephews, and I don't want them watching porn. We've enacted, I worked for a studio, and we've enacted some of the AB services. Sorry it's so nerve wracking to be up here, and we've seen that it's been detrimental. It's customer deterrent. And if it was enacted in California, where a lot of our subscribers are based, it would hurt our business. So I want to keep my job. I love it. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Five Star. I'm a small business owner, and I'm a resident of District 17, and I oppose this Bill because it will destroy my business.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Amanda Wallace. I am a digital media brand manager. My clients are small businesses and individual creators, and I oppose this Bill.

Thank you. All right, we'll bring this back to the Committee. Any questions, comments, or motions? Assemblymember Connolly.

Thank you, Chair. Good morning, everyone. Appreciate the author's work. Needless to say, agree with the goal of protecting our youth. I do have some questions along the lines of some of the issues we've heard. So I'll just ask point blank, does the creation of a new barrier put pressure on and limit speech?

I would say, Assemblymember, the answer is no. And that's been the Committee's analysis. I want to state, first of all, reflects that. But the Committee's analysis is based on court precedent. And the reality is this, that online age verification, as described and required by this law for Internet pornography is not substantially different or more burdensome than in person age verification for print pornography.

So what that means is if you were going to a bookstore to buy a piece of pornography that required you to verify your age as being of majority, what you're doing online under this Bill to view pornography is the same thing and is no less burdensome and is therefore not a burden on adults' First Amendment right to access this material.

Is this, in effect, a step toward requiring ID to interact on the Internet at all?

I'm sorry, can you say that again?

Is this basically a step toward requiring ID to interact on the Internet at all?

I don't think so, but I think I defer to Iain as a technical expert for this one.

Yes. Obviously, we are the age verification providers, not identity providers. There is an entire separate industry of identity providers. We were created in 2017 when the UK government sought to first bring in this sort of requirement, and it was at the request of the adult sites themselves, who did not want to know the identity of their users because they did recognize that might put users off from using their services so effectively. This third sector was created to provide that anonymity.

I mean, that goes to my next question. And we heard kind of some reaction on that ground. I mean, it seems. But, you know, address this, if you would. Wouldn't the Bill really affect a person's freedom to be anonymous?

I believe with the benefits of modern technology and cryptography and what we call privacy enhancing technologies, where you can use a zero knowledge proof to prove a fact about yourself to a third party without them actually knowing who you are, that the technology is there today to allow you to do that perfectly safely.

And we actually announced just about a month ago that we're moving as an industry to a tokenised solution to address very similar concerns from European regulators, such as those in France and Spain, to build in, technically that anonymity.

Yeah, I'm struggling with that through the chair. I don't know if. Did you have a response, if that's ok?

Yeah, please.

If you don't mind. At this moment, none of those technologies are commercialized. There are proofs of concepts, there are working toys that people can check out, code and try it out, but that's not a reality at this moment. And I would say that the idea that flashing your ID at the store is the same as doing it online is really belied by the fact that a reporter recently found that it takes 52 separate steps to verify your ID on the Internet.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly protected anonymous speech. The history is riddled with many examples of governments trying to censor speech. And time and time again, the Supreme Court has rebuffed that if every time the government was able to censor speech that they deemed harmful or not valuable, tons of ideas and important things would have been suppressed throughout history.

I must object to that because censorship is not an issue in this Bill.

Yeah, this is not a debate, but anyway, I want to kick it over to our privacy chair. I know privacy also, a lot of amendments were taken and a lot of work was done coming through that Committee, and we're consulting with their staff as well, including on the new amendment that was accepted by the author, Senator Bauer-Kahan.

Thank you. Yeah, I want to express my gratitude to the author since his introduction of this Bill. You know, the privacy Committee did hear this first. We had a really robust conversation, and I appreciate you being there, because from a privacy perspective, these age verification processes are incredibly concerning. It's something the privacy Committee talks about a lot. And Europe, which, as most people are well aware, has much stronger privacy laws than anywhere in this country, is really leading the charge on moving forward with this technology.

And that's, I think, part of what we came out in our hearing and is reflected in these amendments, but has been, I think, was obviously the focus of that conversation today. I wanted to follow up on something that was said that I thought was really interesting, that perhaps somebody knows about, and maybe you, the difference between the technology used in Texas versus the technology used through these age verification.

You're not quite a tokenization yet, but you still have much more anonymized systems at play in the UK, if I'm correct, than we do in, say, Texas. No, wait.

I think it's a global business, and we take the same approach globally. So the same providers in will be supplying Texas as Europe. What we do have, particularly in France, are five providers now who are supplying these anonymized, double anonymous solutions at the request of the kennel.

So, even so, the reason I was asking that question was the numbers that we heard around what happened in Texas. I was curious how those relate to the kind of technology we're requiring in this Bill. And so, yeah, it's the same. Okay, that's helpful, because I do think, you know, I think the author has come very far since the introduction of this Bill in the narrowly tailored way he is doing this, defining the content that it has applied to, et cetera, which I really appreciate.

And I know he is in continued conversations with the opposition, which I also am really grateful for. And he has shown a true commitment to working this Bill to make sure that it is as narrowly tailored as possible while protecting children, which I know is his ultimate goal. And one I, as a mom, absolutely share.

You know, it came up in our privacy hearing, happened to be a couple days after the New York Times did an article on the prevalence of choking in, as reported by college aged women in sexual encounters. And much of the research on that has shown that as a result of young people having access to violent pornography at such a young age and just getting used to that.

And so, obviously, we have a real problem with the way this pornography is getting into the hands of our youth. And I know the industry absolutely also shares the desire for youth to not be their audience. And so I just am. I'm gonna support this Bill and ask the author to continue working with the opposition so we can get to a place where we all, everybody sitting around this table agrees that children should not be accessing this material.

But we don't want people of legal age to be going and seeing more dangerous pornography, seeing child pornography. Because when people are getting access to child pornography, we know it makes our kids less safe. And so if we're putting them on the dark web, that's obviously not in the benefit of our children. But I actually trust the author that he can get to a place where we are doing all those things.

And technology is so close that I actually think that, you know, we will get there and our kids will be safer and hopefully we can go back to the good old days when this was not in the hands of our kids and it was so hard to get, and the innocence lasted a lot longer. Thank you.

Thank you. Assemblymember Essayli.

Speaking about this technology, age verification technology, how does it specifically work and how do you assure people their anonymity.

So it works, there are all kinds of different methods. And so one of the main things is to give consumers a choice as to who they trust to do their age check with and how they prefer to do it.

So you could have on your device an estimation algorithm to estimate your age to see if you look over 18, you could show the device your identity and it can check on the device without actually even sharing the image of your ID remotely to the server or the cloud or anything. And then you just take a selfie to prove that it is you who is the owner of that credential, who's proving your age.

Or you could ask your bank, you could just log into your bank using open banking solutions and ask the bank to tell the age verification provider what your date of birth is with your consent, obviously. So there are multiple ways of doing it.

So I could show it a picture. How does it know if it's a picture, if it's a real person?

Well, obviously we have liveness technology to make sure that you're not sharing a photograph or something

And that information never leaves the location of that phone?

Yeah, it is possible. Today most of that work has been done remotely on servers, but the latest technology has shrunk that down. So it can be done on device precisely to address some of these concerns that people don't want to be sharing their image remotely on the Internet.

Is that end to end encryption?

It doesn't need to be encrypted because it's all still happening on the device.

Well you just said it's being shared.

If it was being shared, then it's clearly encrypted in the original way of doing it. Yeah, absolutely.

Would the government have the ability to unencrypt that. I mean, there's no question that national security agency, all kinds of government agencies, you've got MI 5, MI 6, they tap into the backbone of the Internet. Can you assure us that they don't have access to.

I have no knowledge of how the security services here work, I'm afraid.

Okay. And if you received a subpoena from a government agency to provide information, would you comply with that?

Of course, yes.

Okay. So those are some concerns I have about it being truly anonymous. I agree. Children should not have access to this material. It is really destructive to their minds and their upbringing. But I do have concerns about First Amendment anonymity concerns.

Let me ask you, because you said the Supreme Court has ruled on the impact on free speech with age verification. This specific issue hasn't made it to the Supreme Court, but it has made it to the Fifth Circuit, which has upheld the Texas law. Is that not correct?

Correct. But I would say the Supreme Court has looked at age verification, and it wasn't Ashcroft or, sorry, Ashcroft v. ACLU.

And how did the Fifth Circuit square that with the Supreme Court precedent?

It actually. So in the Supreme Court precedent, it. It went through strict scrutiny, which I laid out, which was narrowly tailored for a compelling state interest, and there had been no alternatives ways to do it. In the Fifth Circuit, they went with a rational basis review, which is the lowest level of review, which the government can usually always overcome.

That in the dissent, they essentially, it was a scathing dissent, saying that they should have applied Ashcott, they should have went with strict scrutiny, and that under that standard, it would fail.

So you're saying the Fifth Circuit applied the wrong level of scrutiny. Has that. Is that being appealed to the Supreme Court? Did the Supreme Court accept cert?

As the plaintiff, I can tell you, yes, we have appealed to the Supreme Court because the Fifth Circuit blatantly ignored Supreme Court precedent. We filed our position for Cert. A few weeks ago. We've gotten the reply, and we've made our response. So we hope to hear before the end of the term whether they will take it up.

They haven't yet decided. Okay. And then lastly, you mentioned some of the alternatives. You know, I've heard, you know, this really intrigues me, this device based filtering, this idea that a phone could be coded as a minor phone or an adult phone. So I guess that would be at the point of purchase, or, like, how would that work? Because I do like this idea of kids like, hardware based filters on the phone.

Yeah. So when you set up your phone and everybody at this point mostly has either a phone run by Google or a phone run by Apple on the operating system. Maybe Microsoft, you have an account connected to that. Maybe it's your Google account, maybe it's your Apple ID. That account knows your age, you've already entered it. Or it can be entered by the parent. Potentially even go through a process when you're starting up that phone for the first time, to evaluate that at that moment.

But I think you are right to say that designating a phone as a child's phone is really valuable in a lot of ways. Not just about pornography, but think about all the harms that we've heard kids have faced on social media. If the Facebook app knew that a person was 14 years old, they could tailor that experience to a young person. But at this point, Apple and Google refused to make that functionality available.

