How Sacramento Democrats created a firestorm over prostitution nuances | Opinion
In the California Assembly, rookie Democrats Maggy Krell of Sacramento and Nick Schultz of Burbank have uncannily common careers: Both were prosecutors for the California attorney general, both specialized in human trafficking and both decided to run for state office in the same election.
Yet, thanks to Sacramento politics, Schultz and Krell came to define the fault line within the cause of Assembly Democrats on law and order issues. Krell challenged Speaker Robert Rivas and the liberal Assembly orthodoxy by authoring Assembly Bill 379, which sought to make felony prosecutions a possibility for those convicted of soliciting minors under 18. Schultz became the guy Rivas used to replace Krell after he yanked her name off of the legislation.
It was Schulz’s job to enforce the will of the Assembly Democratic caucus. This triggered an uproar, with Republicans decrying the Democrats as being soft on crime — even Gov. Gavin Newsom piled on.
Scrambling to contain the self-inflicted political damage, Schultz and Rivas announced Tuesday that they and Krell had agreed on language to make most solicitations of teens by adults a crime that qualifies as either a misdemeanor or a felony.
While the amended bill was not immediately released, it appears that a few sentences that barely tweaks Krell’s earlier bill will resolve the differences. The aroma of political malpractice is now strong in the Sacramento air. What we have seen in recent days is a failure by Assembly leadership to prevent a needless, high-profile blowup on yet another crime non-issue that Republicans have exploited to the fullest.
On this matter, the Democrats were never soft on crime. They were short on smarts and big on internal power plays.
Krell got in trouble with her own party because she wanted prosecutors to have the ability to charge a felony against all adults who solicited a minor. Despite what some at the Capitol and in the media said, Krell’s bill would not automatically make all solicitations of minors a felony. She wanted to give prosecutors the option of charging felonies and she got her way, so long as the adult is at least three years older than the minor, according to Schultz.
“This is a bill we can all be proud of, and I look forward to closely working together with all of our co-authors to deliver safer California for everyone, especially our children,” Schultz said Tuesday.
But no Democrat in that Capitol can be proud of letting the most minor of differences among two like-minded lawmakers get so out of hand. The issues of sex trafficking and prostitution took second fiddle to political power — and of who gets to wield it — among Sacramento Democrats. They are all weakened as a result.
How Sacramento hysteria ensnared two former prosecutors
Despite the near hysteria triggered by Krell’s removal from her bill, which set the stage for Republicans to beat Democrats up with innuendo that they cared more about abusers than minors, Schultz and Krell have never seemed very far apart on the substance of how to strengthen penalties against adults who solicit teens.
Yet the legislative process among Democrats broke completely down. The narrow differences were not resolved before Krell’s bill was to get its first hearing before the Assembly Public Safety Committee, chaired by Schultz. Rivas chose a nuclear option to go after one of his members. And now Schultz, suddenly the bill’s author, has to steer what was Krell’s sex trafficking and prostitution reforms through the State Senate and to a happier conclusion.
Krell said in a statement Tuesday: “I’m looking at this from a prosecutor’s standpoint — the bill strengthens California law and gives the hammer to prosecute the creeps that are preying on teenagers. I appreciate everyone’s work on this bill, especially the survivors who won’t give up.”
The mincing of words over a ‘wobbler’
Under current law, soliciting anyone age 16 or younger is what is known as a “wobbler” in prosecution-speak. The prosecutor has the discretion to file the case as either a felony (prison of more than a year) or a misdemeanor (no more than a year in jail). Soliciting a 16- or 17-year-old for prostitution is only a “wobbler” if the teen happens to be a victim of sex trafficking and sufficiently demonstrated in court.
Krell’s bill wanted to broaden the discretion of prosecutors. She wanted wobbler criminal status for any “defendant who is 18 years of age or over” and when “the person who was solicited was a minor at the time of the offense.”
Schultz doesn’t seem comfortable with the status quo.
“I think we do agree there should be expanded protections for 16- or 17-year-olds,” he said. But along with providing more discretion for prosecutors, Schultz said he wants more discretion for judges as well.
Missing from AB 379, at least for now, is more on the legislative intent of this bill and factors for judges to consider. Examples from Schultz: Did the offender have a prior relationship with the victim? Was this the first offense? How big is the age gap?
But Krell, according to Schultz, refused to accept changes like this to her bill.
“Nobody likes to have their bill tinkered with, and yet, we all have our bills modified,” Schultz said.
Schultz and Rivas could have let Krell’s bill leave the Assembly unchanged and let her battle in the Senate. Such a path has happened countless times in the Capitol. But the conflict became longer than the actual differences. It blew up on all of them, particularly Rivas, for at the end, stripping Krell of her bill was his final call.
“To see the political theater play out, it’s really unacceptable,” Schulz said. “I’m a rookie chair. I’m not going to say I handled it perfectly by any stretch.”
Praise, but battle scars
Now, there still appears to be respect, but some political bruises.
“I knew Maggy before she was elected,” Schultz said. “She was one of the smartest, most passionate people you’ll ever meet.”
Now Schultz has a front-row seat on how Democrats and Republicans fight over crime reform.
“I do think that Republicans understand that this is a challenging issue that Democrats have not historically handled well,” he said. “I think they’re capitalizing on the moment.
“I view Maggy Krell as more of a victim in all of this.”
Absent some shift in Schultz’s thinking, he and Krell may be close to what both wanted all along. They are on a trajectory to advancing legislation that makes the solicitation of every Californian under 18 a potential felony, with some discretion for prosecutors.
“I think this is all about nuance,” Schultz said.
Perhaps. But when one party controls all the power, it’s too tempting for its leaders to preordain the future of any given bill and to circumvent the democratic process to resolve the differences of our elected leaders. Committee staffers, caught up in the power hubris, aren’t gods either. Krell didn’t want to budge, so Rivas pushed her out of the way for all the Assembly to see. That’s what really happened to AB 379. This was never about good versus evil.
This story was originally published May 7, 2025 at 11:30 AM with the headline "How Sacramento Democrats created a firestorm over prostitution nuances | Opinion."