(The Center Square) – California Democratic legislators gutted a bill that would have made it a felony to solicit any children for sex, despite support for the measure from California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis. 

Assembly Bill 379, a bipartisan bill from Assemblywoman Maggy Krell, D-Sacramento, and State Sen. Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, would have closed the loopholes left open by the forced amendments to Grove’s Senate Bill 1414, which passed last year and made it a felony to pay all minors for sex except for those 16 and 17 years old. 

National outrage on the bill’s near-shelving put the bill back onto the legislative schedule, and led Newsom and Kounalakis to come out in support of the bill’s existing provisions. 

However, Assembly Public Safety Chairman Nick Schultz, D-Burbank, has instead opted “to host info hearings on the issue in the fall” as Democratic legislators voted to forcefully gut the bill against Krell’s wishes to remove the provision making it a felony to purchase sex from all minors.

Republicans responded by proposing a “hostile” amendment to restore the provision, which Krell officially endorsed, saying she does not consider the restoration amendment “hostile” and would be voting to support it. 

In one notable exchange on the Assembly floor session on AB 379, Assemblyman Mark Gonzalez, D-Los Angeles, took aim at Assemblyman Carl DeMaio, R-San Diego for his support of making it a felony to buy sex from children.

“SB 357, which this bill is trying to fix, legalized loitering for the purpose of sex work and prostitution. Why? Because somehow it was spun as anti-LGBT to try and enforce laws against sex trafficking,” said DeMaio on the Assembly floor. “I will tell you as a gay Republican it is offensive, and a supermajority of the gay community disavow the LGBTQ caucus claiming that somehow this bill is anti-gay. It’s offensive to use the gay community as window dressing for sex trafficking.”

“What’s offensive is when you stand on this floor and call yourself gay, but yet you vote down the same civil rights for gay people every single day,” said Gonzalez.

SB 357 author State Sen. Scott Wiener argued at the time that decriminalization of loitering to commit prostitution “contributes to “discrimination on the basis of gender, race, class and perceived sex worker status – in particular, targeting Black women and members of the transgender community.”

Since SB 357 has come into law, vast swathes of urban areas in California have become open prostitution zones. In Los Angeles, a 40 block area of South Central is covered by hundreds of prostitutes, some charging as little as $40 for some acts, with “10 girls on the corner, condoms on the ground,” many of whom are minors, all in “broad daylight.” 

Sacramento Sheriff Jim Cooper, who previously was a Democratic Assemblyman, condemned the changes to the bill, and cited his department’s high volume of cases regarding the sex trafficking of minors. 

“In my agency, we currently have 17 open cases of juveniles being trafficked for sex. This year, we have already rescued seven juveniles from the sex trade,” said Cooper. “They are currently getting sexually exploited, and the Legislature made a decision today that the exploitation of these children is acceptable collateral damage.”

(The Center Square) – President Donald Trump picked an attorney in the Tennessee attorney general’s office for a spot on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Whitney Hermandorfer is currently the director of the Strategic Litigation Unit in the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office. If confirmed by the Senate, she will fill a judicial vacancy left by Judge Jane Branstetter Stranch, who announced in January she was taking senior status. The court is based in Cincinnati and hears cases from Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky and Michigan.

“The atate of Tennessee has trusted Whitney Hermandorfer over and over with complex cases of national significance. She has never let us down,” said Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti on Friday. “Her leadership of Tennessee’s Strategic Litigation Unit sets a high bar of excellence at every level of the federal judiciary, all the way up to the Supreme Court of the United States.”

Kentucky Attorney General Russel Coleman said Hermandorfer has been an advocate.

“As neighbors to the north, our office has been grateful for Whitney’s partnership as we uphold our laws and the Constitution. Whitney was one of the brilliant advocates behind our lawsuit to protect women’s sports, and her ability to see around legal corners led to key victories all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court,” Coleman said in a statement.

Tennessee’s U.S. senators praised Trump’s nomination.

“She is a rising star in Tennessee, and she will be a fair-minded jurist who will apply our nation’s laws as they are written and defend the Constitution,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said.

“Few can boast equal credentials, having clerked for Justices Alito and Barrett, as well as then-Judge Kavanaugh. Whitney graduated top of her law school class at the George Washington University Law School,” said Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn.

(The Center Square) – Georgians could have a $2,680 tax increase if Congress lets the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expire by the end of the year, according to a study by the National Taxpayers Union Foundation.

The main issue facing Peach Stare businesses is a policy on full expensing, the authors of the report said.

“Georgia does not adopt full expensing business investments,” the report said. “State policymakers could adopt 100% full expensing regardless of whether federal full expensing is renewed.”

Florida has the highest possible tax burden among Georgia’s surrounding states at $3,650. Alabama is the lowest at $2,192.

Business groups are advocating for the tax cuts. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Greater North Fulton Chamber held a roundtable discussion on the tax cuts last week with U.S. Rep. Richard McCormick, R-Ga.

“Extending the pro-growth tax provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is critical to ensuring continued economic prosperity for Greater North Fulton,” said Kali Boatright, president and CEO of the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce, in a statement after the event. “Without action, this would prohibit job creation, investment, and growth.”

Groups are lobbying Georgia’s Democratic U.S. Senate delegation to support an extension. Sen. Jon Ossoff has indicated he will not support the tax cuts. Americans for Prosperity held a rally outside of his Atlanta office on April 15.

But there are also concerns about how the tax cuts could affect the federal deficit.

A letter sent to U.S. Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., from the Congressional Budget Office shows the tax cuts could add $37 trillion over the next 30 years, according to previous reporting by The Center Square.