Okay, I appreciate it. Thank you, Mister Chair. I will just say I have very mixed feelings about this. I feel very strongly that kids need to not have access to this. But I do also worry as a former prosecutor. I mean, I prosecute a lot of child porn cases. And those are not cases that derive from mainstream porn websites. They come from dark web, they come from peer to peer services. And there's really, really disturbing dark stuff up there, on there.

And now with VPN's and stuff, it's very easy for people to have access. I've conflicted views with that. I'm done. Mister Chair. Thank you, Assemblymember Reyes.

I really appreciate my colleagues questions, because I wanted to understand exactly how this was going to work. The question of anonymity, I think is extremely important. The question about constitutionality that brought up by my colleague. I think it is clear that we all want to protect the children. The more I hear, the more I know, the less I realize I know. And that's concerning for me. I appreciate that privacy has heard this and it was 10 to 1,10-1. So that gives me some comfort.

But what's that? I also hear, my colleague, about moving forward with the Bill now, but understanding that there's still more that needs to be done, whether it's with the opposition or just showing us exactly what the process is and how we are protecting the anonymity and still protecting the children. But I have no question. The questions have already been asked. I appreciate the responses.

Thank you, Madam Vice Chair.

This is an excellent discussion of the debates. I think there's probably total unanimity that we don't. Minors should not have access to pornography. I think this is an important step forward. The privacy Committee, of which I sit as well, has had similar debate and moved this Bill. I'm trying to understand if we all agree that there's a problem, especially with the dark web. I think I want to come back to that. But what would you do differently? I mean, to me, this is a step forward.

Technology exists, as this gentleman has indicated, the dark web is something that it would be equally important, just as my colleague just said, that that's a source of a lot of the pornographic content that's on the Internet. We all are using ID's verification to get a passport. TSA, I mean, anyone who travels, has supplied an electronic version of their identification. I guess I'm not bothered by limiting the access by minors. Do they have a right to free speech?

I don't know if minors have a right to do they. Does the constitution provide specifically minors? Has that been validated by the Supreme Court? So I would like to ask this direct question. What would you do? What is the solution in your mind? You're opposed to this. What is your solution? What is a better solution, number one? And number two, what is the solution for the entirety of the problem? The dark web, the illegal, the foreign sources. What would you do?

Thank you, Assemblymember Dixon, that's a really excellent question. You're right. Our issue is not with the idea of protecting kids. We oppose the idea that every website is trying to look at your ID as opposed to your device being able to tell website or an app, this is a minor. So if you're an adult website, reject this, this person, do not let them on here.

And that is what we feel is the most privacy preserving and also the most foolproof, because unfortunately, with AI, it is very possible and very cheap now to get a fake ID that can fool these systems. And so with your face on that fake ID, you can do all the liveness checks to make sure that it's not just a photo, but children can absolutely get fake IDs online now.

So we really feel like we have to give parents control and we have to make sure that the devices aren't letting them do things like go to the dark web.

The gentleman over here was shaking his head. Would you want to respond? If I may ask him.

Very briefly. There was a website called onlyfake.com which has now been taken down and was producing these AI based fake IDs. And two of our Members have published research demonstrating their system spotted those immediately. So AI can fight AI. So there's no fundamental flaw here from fake IDs.

Referring to my mention of just applying for a passport or TSA. All age groups have to do that. Parents provide that information to, you know, just to get the TSA or to the US Department of State for a passport. Is that data, you say it's purged when, after that action. Now, is that data commonly available? There's a photograph of a 10 year old child on the Department of State's website. Somehow that people can access through illicit means, perhaps?

I mean, is that, is that information out there that can be compared with the application of this child who's trying to prove his or her age?

I would just say that in this use case, we're not proving the age of children, we're only proving the age of adults. So there's no point in children going through an age verification process.

Okay. So we're not. Okay, well, that's an important point. Okay. All right. Also on the iPhone application is this Bill written in such a way that would, as technology advances and changes, that that would be incorporated as a means to determine age?

Ah, yes. As a result of the debate in the Privacy Committee, we constructed a very tight amendment which requires the use of privacy enhancing technology to prevent it being possible to de-anonymize that age verification process.

All right, thank you very much. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. And just, just today, the Supreme Court allow Texas to enforce age verification requirements reporting site. So they rejected, they upheld the appellate court decision and upheld Texas law. So I just want to put that out there because. That's right on the emergency stay. But that happened just today. Yeah. Yes. That's on the emergency stay. So it'll still be going forward on the. But not the emergency stay was not.

The appellate court did not uphold that, and the Supreme Court stood with their decision. That being said, I do want to show appreciation for the author, as was indicated by, Bauer-Kahan. A lot of works put into this. It's very difficult to kind of thread this constitutional needle, although I think everyone has this agreement as to what you're trying to do. And we're still in the house of origin.

A lot of work's already been done going now through Second Committee, so I imagine there'll still be a lot more conversation as there should be on this. Would you like to close?

Yes, Mister chair. Thank you. First off, I want to thank Allison for coming to my office, and she's great, and we will continue to work with her today and maybe even in the future for other bills as well. But colleagues, great decision or great discussions, obviously, it's a lot of what ifs right now.

We're getting into a world where we're not quite sure what's going to go on yet. But sitting on our hands is not the answer. We need to find some kind of ways to protect our youth. It was a lot different than when most of us were younger. Maybe getting a hold of a magazine or something like that. This is not the same thing. And our youth are seeing things they shouldn't see. And this is the learned behavior that they're now displaying as they're growing up.

And that we need to step up and do something about it. I hope that I've worked enough here in this office to prove to you that I will be working hard on this Bill, that I will make sure that the opposition is also heard as well. And this was some great conversations today. So thank you, guys, and I appreciate all of it. And I request an aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Secretary. Take roll on the vote for AB 3080, please.

Motion is due pass as amended. [Roll Call]

We have a motion and a second. Okay, we have a motion and a second. If we now please take roll on AB 3080. Nice catch.

Good job. [Roll Call].

[Roll Call]

I and I just want to let the Committee know we've been here for over an hour. You've only done three bills. We have a total of 18 this morning. So I know there were a bunch of lawyers up here and these are very interesting issues, but just want to put that out there, all right? And that's not a reflection of Senator Lowenthal at all.

With that in mind, thank you Mister Chair and Members very pleased to present AB 2351 and would like to start by accepting the Committee amendments and thank the Chair and the Committee for their work on this Bill. From the conversations I've had, one thing is perfectly clear. There is a massive problem that's hurting our kids.

Senator Lowenthal, please continue.

Not nearly enough is being done to protect our kids from the mental and physical harm they're experiencing from pupils who are bullying, harassing, threatening physically or sexually assaulting them, and this Members is unacceptable. It has to change and I won't rest until it does. The topic of this Bill is not one that I take lightly. I speak from personal experience. Bullying and harassment have entered my home and harmed my daughters. And you'll be hearing from my eldest about that in just a bit.

This Bill is aimed at address, at addressing a gap in our system, elevated and amplified by our digital world, an area where victims are not protected and often can only find remedy by having to leave their environment. Bullying, harassment and intimidation amongst pupils in school is not a new phenomenon, but an age old problem that administrators, faculty, parents and children have confronted and which continues to persist year in and year out in our schools.

However, the ways these acts are being perpetrated have shifted significantly from the traditional archetype of a bully on the playground intimidating a fellow student for their lunch money. The digital age has substantially expanded the time, place and manner by which students coalesce with each other, and therefore has substantially expanded the time, place and manner for bullying, harassment and intimidation take place. Only a decade ago, school bullying ended once you got home and were safe.

Today, many of these activities are now taking place online, off campus, in the digital ether, and outside regular school hours. And there is nowhere and no time kids are truly saved. This shift in time and place and manners resulted in perpetrators enjoying a certain level of immunity from action or activities that would be unacceptable and punishable should they have occurred on campus during regular hours to restate.

Acts of bullying, harassment and intimidation between pupils are now taking place 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and a pupil is being bullied at school, can no longer simply go home and escape their oppressor. Today's schoolyard bully is now empowered to continue their harassment and intimidation via social media platforms, text messaging and email circulating harmful, humiliating, harassing and intimidating content to not only the people they're bullying, but to a much wider audience of the pupil's peers.

The data and statistics on cyberbullying, harassment, and violence speak for themselves. According to stopbullying.gov cyberbullying fact sheet, 89% of black students, 13% of Hispanic students, 19% of white students, 20% of females, 11% of males, 27% of LGBTQ students experienced cyberbullying in 2021. According to the Youth Risk Behavior Survey. In 2021, 16 percent of high school students were electronically bullied, including through texting, Snapchat, TikTok, other social media.

During the past year, female students were more likely than male students to be electronically bullied, but regardless of group, these circumstances created an undeniably hostile educational environment for the pupils who are experiencing this type of harassment and intimidation. Some schools and districts are feeling as though their hands are tied when it comes to addressing bullying and harassment that occurs outside of school hours and off campus.

Despite witnessing the effects of these harmful activities bleeding into the classroom and impacting campus climate, students who are engaging in harassment intimidation of their fellow pupils must be held accountable for their actions, regardless of whether this takes place on campus or during regular school hours, and it is essential that superintendents and principals are empowered with the appropriate tools to address these issues when they do arise and have a full understanding of their jurisdiction over activities that have an impact on the pupils of their schools.

And these acts are taking their toll on our children's mental health. The Youth Risk Behavior Survey reported that 42% of high school students felt so sad or hopeless almost every day for at least two weeks in a row that they stopped doing their usual activities. Female students much more likely than male students to experience persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness Hispanic and multiracial students were more likely than Asian, black, and white students to experience persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness.

LGBTQ students and students who had same sex partners were more likely than their peers to experience persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness. Additionally, the survey found that 29% of high school students experienced poor mental health during the past 30 days. Female students were more likely than male students to experience that.

Finally, the survey found that and this is shocking, 22% of high school students seriously considered attempting suicide during the past year, 18% of high school students made a suicide plan during the past year, and 10% of high school students attempted suicide one or more times during the past year. School everybody is our children's workplace.

It should be a safe place where they can go to learn the skills they need to be productive adults in our own workplaces, we can expect an environment free of bullying, intimidation, harassment and other activities that create a hostile work environment. And if someone engages in these behaviors, we can expect there will be consequences for those actions.

Additionally, we can expect that if we go out with our co workers after hours, receive emails, texts, or are tagged in social media posts, that we will not be subjected to bullying, intimidation, threats, harassment by our coworkers in those exchanges, and if we are the individuals responsible for those behaviors and activities will be held accountable for their actions.

Our children should enjoy the same protection assurances in their own workplaces for behavior that takes place and after regular hours if it is going to create a hostile learning environment for them, regardless if the behavior activity took place on or off campus. Existing law recognizes that suspension and expulsion should be used as a last resort and that interventions such as restorative justice should be the first steps to addressing bullying, harassment and intimidation everywhere.

I fully support that approach, and with this Bill and my commitment to you here today, I hope to uplift and amplify districts efforts to implement and utilize these restorative practices. I've recently had numerous conversations with numerous Members about this Bill, including Members of the Chair and Members of this Committee, and I want to say I appreciate everyone's thoughts, insights and feedback on the Bill and this topic. And I truly mean that.

I'm here today to tell you that I've not only heard your thoughts and feedback, I've taken them to heart. And as I stated in Assembly Education, I believe that suspension and expulsion should always be used as a measure of last resort after other interventions have been exhausted. I wholeheartedly support and am an advocate for interventions that are less punitive and disruptive to a student's academic and personal life, and supported and will continue to support legislation that elevates these interventions over suspension and expulsion.

I believe that this is the right direction for our state and it's in the best interest for all of our kids.

So to that end, and based on the feedback of my colleagues and stakeholders, I would like to inform everybody that if I can move this Bill today, I plan to amend 2351 to exclude suspensions and expulsions from the provisions of this Bill and limit it only to other means of correction, such as restorative justice as described in Section 48900.5 of the Education Code for acts that occur off campus and after hours that create an intimidating or hostile educational environment, you have my commitment on that.

And if for any reason I'm unable to amend or make those changes, I will park the Bill for the year. I'm extremely pleased, and dare I say, extremely, extremely proud beyond measure to be joined by my daughter Olivia, who is here to share some of her experiences with you all today. I also have my Legislative Director, Brady Mccarthy, here to answer any questions on process.

Thank you so much, Olivia.

Hi. My, oh, my name is Olivia Lowenthal. I know you guys know my dad, and maybe I've met some of you guys when I visited here before, and I'm a bit nervous to be testifying before you guys. But I feel good knowing that talking about my experiences can help so many kids going through what I've gone through. And we can all use some relief. It's not easy growing up in multiple worlds at the same time.

What I mean is there's a world where adults can guide us. Kids like at school activities and practices. And I always feel safe in that world. But there's another world online where there aren't really any adults. And it can feel unsafe sometimes because some kids do whatever they want. They bully other kids and shame other kids, and it feels like there's nothing really to stop them. I'm proud of my Mexican and Jewish heritage, but I've experienced racism and antisemitism online from other kids.

And it's really, really bad. It's hard to describe, but when it first starts happening, it makes me feel like there's something wrong with me. It hasn't been done to me privately. It's been done on group chats and stories, on Snapchat and TikTok. I feel humiliated. It's even happened to my little sister, actually. It happens to all kinds of kids. I know it happens to kids that might look different, act different, who don't have a lot of friends. And it happens especially a lot to girls.

You probably already know this is going on, and I'm sure you're concerned about it. I just want you to know how challenging it is to go to school after this happens. Because bullying and shaming on social media and group chats, especially everybody at school, knows the next day. I like going to school, but it would feel better if my teachers, my principal, could do something about the bullying happening online after school.

It's hard enough to be in middle school, but when I get bullied because of my religion, nobody I because of my religion and nobody stops them, I feel vulnerable. It takes focus away from what I should be focused on in that moment. It makes me want to be somewhere else. In that moment, I actually want to be someone else. And that's not right.

I want to do well in school and I want to like going to school and hope you can work together to find the right solution to this problem. I know there's always going to be. I know there's always going to be bullies but I wish. I sure wish we could stop them in every world. Thank you.

Thank you Mister Chair Members. I'm Coby Pizzotti. I'm a Washington Unified School District trustee and we had an incident this summer that stemmed from cyberbullying of a girl with an IEP plan. Two girls cyberbullied her to the point in which it escalated to physical altercation during the summer in which case the school board had no ability to do any of the restorative justice practices. No suspension dispositions or detention. Nothing. We had no ability to have any pact whatsoever so we felt like our hands were tied. Thank you.

Thank you so much Olivia. Is there anyone else here in support of AB 2351?

Thank you. Anyone here in opposition? AB 2351.

Good morning. Good morning. Chair and Members of the Committee, my name is Gloria Yi, and I'm an education attorney with the East Bay Community Law center, or EBCLC, in Alameda County. Can you all hear me?

Can you move the microphone a little bit closer? You can move the whole thing. The whole thing moves. Yeah. There you go.

Try this again. Yeah, I'm sorry.

Put the mic on the side of the paper. There we go.

Technical difficulties.

That's all good. Go ahead.

Good morning. Chair and Members of the Committee, my name is Gloria Yee, and I'm an education attorney with the East Bay Community Law Center, or EBCLC, in Alameda County. Our education justice team represents students pending expulsion at hearing and post expulsion to mitigate the harms of school pushout at all stages. Along with dozens of other advocates and experts across the state, EBCLC opposes AB 2351.

Bullying and cyberbullying are a true and serious issue for our students, and we appreciate the Assembly Members Lowenthal's intention to keep the students safe and his acknowledgement just now that exclusionary discipline is not the right approach here. However, current law already addresses the situations that the Assembly Member is concerned about. Districts can and already do discipline students for these offenses under Education Code 489002 to 48900.4, including social media and other interactions that occur during non school hours.

In the last year alone, our office has received expulsion referrals from three different school districts in our county, citing social media interactions during non school hours that created a hostile learning environment. It is simply not true that district students cannot address out of school conduct through existing law. In addition, this Bill is over. Broad data clearly shows that California districts disproportionately expel students of color and students with disabilities, and this Bill would exacerbate that overrepresentation.

My recent client, a 13 year old black student whom I will call Jay, comes to mind as an example of a student who would have been harmed by the net widening effects of this Bill had it been in effect. Jay's school district recommended his expulsion for a fight with his peer, a longtime friend since elementary school.

During non school hours, the district alleged that he had violated Education code 48900 a one, or for causing physical injury, which this Bill would include as an expellable offense for non school hour conduct. Rather than providing restorative justice or other alternative means to repair their friendship, the district tried to expel Jay. Fortunately, with our team's advocacy citing non school hour conduct, Jay was able to return to school last week with supportive measures in place for both Jay and his friend.

Had AB 2351 been in effect, however, Jay's exposure recommendation likely would have gone down a very different path.

Thank you so much. About a minute and a half left for the second witness trying to keep everything on track. Thank you.

Okay, good morning chair and Members of the Committee, my name is Ashley De La Rosa. I am here on behalf of the Dolores Huerta foundation respectfully opposing AB 2351.

We believe this Bill will be harmful not only to our students, but to the communities we serve in Kern, Tulare and Fresno the Dolores Huerta Foundation began organizing an education justice in 2010 after a us national report highlighted that the current High School District had amongst the highest suspending rates for African American and Latino students, with over 2500 suspensions and expulsions for willful Defiance.

In fact, in 2014, the Dolores Huerta foundation, along with community based organizations, students and parents, filed a lawsuit against the current High School District for its discriminatory disciplinary practices. In 2017, we reached a historic settlement mandating the current High School District to reform and use more restorative and positive alternatives in their school discipline. Despite the lawsuit, we see disparities in Kern for black and brown students. We have come to the states many times before and asked for support for what is happening locally.

Bills like AB 2351 raise concerns for us because of the lack of oversight and accountability to the school districts that continue to push out black and brown students. Merely reporting alarming data of who was pushed out of schools is not sufficient. Kern and many other schools across the state have just demonstrated notoriously harsh punitive disciplinary practices that are often applied in its discriminatory manner.

Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Anyone else here in opposition to AB 2321.

Chair, Members Catalina Sanchez with Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit working to protect civil liberties in a digital age and we look forward to engaging with the author when he is ready to continue to move forward with the Bill. Thank you.

Thank you.

Rayvn McCullough here with the Black Parallel School Board and we are in strong opposition of AB 2351.

Rachel Bhagwat with ACLU California Action. We are in opposition to this Bill and ask the Assembly Member to continue working with the opposition on any future amendments if it were to pass. I want to thank Miss Lowenthal for her testimony as well.

Also respectfully registering opposition of Alliance for Boys and Men of Color, Alliance for Children's Rights, Arts for Healing and Justice Network, Community Asset Development Redefining Education Cadre California alliance for Youth and Community justice cancel the Contract Antelope Valley Center for Leadership, Equity and Research, Children's rights Clinic at Southwestern Law School Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth Concrete Development Incorporated and Disability Rights California. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. Angela McNair of the Collective for Liberatory Lawyering, respectfully opposed to this Bill, and thank you again, Miss Lowenthal and Assemblymember for your testimony. I am registering support as well. Respect or opposition as well respectfully for empowering marginalized Asian communities, equal justice society, freedom for youth, Mid city Community Action Network, Public Juvenile Defender center, Public Advocates public Council starting over incorporated, the Amelia Ann Adams Whole Life Center, Youth Alliance, Youth Law Center, Youth justice education clinic at Loyola Law School. All respectfully opposed. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, Mister chair and Members. Gregory Kramer, on behalf of Disability Rights California, in opposition.

Thank you. You know, I actually want to start on this because I just want to commend, well, first of all, the opposition sounds like the sponsors to half my bills. So, you know, we're very, I'm certainly very sensitive to some of the concerns that have been brought forward. That being said, I want to give credit to the author who throughout this process has been incredibly sensitive to concerns of the opposition.

He not only accepted every amendment that was put forth by the Committee, but on his own volition put forward an author amendment to remove suspensions from the table with the concerns in mind that were brought forward by the opposition. It's again another Bill that's really trying to thread a needle. I think we do recognize that a lot of young people, it's a very different world of bullying that's happening out there than many of us went through when we were younger.

And so I have great respect for how the author is going about this, how he's listening to colleagues and opposition. And look, we're still in the House of Origin and through two committees. This Bill looks a lot different than it did in its original draft because of the author's willingness to really have an open mind and an open heart to the concerns of colleagues as well as the opposition. So I am confident he's going to continue to listen, he's going to continue to work with opposition.

But I think this Bill is in a much better place with the amendments being put forward today as well as those that will be taken up in appropriations than it was at the beginning, when I think a lot of us had heartache for different reasons, not because of the intention of the Bill, but of potential unintended consequences. So I just want to put that out there. My appreciation for the author in that regard. Senator Reyes, we have Reyes Bauer, then McKinnor.

First, I want to thank Olivia. Thank you for coming to testify. It's always great to hear from someone who's experienced this. So thank you for being here. You're representing so many other students who've experienced the same thing that you have. It was brave of you to be here. And to the author, thank you. I think that the opposition's, the sentiment of the opposition is how I felt. We know what the statistics are.

We know who is normally at the top of the list when we're talking about suspensions and expulsions and the fact that you have taken that part out and you have put restorative justice in. I applaud you for that. And with that, I would move the Bill.

Thank you. Is there a second? 2nd okay. Senator Bauer-Kahan

So I would just. Want to start by thanking Olivia for being here. I see mom is back there, too. And I know that as a mom of teens myself, you are here speaking for teens across the state. It is just the suffering that is happening amongst our teenagers right now is beyond anything I can remember from my youth. And we feel as moms, helpless sometimes when you go to school and we don't get to be mom and bear at school, we can protect you at home, but we can't.

And so I think that what the author is trying to do here, which is bring schools into the conversation around what is happening after hours, is so critical to keeping our kids safe. And when you read these statistics that a quarter of our teens are seriously considering suicide, we have to do something. And what I haven't heard from the opposition is a solution. And as a former EVCLC volunteer, I believe in what you're doing.

And yet I just, you can't come in here and just say no because our kids and Olivia's given voice to them today need more than a no. They need a yes. And and so I just really commend the author for working to get to where we can address what is happening in our schools in a way that is fair for everyone because it is every student that is experiencing this. No one is left out from these problems.

But I also want to ask a question, because your letter says, as written, AB 2351 places a huge onus on individual districts to examine and investigate a wide range of incidents occurring outside of school and covered under Ed Code 48900, et cetera. Incidents occurring off campus and after school hours would now come under the purview of school districts, which is in direct opposition to your testimony today where you said they already had the authority to do this. So I guess I'm giving you an opportunity to clarify whether you were being honest here today or in your letter.

I can certainly respond to that. I do think that there may be additional training that needs to be done and that may be provided by the California School Board Association or by the California Department of Education about some of the confusion that may linger among the school districts and the various interpretations.

I will affirm the fact that I did mention before that we, as an office, we do receive exposure referrals from the districts in our county that cite to existing law 4900.2 to 4800900.4 for the types of concerns that the Assembly Member has mentioned at the end of everyone here, as mentioned, concerns about, and also your concern that opening the door to additional ed code provisions that to explicitly state non school hour conduct would require school districts to investigate conduct that otherwise would have been that.

For instance, in this case of J, this was a case in which when we first were referred to his case, he had been referred for expulsion and this was under not the school district could have cited the other school provisions. They chose not to, and I will not speculate as to why they did chose not to. When we received the case, they had cited an Ed Coop provision that is currently does not allow for non school hour conduct and regulation by a school district. District.

And when we were referred to the case and when we referred to the school district council and alert them to this fact, we were able to work toward a solution that has returned both my client back to his school with supportive measures both for him and his long term friend.

Got it. So what I'm hearing you say is that it is not currently covered by code. However, schools are taking measures that maybe are unlawful.

That is actually. Sorry, not what I said, though. There are echo provisions that exist that school districts with maybe more comprehensive training about what current echo allows or doesn't allow could. They could cite these provisions. They are 489 under .2 to 489 under. .4 again, I cannot speculate as to why districts do not use these provisions currently or why it's a sporadic use in the current State of affairs, but they do exist. And they do. They are cited in the cases that we receive in our office. Got it.

I thought you said they weren't. I was misunderstood.

And if I can just add really quickly, and the reason why I brought up Kern County is because we're notorious.

Yeah, I was gonna ask if the author actually wanted to make a comment, if we could.

Thank you. First of all, I want to thank the opposition for their thoughtful comments, and I can come back to that in a second. I know, assemblymember, you wanted to continue. I simply want to make sure that everybody understands the origin of this is due to a lack of. Of clarity in the existing law. This is simply to clarify.

And we heard, actually, from a school board Member giving an example of how unclear it is and how I have a completely different interpretation than the one that you just brought forward with your district. So we have districts that are doing things in a hodgepodge way, and there's unequal application of existing law. And this is to clarify, to get us all on the same page.

And I would say that this Bill, if we can get across the finish line, is only gonna get us into the first inning, second inning. We're gonna continue to have to analyze the data, assess on all fronts. I personally believe that the social media industry should be paying for the collection of that data, and we can work on that later. But ultimately, right now, what we have is total chaos. So we need to clarify

Creates clarity, and it centers restorative justice. That's right. Senator McKinnor, sorry.

If I may just conclude, I think that the conversation here sort of illustrates the point the author's trying to make, which is the letter says it's not covered. You're now saying it is covered. I know that the author's personal experience is his district said there was nothing they could do. We heard the same thing from a school board Member. And so I think that lack of clarity is what we're talking about.

And I think with the amendments that the author is agreeing to today, to really center restorative justice, which I think is an incredibly healthy start to this. And I would argue that in most of these instances, the bullying probably isn't exclusively online. It's probably bleeding into school. And so there are further measures that could be taken there. But I just am incredibly supportive of this effort, and I know it will continue to change as been promised by the author.

But I think that we have to be ensuring that every kid is safe. And I know you are here to argue for the safety of and continued education of students that need your voice, and Olivia is here to do the same for kids that are being bullied online. And every party deserves safety. And I think the Bill is getting towards that direction, and I'm happy to support it. And with that, I'll second the Bill.

Thank you. Senator McKinnor.

Yes. Good afternoon, Olivia. I thank you. You're so brave to do this. And, you know, you look back on this, I can't wait to watch your future, and I can see you sitting up here making laws one day. But, Arthur, I thank you for listening to us, to taking what we had to say into consideration and just letting you know we hear you, too. We know that this disproportionately affect brown and black kids. And so you heard us.

And so when we're passing bills in the Legislature, we do want people to listen and hear us. And I think we did that with each other today. And I'm so proud of the work we did. And I'm proud that you accepted those amendments that you put forth those amendments for no expulsion, no suspension.

Suspension. And going towards the restorative justice. I would also ask you to please, please work with the opposition on some of this language so that we can come together and that this can be a really, really strong Bill, a really strong start. And I hopefully will be here a long time, and I look forward to working on this with you. Thank you.

Thank you, Senator Bryan.

Thank you, Mister chair. I also want to thank the author. It's not every colleague that allows me and the Member from Inglewood to run up in their office unannounced and tell them we need to work on this together and then to have a constructive and productive dialogue and to get to a better space. Olivia, thank you for being here. Middle school, is that right?

Yeah.

I didn't graduate middle school. The reason I didn't graduate middle school is cause I was suspended seven times. But in part because I don't know if I would call it bullying, roasting, bagging. There's a lot of cultural connotations for black kids. But because I was adopted, that was a thing that some of my peers would bring up. Make the word abandon mean a bunch of different things. And then I would fight, and then I'd get suspended. And we both get suspended.

Sometimes it would happen off campus because we didn't want to get suspended. But then we'd go back to school the next day, and whoever won the fight, it was all anybody was talking about anyway. And I wish that there were restorative justice practices that would have allowed us to have conflict mediation to where we could get to kind of the root of where the pain and where the hurt was coming from without just sending us both home for three days or five days.

And I think that is what this Member from Long Beach has kind of brought before us is something that takes us to that step. The fact that you were willing to drop expulsions and suspensions, but still bring in accountability, dialogue, healing, listening as something that districts can do. I think that that's, that's a powerful start. It's also not often that I would ever be on the other side of the Alliance for Boys and Men of color, my friends at CADRE, the Dolores Huerta foundation and others.

But I think with the amendments that you've expressed, you're prepared to take. I think they are probably all open for conversations as well. And I would strongly encourage you to have those.

Thank you, Assemblymember Essayli.

Thank you, Mister Chair. Really appreciate the author. I know where you're coming from. I know your intent. I know your heart is good. Olivia, you're very brave to be here. I'll tell you, when I was in school, I had 9/11, and that was obviously a difficult time for Muslim students to be in school. And we got called terrorists and all kinds of things.

I remember my mom was working in the bank, actually at 9/11, and because of her accent, she had some guy just go totally crazy on her in the bank. It's real stuff. I mean, this stuff happens. People say very mean, nasty things, and that's an unfortunate thing. I would say that my concerns I have about this Bill not necessarily aligned with the opposition, but it's subjective, what's considered bullying.

And that's really what concerns me is sort of this free speech area, I think on campus during school hours, of course, you've got to have safe learning environments and you've got to maybe temper some free speech stuff so people can focus and focus on school. But off campus, now we're getting into regulating speech expressions, politics. That's done off campus. And that concerns me. I mean, there's been several examples of, you know, you've had students get in trouble by schools for having black lives matters gear.

On the flip side, you have kids getting in trouble for having pro Trump gear or MAGA gear saying that that's offensive to one group or another. I know recently, I know that, you know, some middle eastern kids, they feel offended if someone posts an Israeli flag on something or posts it on something and then vice versa. Jewish kids feel harassed or intimidated if there's Palestinian remarks or flags that are directed towards them. And in my viewpoint, that's all protected.

Jewish kid has every right to post an Israeli flag. Palestinian kid has every right to post a Palestinian. But if we're going to get into. I feel offended and this is bullying and harassment. I just don't want the schools involved in all this stuff off campus. That's what gives me concern. And I said this on the floor yesterday, hate speech is an ugly thing, but it's protected. Hate speech is protected. That is the cost.

The price we pay for a free society is that we don't regulate speech. So I'm really, really concerned about this. I personally think the solution, and Olivia, I would give you this advice. Get off social media. Get off social media. I don't see any benefit to kids to being on social media. And I would bet that in this survey, 90%, 95% of it is being done on social media, because kids are very nasty on social media, you've got an anonymity.

You've got all these other things that allows kids to be very rude and nasty. So you're welcome, Mister Lowenthal, if you want to respond. Those are just my concerns.

I do. First of all, Assemblymember, I think that the points that you raise are important ones for us to consider at all times. And we need to be very thoughtful and very intentional about any limitations otherwise that we would be considering on expression and speech of any whatsoever. We give schools local control. That's what we live by here in the State of California.

And we assess to them whether or not something rises to the level that restorative justice practices, or in certain cases, punitive justice practices are needed to be implemented. And so we're not overstepping that here whatsoever. It is still going to remain in local control. Expression is not absolute. I have to disagree with you on that front. We certainly can't say that we're going to kill the President. We can't say that I'm going to kill the principal of the school.

There are things that students absolutely cannot do. But what we see, Assemblymember, these days, is a different type of bullying, a different type of shaming that happens in a group context. And if you're not of age right now, you wouldn't understand that. So in the case of Olivia, she was presented with hate symbols, with the swastikas, and tagged in stories so shamed to a body of people that could have been doing things during school hours or not.

Some of those people could have been on campus doing sports activities. Otherwise, it's tough to say. But the difficulty is, is she had to go to school and face that they do that in group chat. And whether or not she's on the group chat or gets off social media doesn't take away from the fact that other students are doing that in a group context, and she has to go to school and face that. So I don't think that that's going to be the answer to everything.

We have to be mindful of the data, the data that Assembly Member McKinnor brought out, the data that I talked about in my talking points, and all of us have to have a level of humility around this.

That is to say, if we believe that systemic racism is curable, and I believe that if we believe in concepts and being intentional and recognizing that there are groups that have been disproportionately affected by the law, and that is curable, if we believe in concepts like reparations, if we believe in concepts like affirmative action, and I believe in those things as a means to cure systemic racism, then we have to look at this as being dynamic.

That that means that the processes that we're looking at right now are temporary ultimately, and that we have a responsibility to always be assessing the data. And the data right now, as the Assembly Member from Orinda pointed out, is horrific for our children. It's absolutely unconscionable. If we don't do something, then it's going to continue to get worse.

I just want to close, I appreciate your remarks. I never said there's no limits to speech. I said hate speech is protected. You agree? That's the law in our land.

Hate speech is not protected on school grounds.

On school grounds, yeah. But in society, the Supreme Court has said hate speech is protected, and it has to be, because that is the only way we have a true free society where there's the free expression of you and viewpoints. If the government is moderating speech or involved in content based, we've lost free speech.

So for that very reason, Assemblymember, when we went to law enforcement on the issues affecting our family, law enforcement was not able to enact anything for the very reasons that you're bringing forward. And the purpose of this Bill is to create a village, to create a community, to mitigate the impacts of hate speech and with restorative justice practices.

As I learned so humbly from my colleagues through the course of this Bill creation, we have a secret sauce where we can address this and mitigate those concerns and also be mindful of the effects systemic racism has right now on those that may be perpetrating.

I appreciate that. And if you and I were running the world, I'd have full confidence. But we're talking about government bureaucrats, and I don't. You know, I'm concerned some kid who supports President Trump is going to be referred to. What do we have here? Comprehensive psychological and psychoeducational assessments, intervention related teams, you know, referrals to psychologists and social workers.

This sounds like re-education camp to me, so I probably won't be able to support this today, but I, this is a very, very hard topic and issue, and I appreciate what you're trying to do.

Vice Chair Dixon.

Thank you. Quick question, just to clarify, in the spirit of. Thank you again. And Olivia, you're very brave, and we're having an important discussion about an issue that's very personal to you and other your peers. So I'm glad we're having this discussion, and thank you for bringing it forward. Please educate me, if you will, what is when a student brings their cell phone on campus during school hours? Many schools, I think, now limit that, but many schools may not limit handling your iPhone. What is the school's rules? How do they handle bullying? What's going on in a chat? How do they handle that during school hours?

They have local control, too. And follow the education code as it's stated right now. So that's,.

Do these files, do these prescriptions follow along with what currently is?

They do. They do, actually. And they don't step outside of that whatsoever.

And then another question. Why is this sunsetted? What is your intent there?

That was basically the recommendation of the Committee, actually, so that we can assess the data, collect data and assess the impacts of this, both positive and negative.

Okay. And I will be supporting this Bill because just as we've talked about other privacy, free speech issues, trying to stay within the limits, certainly of free speech, but these are issues that have never surfaced before when children are having exposure and their lives are affected by this, as your data shows, and data continues to show that children are serious repercussions from being victims of this.

And also those who are the perpetrators, I think they have lifetime, they may have lifetime repercussions because they should not have been suspended from school and they could have been. I mean, what am I to say? But I mean, I think there are other means to help this person deal with their anger, deal with their whatever, to calm the situation down and get into a more civil society. And that's really the basis of any of this change as a civil society.

How do we get back to the framework of a civil society? But this is tough and you're working with it. There's always issues that come about because of all this and stepping into other territories. But I appreciate what you're trying to do, and I will support it. Thank you.

Assemblymember Haney.

Thank you. A lot has been said. So I will try to be brief, but I do want to thank the Lowenthal family. Olivia, you did an extraordinary job today, and, you know, I'm so sorry what has happened to you. And you're speaking for so many other students who are having similar experiences, and the fact that you're here with us and your father is doing such a good job trying to work through these very, very complicated issues. But this is a real problem.

It is maybe one of the biggest problems that we're facing in our communities now, which is how we make sure people are safe and protected in who they are, in their identities, and that they can be themselves, that they can be happy, they can be safe, particularly young people, and that they experience that in their interactions with others. And so for young people, that is something they feel at school, and it's also something that happens to them outside of school.

And we see the impacts of that when we don't do a good job of it. In all of the numbers that you shared around the number of young people who increasingly feel suicidal, feel deeply unhappy, and who do not feel safe. And so I think for us to grapple with how we do this the right way and how we make sure we balance all of the issues that we've discussed here today is so critical. And I want to appreciate the amendments.

I think they really move the Bill in the right direction. I do want to say, though, I was a school Board Member for two terms, I worked a lot on all of these issues in San Francisco unified and saw different sides of this. I know that we are concerned about the fact that suspensions and punitive measures in our schools often are disproportionate and targeted students of color, and that we don't want to further go in that direction.

I also want to recognize, and you've said this, that it's more often than not students of color and Lgbt students, girls who are also being bullied and who are being targeted. And it should never be the position of the school that they can't do anything about that, that we can't help you here. That is so disempowering and isolating and makes things worse for the young people.

So at the best, we can have, at their best, our schools can be places where we do try to help and support students who are experiencing this, use it as a teaching opportunity, a learning opportunity, a growth opportunity, and have the space to bring people together and dialogue and make them feel more protected. And that's what, especially with the amendments, that this Bill will move us towards. They shouldn't say, we can't help you here.

They have to say, we will help you and we'll help you in a collaborative, restorative way that makes sure people feel valued and heard. Lastly, though, restorative justice and restorative practices sometimes is used as just sort of a way that we kind of throw aside things, you know, and our schools are not always resourced or supported to do that well.

So sometimes things are thrown to restorative practices or restorative justice, and people feel more disempowered from that because it felt like that was just a word, a buzzword that was used, but there was no actual real accountability there.

So that's a, as you think about the additional iterations where we try to get this right, if you have schools that don't have nurses, that don't have school psychologists, that don't have restorative justice counselors, and we're kicking things to restorative justice, sometimes that can lead to even additional feelings of isolation or lack of accountability. So how do we make sure that we get that right in the conversation as well?

Restorative justice at its best is true accountability, but it also can be disempowering or further isolate students if they felt like it was really just used to push something to the side. So there's a lot of work that needs to be done on this. But I do think that the way you're moving it forward is very important and for us to have this dialogue about the issues that so many young people are experiencing, critical. And I'll definitely support this Bill. And for all of us, you have our support in how we work together to get this right. And thank you. Thank you again. Olivia.

Thank you. Yeah, Olivia, thank you. We're very proud of you for having the courage to come forward today, and I think you should be very proud of your father for centering this issue and making it such an important part of his agenda up here in the Legislature. As mentioned, Assemblymember McKinnor had mentioned, like we continue to work on this. There is a sunset provision with the report back that the Assembly Member accepted.

So there's definitely an opportunity for us to revisit this issue and see if there are unintended consequences. But I think with the amendments, it's in a very good place. Would you like to briefly close, Senator Lowenthal?

Very briefly. I just want to thank everybody for the very thoughtful conversation. The most important thing I can say is to the opposition. Thank you. Thank you for your voice and thank you for standing firm on values that are critically important in our lawmaking process.

Thank you for everybody who attended and spoke out in opposition to this Bill. I not only hear you, but I validate you in your concerns. I'm mindful of them. And I want to work with you not only on this Bill, but on every Bill addressing this topic in the years forward. Cause I plan to continue on working on this until we improve the mental health of our children across the spectrum because it's so vitally important. And with that, I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

[Roll Call]

Thank you. Up next, Lowenthal, Bill AB 3172. And the motion and second. I just want to say, after my last admonition, the next bill we took up took an hour. We will be here, literally, we have to get these bills done today. I have time, but it's not respectful to the other authors that we take an hour on a bill. If you have questions, you can take it offline with the author.

If it must be said or must be asked, please, I'm not trying to limit anyone's ability to do that, but we have business to do outside of this Committee as well. Other folks have obligations as well. So let's be very, let's be more respectful of time than we have been so far. We've done four bills in 2 hours, and that's not acceptable. And so, again, I'm not, if you have something to say or ask, feel free to do so. But I just want to make that very clear that we're not going at respectful, efficient pace. Please, Assembly Member.

Thank you, Chair and Members. The federal government, along with California and multiple other states and many of our overseas allies, have long sought ways to hold social media companies accountable for negative impacts their platforms have on the wellbeing of our children and teens. Recent congressional hearings and alarming number of studies point to the negative impacts social media can have on a child or teen's development, mental wellbeing, and health. More must be done, and fast.

AB 3172 will hold social media platforms accountable for the harm they cause children and teenagers. This legislation would impose financial responsibility on large social media companies if their own negligence has been proven in court. AB 3172 does not change California's underlying law or the burden of proof required in court.

What it does do in response to the damage knowingly and admittingly being done to an entire generation of children by just a handful of companies that are earning enormous profits off children and teen users is actually apply appropriate financial incentives and accountability to prompt these few companies to be more careful and responsible partners, especially when it comes to children. Our top priority must be ensuring our children are safe and secure offline and online.

I don't need to tell you that millions of teenagers and children turn to social media apps as their primary form of social interaction and communication, and it is imperative that we are certain they are safe in doing so. While there are some varying degrees of guardrails built into some of these platforms, studies show there is much more that can and should be done.

And too often our questions and concerns to the corporations owning the platforms have gone unanswered, and the harms to our kids continue to mount. I, like many parents, have skin in the game here. As a father of three daughters in the age of social media, I see firsthand the dramatic impacts and influence these companies have over my children's well being.

As a former social media company shareholder and someone who has spent a career in the tech industry, I believe in the potential for these companies to promote the healthy development of our youth and be a benefit to all users. But as a parent and as a Legislator, it's my responsibility to stand up and demand accountability and real action when they claim to want to protect our youth. I should make myself clear. I am not against social media.

In fact, as a parent of young children, I see the positive effect some social media tools can have in connecting young people. I just want social media companies to much more vigorously step up to the plate and be responsible partners that take safety and well being of our children as serious as they do of shareholder profit, shareholder value. I always am open to working with the opposition.

AB 3172 will hopefully make social media companies responsible for their algorithms and actions that affect our kids and more accountable where there is proven neglect. My witnesses here today are Nicole Rocha from Common Cause Media and Ted Merman, executive director of the Center for Consumer Law and Economic justice at UC Berkeley School of Law.

Thank you.

Good morning, Chair and Members. My name is Nicole Rocha, here on behalf of Common Sense Media. The current digital ecosystem did not happen by chance. Notifications, endless scroll, autoplay and likes: all of these were business decisions made by companies looking to maximize consumer attention. Result online are experiences that fixate intentionally keeping kids and teens locked into their devices because more time spent on screens means more advertising dollars.

And after two decades of unfettered access to our kids, we are finally seeing hard evidence of what we have instinctively known for years. Social media is hurting our youth. AB 3172 is simple. It builds upon common law and creates statutory damages for social media companies who have breached their duty of care or harmed children through negligence.

To be clear, this is not a new cause of action, but increase penalties that will seek to make families whole to the extent that the law can and deter callous and profit driven behavior by some of the richest companies in the world. Social media companies breach their duty of care when they know their products are harmful to youth, but fail to mitigate or eliminate those harms.

We need not look further than Francis Haugen and Arturo Bejar's whistleblowing to know that these companies have knowledge of how their products products harm kids. We need not look beyond Molly Russell's death, where the coroner ruled that algorithms had pushed over 10,000 images, videos, and other social media material promoting self harm that she had not requested, ultimately concluding that her death was an act of self harm while suffering from depression and the negative effects of material online.

And we need not look further the many of the changes social media platforms have rolled out overseas in response to government's demands that they improve online privacy and safety for kids. They know exactly how to mitigate risk of harm to our kids, but won't do it unless forced to do so. Some of those changes include Instagram preventing unknown adults from messaging users under 18, all TikTok users under the age of 16 having their accounts set to private by default. The list goes on and on. Why don't California kids have these same benefits? The answer is easy. Tech will not regulate itself. The bill is simple, and it deserves your aye vote.

Thank you, Chair and Members. My name is Ted Merman. I teach at the UC Berkeley Law School. I am also a former middle school teacher. For more than two decades, I have litigated and written about consumer protection law and public health law, including helping to draft some two dozen bills enacted by this Legislature. My particular expertise is in the area of free speech law. My testimony today on AB 3172 consists of two points.

First, the bill, as amended, does not expand the scope of liability for negligence by social media platforms. It simply adds penalties. The bill, therefore, does not change the analysis that a court must already engage in to determine whether a given action against a social media platform will be deemed to violate the First Amendment or to be preempted by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996.

A court will still need to evaluate what actions or omissions the plaintiff is seeking to hold a platform liable for. That is true today under existing law. It will be true if this bill is enacted. Second, actions against social media platforms for harm done to children are going forward today in both state and federal court under Section 1714 of the Civil Code, the section that this bill amends.

The defendants in those cases, some of which are cited in the Committee analysis, have raised First Amendment and Section 230 defenses. Courts have so far mostly rejected those. So under existing law, at least some cases under Section 1714 can proceed. If AB 3172 is enacted, at least some cases under Section 1714, as amended, will continue to proceed.

The bill provides a spur for platforms to do something they have not yet done, meaningfully reduce the harm experienced by children as a result of the intended use of their products. The Legislature and this Committee can proceed without fear of futility to decide this bill on its merits. I look forward to the discussion. I urge your aye vote.

Thank you. Anyone else here in support of AB 3172?

Good morning, Chair and Members. Kim Stone of Stone Advocacy on behalf of the Children's Advocacy Institute, enthusiastic support.

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, Cliff Berg on behalf of the Jewish Public Affairs Committee, JPAC, in support.

Thank you.

Mikey Houthi with Common Sense Media, proudly in support. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone here in opposition to AB 3172?

Thank you, Mister Chair, Members of the Committee. Dylan Hoffman on behalf of TechNet, we're respectfully opposed to AB 3172. And let me first state we absolutely share the author's goal of protecting children online. And in fact, our companies have been at the forefront of designing new tools, creating new policies and new features for users and their parents to be able to control their online experience and to create a safer online environment for them. However, we are opposed to this Bill for a variety of reasons.

The apparent goal of the Bill is to incentivize platforms to change how they operate, and we have to take that and assume that they're referencing operations related to user content and the features platforms used to organize and deliver that content, including the recommendation algorithms and feeds that have been mentioned today. But the Bill doesn't target anything precisely. The Bill simply acknowledges a platform's existing general duty of care and then sets high statutory penalties for failing to meet that duty.

Additionally, we read the statutory penalties in the Bill to apply to all claims against social media platforms by a minor, including, for instance, a claim by a child that trips and falls during a tour of the company's headquarters. We don't think this is the author's intent. In fact, we've talked to them about this and we are working with them to try to further clarify that. But it does speak to the vagueness and the over breadth of of assigning these types of statutory penalties to all claims.

I think finally, if the intent is to apply these penalties to claims focused on content and content delivering features, we believe this Bill does run afoul of both sections 230 and the First Amendment. We believe these strong incentive for plaintiffs to sue on the basis of user generated content and these features will create a massive increase in the amount of liability and number of cases that these platforms are having to litigate in court all the way through because they're heavily fact intensive.

So due to this vagueness of what might be included, platforms may take drastic actions to try to limit that liability, including by limiting or removing access for under 18 year olds. We believe this is a bad outcome for teens and has negative implications for their First Amendment Rights, and for those reasons, we are respectfully opposed.

Thank you. Anyone else here in opposition?

Chair Members Catalina Sanchez with Electronic Frontier Foundation and respectful opposition, and we look forward to engaging with the author's office. Thank you.

Thank you.

Ronak Delami with Cal Chamber, respectfully opposed, align our comments with TechNet. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. Meoweepa, Joan, on behalf of the computer and Communications Industry Association, and respectful opposition.

Thank you.

Good morning. Cameron Dimitri with Capital Advocacy on behalf of NetChoice in opposition. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning again. Jamie Huff with Cjack, respectfully opposed.

Thank you. All right, any questions, comments? Assemblyman Connolly

It is good to see you as well. Assembly Member and a former colleague. The Section 230 provides some amount of immunity for content provided by third parties. And as far as I can tell, this Bill is not intended to go to any particular kind of content, in fact, or to run afoul of Section 230.

Quick question maybe to the Professor. Great to see you. Could someone address the Section 230 issue just head on?

But there are things that social media platforms can do that have nothing to do with the content they can. And here I'm citing cases that have moved forward, forward and that courts have said did not run afoul of Section 230 have a feature that encourages and rewards users for driving over 100 miles an hour and taking a picture of it.

They may have algorithms and features that are designed to keep kids online addicted to their platform in ways that have nothing to do with the particular content that's on there. But the way that it's being delivered, they may get in the way of parents who would like to be able to block their children's access to the site. Those are ways that platforms are currently designing their products, and they are ways that I think this Bill could.

It doesn't change the scope of liability, but certainly it would provide a spur to enforcement.

Assembly Member, if I could really quickly, another great example is that platforms say that they have age appropriate content, but they don't prohibit a user such as my kids from changing their age on their platform. Right.

Thank you. I commend the author for bringing this Bill forward. I think protecting our children is extremely important. I've always been an advocate for children, but I do have concerns with this Bill because I do feel like it's overly broad. I feel like the duty of care being imposed here is of ordinary care and skill to a child. I feel like it's overly broad.

Right. Thank you. Yes, Assembly Member Pacheco

And just like the opposition mentioned, and I'm curious to see or hear, have there been conversations being held with opposition from the author's office?

We're certainly more than willing. And yes, we are having conversation with opposition on this. But, you know, bear in mind, I gave this example when we had this discussion of privacy Committee. Opposition to this, to any of this level of liability has always been to not have discussions from the social media companies. And my personal experience is that I can't even have a conversation with a thought leader inside those companies, outside their GR representatives. I've asked, I've physically gone to visit them.

I've requested on multiple occasions, and they won't talk to me. So as it relates to the components of this Bill, absolutely. We're more than willing to do that. But what is a greater problem that you have, whether it's your inability to speak to anybody, call a phone number, talk to anybody in these social media companies, have any level of customer service that's appropriate for the level of harm that's being exhibited is that there's a wall. There's a wall.

And to the opposition, have you been able to reach out to the author's office? Because I know the intent of the author is to protect children.

Yeah, absolutely. And we have met with the author staff and really do appreciate those opportunities to have this discussion. I think the problem is in trying to draft an amendment to sort of fix the example that I gave in my testimony is that you get closer to sort of that third rail of Section 230 in the First Amendment by trying to say, okay, we're not talking about offline harms, we're talking about online harms. It brings you closer to Section 230 and those issues.

I think in trying to clarify what types of claims qualify, I think it's really challenging, and we understand the difficulty here with that. So we're on our side, and for our part, trying to suggested an amendment that would sort of clarify clearly that is not the intent of this Bill for slip and falls to be included, but it just speaks to how difficult it is to sort of say, well, this type of claim, but not this one.

Which ones are related to content and which ones aren't? Because in our experience, a lot of the claims, even related to the features, come back to content. A claim against a platform's recommendation algorithm comes back to the content that was shown, and that raises First Amendment issues with how our platforms editorialize and present content. It also raises issues for the type of content that users can see. And I think that's something worth considering here. So that's where the difficulty in trying to suggest amendments.

But we are trying to do that. Yes.

Thank you. Thank you for bringing this forward and entering into this very challenging space. Would you like to close?

Okay, thank you. I won't be able to support this Bill today, but I'm looking forward to the continued conversation so that way I can hopefully support it when it gets to the floor. Thank you.

Respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you, Madam Secretary. Take roll call on AB 3172.

put that on call. Thank you. Up next Assemblymember Carrillo, AB 2355.

Roll Call

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Members. I am proud to present AB 2354, which will require disclosure when generative AI is used in electronic advertising to substantially alter existing media or create content that will falsely appear to be authentic to a reasonable person. The availability of tools to doctor image images, video and sound is not new.

However, rapid improvements in artificial intelligence, or AI, and large language models or LLMs that are capable of generating sound, images, and text have already resulted in the creation of materials that are likely to pass off as convincingly real when they are indeed fake. In January of this year, a robocall using the AI generated voice of President Joe Biden told the New Hampshire voters to, quote, save their vote for November rather than vote in the state's primary election.

The individual who created the audio told NBC News that it took less than 20 minutes and and cost only $1. As this technology becomes cheaper, faster, and easier for the public to use and it is embraced by candidates and political campaigns, its effect on democracy requires us to act. In this new environment, sensible regulations that protect free political expression and speech are vital to get ahead of this technology.

The Legislature will be evaluating a number of bills this year that aim to get ahead of the impacts of generative AI and large language models will undoubtedly have on our society and our daily lives. These conversations are necessary because we know we want to be intentional when it comes to the impact of improving technology. Our support witness for past presentations was unavailable today, but I'm happy to answer any questions the Committee may have.

Thank you so much. Is there anyone here in support of AB 2355?

Good morning, Chair and Members. Naomi Padrone, on behalf of the Computer and Communications Industry Association and also on behalf of my colleague at the Chamber. We have a support if amended position and hope to continue to work with the author as the bill moves forward.

Thank you. Is there anyone here in opposition to AB 2355? Thank you.

Catalina Sanchez with Electronic Frontier Foundation, nonprofit working to protect civil liberties in the digital age. We are respectful opposition to the bill and we look forward to engaging with the author's office. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Well, again, we're delving into a lot of these really challenging areas of AI and technology. Thank you for diving in. Would you like to close?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The bill has received strong bipartisan support, and I am committing to advancing the strongest possible effort to preserve free expression while ensuring the Californians have faith in their democracy and our electoral process. With that, I respectfully request an aye vote.

Thank you. Roll call on AB 2355.

Motion is do pass to Appropriations. [Roll Call]

We'll place that on call. Thank you.

Your fastest bill of the day.

Yeah, okay. And thank you, Senator Friedman. Item 15, 2867. Whenever you're ready.

Thank you Mister Chair. Getting a seat at this table is the hottest ticket in town today, and I want to just thank Assemblymember Friedman for her courtesy. So thank you Mister Chair and colleagues. I want to start also by thanking you and your staff for the hard work on this legislation. I am pleased today to present AB 2867 which will help California residents recover art and other personal property stolen during the Holocaust or other acts of political persecution. This Bill builds on longstanding California law, which has always aimed to assist California residents in recovering stolen property.

However, as you may have read about in the Los Angeles Times, a recent 9th Circuit Court decision failed a family of Holocaust survivors, the Cassir family, and proves that more must be done to ensure that Californians don't lose their rights due to the misapplication of legal technicalities, as the LA Times editorial board noted, is outrageous and shameful for a Spanish museum to keep a painting that the whole world knows was looted by the Nazis from a Jewish family during the Holocaust.

This builds on the work of Attorney General Rob Bonta and former General Attorney, General Kamala Harris, who have both argued that California law should apply to cases like that involving the Casira family. AB 2867 will do just that. The Bill will mandate that California law must apply in lawsuits involving theft of art or other personal property looted during the Holocaust or other acts of persecution, and will also directly empower California residents to reclaim stolen art and other personal property. This Bill has bipartisan support.

It is sponsored by our Lieutenant Governor, Eleni Kounalakis, and has no known opposition. With me today to testify in support of the measure is Sam Dubin, co-counsel for the Kaiser family and a longtime advocate for Holocaust survivors. Thank you, and respectfully request your aye vote thank you.

Thank you, Assemblymember Gabriel, Mister Chairman, Members of the Committee, for decades, California law has strongly favored the rights of true owners to recover stolen art. Under California law, a thief cannot convey good title to stolen property, and the true owners cannot lose their rights without actual knowledge of their rights in and the location of the property. The Legislature decisively reaffirmed these principles in 2010 when it rejected the 9th Circuit's decision that owners claims could be defeated based on so called constructive rather than actual discovery.

Constructive discovery allows the true owners to lose title even when they have no knowledge of the location of their property. The Legislature expressly rejected that concept in 2010 in its amendments to CCP 338 C. Unfortunately, in January of this year, the 9th Circuit ignored the Legislature. It applied Spanish law, not California law, in a case by Claude Kaiser, a Holocaust survivor and longtime California resident, to recover a stolen Pizarro masterpiece that was looted by the Nazis from his grandmother.

It's now in the hands of a museum owned by Spain. The court held under Spanish law that the museum acquired good title after three years of possession, even though Mister Kaiser did not know the museum had the painting. The court applied Spain's law of adverse possession based upon the principle of constructive knowledge, a principle this Legislature rejected soundly. The legislation mandating California law and stolen art cases will foster integrity and diligence in the art market.

Every buyer will know they do not get good title if they buy stolen art. And it will also draw a bright line in litigation and eliminate many of the legal and factual mazes that are created by defendants and should also encourage settlements. And let there be no doubt the Legislature has the authority to mandate choice of law by statute. This was a subject of a prominent UC Davis law Professor William Dodges article in his transnational log post. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Is there anyone else here in support of AB 2867?

Thank you, Mister Chairman. Cliff Berg, here on behalf of JPAC, the Jewish Public Affairs Committee, in support of this legislation, thank you.

Genesis Gonzalez. On behalf of Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis, as sponsor in support. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone here in opposition to AB 2867? All right, we'll bring it back to Committee. We do have a motion, Assemblymember Reyes. We don't. Oh, we still need a motion. We still need a motion. Sorry.

Bravo. I'm so glad you've brought this forward. I know we're doing so much with our Native American artifacts and what have you. My only question was jurisdiction. What jurisdiction do we have over artifacts or over art that is outside of California?

I can address that. In this case, the Spanish-owned museum, the Thyssen Bornemisza Foundation collection engaged in substantial context with the United States and California. They marketed their museum contents, including this of every painting on flights from Iberia Airlines into the United States. The district court, the appellate court, all found jurisdiction for this foreign sovereign immunities act case in California.

With that I'll move the Bill.

With a motion in a second. Thank you so much Senator, for bringing this forward. And you're a lot of work, I know with our staff on this, it's important, but it's also technical and challenging when it comes to these areas of jurisdiction. Would you like to close?

Yeah, I just want to say, I just want to thank you and your staff for the thoughtful feedback on this. And certainly we're going to continue to work and refine this Bill as we move forward. But I think that this is an important step forward for justice. I want to thank Mister Dubin who traveled all the way from Florida to be here beyond as I think is obviously in the case with all the work we've done on Native American artifacts. This is not about money.

This is not about money. It's about justice. It's about acknowledging the historical wrongs that were committed. And we believe that this is a very important step forward. Would respectfully request your aye vote.

Thank you. If you could take roll call please on AB 286.

Motions do pass. [Roll Call] All right, that Bill is out. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Item eight, Berman, AB 2642. Motion and a second.

I'll take the hint, but we'll just speak quickly. First, I'd like to thank Committee staff for their work on this bill. I will be accepting the amendments that are outlined in the Committee analysis. California has always been a leader when it comes to protecting our elections and our democracy. While our state has strong anti-intimidation protections, there's a concerning trend growing across our nation of intimidation and threats against election workers. And California is not immune.

Due to the alarming rise in threats and attacks against election and poll workers, there's been a nationwide exodus of workers leaving the job, including here in California. In the 2024 election, 44% of voters in California will have a different election administrator than they had in the 2020 election. AB 2642, the Peace Act, would strengthen and supplement California's existing anti-intimidation laws by providing explicit civil protections for both election workers and voters.

Additionally, AB 2642 would create an important presumption that people who openly carry firearms around election activities do so for the purpose of intimidation. A voter or election official that is threatened, intimidated, or coerced would be able to seek equitable relief. This bill has no registered opposition, and with me today are Allison Anderman, an attorney who is here on behalf of the Brennan Center for Justice, and Neil Kelly, a retired chief election official for Orange County.

Good morning, honorable Members of the Committee. My name is Neil Kelly. I am the retired registrar of voters for Orange County. I'm also the immediate past chair of a national organization focused on these issues, the Committee for Safe and Secure Elections. I'd like to share with you just a small example of what we have seen of written and verbal threats that election officials from around the country, including here in California, have experienced in recent elections, such as, you rigged my election.

We're going to try you and hang you. We are coming for you. We will rape your children. There will be blood on the ballots and blood on you. As you just heard, we know that many election officials, in addition to personal threats, have also endured threats against their families. As a result, ongoing elections are not very appealing to those that run them. While the effects on the individuals are devastating, the potential blow to democracy should not be dismissed.

It is critical that effective relationships between election officials and law enforcement are established as we approach the fall of 2024. Even with effective planning, the threat of law enforcement action does not always deter serial harassers, which is why the civil provisions of this bill are so important.

Despite the threat environment, I want to take just a moment to highlight the very essential right that I believe citizens have to observe and comment on elections, to be a part of the process, and to engage with their local election administrator. We should not conflate the importance of legitimate observation with deliberate and intentional provocation. As an election official, you know when that line has been crossed.

When acts of violence, threats to oneself or family, threats to the infrastructure, interference, etcetera, begin to emerge, then the entire process is at risk. Our institutes of democracy are under attack, and while many election officials are resilient, it is stretching their capacity to operate while being threatened. I believe that AB 2642 will deter individuals who seek to harm California's voters and frontline election workers while providing them swift and meaningful relief from such harm. Thank you for the opportunity this morning.

Good morning. Chair and Members of the Committee, I am Allison Anderman, former counsel at Giffords Law Center and a consultant for the Brennan Center for Justice, which works to strengthen and protect American democracy and is a sponsor of AB 2642, the Peace Act. During Reconstruction, black voters and their white allies were terrorized by the KKK. Congress passed the Klan Act in 1871 to address the harms.

Nearly 100 years later, black Americans were disenfranchised with literacy tests and poll taxes, while black and white voting rights activists were beaten and killed. Congress responded with the federal Voting Rights Act, which was signed into law in 1965. Today we face a different but grave threat to elections and voters, an insidious effort to discredit American elections and the brave people who run them. Widespread and often racist allegations of unproven fraud are resulting in very real violence and threats directed at election officials, poll workers, and voters.

Like our forebears, we must address this new threat to election safety and integrity. California, like all states, makes it a crime to intimidate a voter or election official. Yet only two states in the country allow them to sue for damages. Private enforcement has been shown to be extremely effective at deterring bad behavior, arguably more so than criminal laws. And what better use of it than to safeguard democracy itself against the threat of autocracy posed by intimidation and violence in our elections?

For these and other reasons, California would lead the nation once again by passing the Peace Act and taking this necessary step to better protect its valued civil servants and voters. Accordingly, I respectfully ask for your aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else here in support of AB 2642?

Mr. Chair and Members. Pat Moran with Aaron Reed and Associates, representing the Orange County Employees Association who represent election workers in Orange County, in support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr. Chair and Members, Cameron Dimitri with Capital Advocacy on behalf of Los Angeles County in support.

Thank you.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and Members. Daniel Pearl, on behalf of the American Federation of State County Municipal Employees in strong support.

Thank you.

Annie Chou with the California Teachers Association in support.

Thank you.

Hello again. Rachel Bhagwat, ACLU California Action in support.

Thank you.

Hello. Chanel Friedman, on behalf of the League of Women Voters of California, in strong support.

Thank you.

Gregory Kramer, on behalf of Disability Rights California, in support.

Thank you.

Tiffany Fan, on behalf of Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, in support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Rebecca Marcus representing the Brady Campaign and also for my colleagues at Everytown, in support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Jillian King, Moms Demand Action, in support.

Thank you.

Mary Lou Rossetto, Moms Demand Action volunteer, in support.

Thank you.

Hi, Evan Minton with the Voices for Progress in support.

Thank you. Is there anyone here in opposition to AB 2642? All right, bring it back to Committee. We do have a motion. Any comments or questions? Assembly Member Reyes.

Thank you for bringing this and thank you also for speaking of the urgency of this. We've got an election coming up and it's so important to get this passed for our democracy and for those who help us keep our democracy going. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Vice Chair.

Thank you for coming and speaking on this. Could you clarify where is the problem in California? Do we, either one of you, any of you, do we have reported incidents where an election official has been intimidated against current California law?

Do you want to go ahead?

Yeah. Thank you for the question. Actually, myself, I was in 2020 a victim of that. My colleague in Shasta County has been the victim of that in many instances. And there's been others that have not reported for a variety of reasons. It may not be a specific threat to their life, but it may be one on the fence. So there have been many up and down the state.

Well, does California law currently prohibit those kinds of intimidating actions to election officials?

There are certain prohibitions against kind of intimidation. This goes a step further. It allows for civil damages. It also says that if you have a gun near a polling place or an elections site, then there's a presumption that you have that weapon for intimidation purposes. And so it gives the presumption that that's the case. So this makes it a bit, this strengthens, I think, our protections for elections officials. And just to add a little bit onto what Neil said and provide some color.

In Shasta County, elections officials have encountered open hostility and threats from a small but vocal group of activists who claim concern about voter fraud. These activists have physically crowded election workers performing their official duties and visited voters' homes while claiming to be part of a, quote, official task force. In Nevada County, the registrar elect had to take out a restraining order against residents who harassed her, pushed their way into her office, and assaulted a staffer.

And in San Luis Obispo, an Asian American County Clerk Recorder, Tommy Gong, was accused of being a member of the Chinese Communist Party for refusing to conduct an illegal audit of the 2020 election. And Mr. Gong stated that this accusation, months of harassment, nationwide threats against elections officials, and an increase in anti Asian hate crimes led him to feel concerned for his safety and his family's safety. So it's, it definitely is a problem in California.

All right, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Assembly Member Essayli.

Yes. So this was in elections before, and I did ask for specific examples. And what I've heard today are just government bureaucrats who don't want to be, quote unquote, harassed. So, Mr. Neil Kelly, I'll ask you, first of all, you are one of the most respected ROVs probably in the country. So I have a lot of respect for you and the way you run an election office. So when you say you have been the victim, what specifically were you the victim of? What happened?

So in 2020, during the canvas period. Thank you, Assembly Member, for the comments. I appreciate that. In 2020, during the canvas ballots, post election, I received email threats. These were veiled threats. These did not meet the elements of a criminal act. But it was on the fence. So it was. If you certify this election, there will be blood on the ballots, blood on you, etcetera. It's unnerving. It didn't cross that threshold. And I was very fortunate that the FBI and the Sheriff's Department both visited some of these homes and that stopped.

Right. So if it crosses the line into a true threat, which is what is illegal, absolutely, I mean, bring the hammer down. Go arrest them, go, you know, knock down their door, all that stuff. But what we're talking about here is that gray area where people are expressing very strong political viewpoints.

Whether it's accurate or true or not, it does not matter. They are allowed to express a viewpoint that they think an election is rigged or fraudulent or whatever, or that you're a traitor. Those are viewpoints that people have, and they have a right under our constitution to express those and to redress their government for grievances. I'm frankly shocked that the ACLU is supporting this bill.

I will call them out because I do think the ACLU has had a strong history in this country of protecting free speech and the right to petition your government for grievances. So what concerns me about this is you're weaponizing the civil system. You're going to allow. Because who's going to pay for the lawsuit? You're not, right? The county council is going to pay for it, right?

Well, potentially, but there's also other law organizations out there that are supporting.

Oh, great. So they'll be in third party lawyers ready, lined up to sue on behalf of government bureaucrats. So you're gonna sue me and then who's gonna pay for my lawyer? Who's gonna pay for my lawyer? Yeah, I'll have to pay for my lawyer. And what if you lose the case? Do I get reimbursed? Do I get reimbursed if you bring a frivolous case? Under this law?

It's no different.

How about my question? Do I get reimbursed?

Can you be respectful? Yes. Be respectful to the witnesses. They're trying to answer. Give them a chance to answer.

Okay, she can answer, but I want her to answer my question, not the question she wants to answer, Mr. Chair.

Well, I would actually like to answer the question you asked previously. Okay, thank you. This is already the law in the nation. Election officials can and voters can sue under the federal Voting Rights Act for intimidation. This has been the law for over 50 years. So this law would not open the floodgates or do anything. And in fact, that hasn't happened under any of the laws that have been passed to protect voters and election workers.

What has happened is that election workers are leaving their profession in droves because they are intimidated and afraid, and that is threatening our democracy because it is taking with them years and years of institutional knowledge and experience. So again, this is, this is existing law.

Under the federal law that you're citing, you have to prove that the defendant intended to intimidate you.

You do not.

What is the standard?

The person has to have been intimidated. It has to be a reasonable person. It's a reasonable person's standard. But there is no intent required under the federal VRA.

You don't have to prove intent. Okay, well, if you were to ask me, this is a threat to democracy. I mean, you are chilling the speech of the people to address grievances to their government and to express their viewpoints, to issue PRAs, to send strongly worded statements. I understand it makes government officials uncomfortable, but that's part of the job. I mean, I've been a government official. We get all kinds of. You should see the statements I get.

So I'm sure my colleagues get lots of strongly worded statements, but that's part of the job. I'm worried that we are criminalizing and penalizing politics. So for that, you know, I don't have any more questions.

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I'd like to offer Mr. Kelly the opportunity to.

Yeah, just one last comment, if I could. I think what you're raising is an important point to the extent that observation of the elections is critical. And I think allowing individuals to faithfully observe the elections without being a serial harasser and threatening someone's life is an important aspect to this.

Which is already illegal.

But if, if a serial harasser is not addressing the issue by stopping through law enforcement intervention, then I think the civil penalties is another tool in the toolbox that's very important for election officials.

Assembly Member Bauer-Kahan.

Yeah. I just want to thank the author for this work. You know, we have the right to free speech. Obviously, voting is also an incredible right that we as women do not take for granted because we haven't had it very long. And it is really critical that we protect both of those things. And there is a way in which we do that that draws boundaries around. You cannot participate in political speech within a certain distance of a polling place, for example.

And we've said that that's appropriate, that you still can do so, you can do so within the boundaries outside of that. But those are laws that we have passed to draw protections around the right to vote, while also finding a way to allow people to exercise their free speech. And I think this bill does exactly that. I think it protects the right to vote.

It protects the workers that enable us to vote, which is absolutely critical to the ability for people to exercise that right while not stopping anybody from exercising their free speech rights within certain boundaries. And so, you know, I know the bill will continue to be refined as the process moves, as they all are.

But I just want to thank you for this, because I know this is something that is so critically important to our constituents, all of whom want to exercise that constitutional right that they are entitled to. Thank you.

Thank you. I also want to thank you, thank the author for his continued work in this space of ensuring election integrity and safety. Would you like to close?

Yeah, just quickly, we really do have a huge problem of elections workers, elections volunteers leaving the profession and no longer being willing to re-up to volunteer at our elections polling sites. And that's a danger to our democracy. And I think one of the reasons that happens is because we castigate them.

They're bureaucrats, or they deserve all the scorn and disdain that they get. And that's just sort of shameful. It's shameful. It's unnecessary for the people that are, you know, have set as a profession that they want to make sure that in their communities, their democracy is as strong as it possibly can be so that people who are able to vote, are registered to vote, can participate in their democracy. That's what makes California different than other states, frankly.

That's what makes America different than other countries, and that is our strength, and that's something that we should continue to protect. And that's what this bill does. I assure you that if the ACLU had concerns about my bill, they would oppose it because they're already opposing two other bills. So I think that speaks to the strength of the first amendment protections in this bill. Respectfully ask for your aye vote. Thank you.