Against the odds, rape penalty bill moves forward | Opinion
Raping an unconscious person deserves the same penalty as any other rape. Of course it does. It stands to reason.
Most people are surprised to learn that a predator who slips a drug in an unsuspecting victim’s drink before a sexual assault can get released from prison earlier than other convicted rapists.
But getting that changed, in a California legislature committed to reducing prison overcrowding, is no easy trick. Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil knew that when she launched Senate Bill 268, which would lift incapacitated rape to its rightful place as a violent felony.
A week ago, the District 4 Democrat told me that SB 268 might not even get a hearing Tuesday in the Senate Public Safety Committee. For seven years, the panel has steadfastly rejected tinkering with Proposition 57, which passed in 2016 and allows earlier parole considerations for some “nonviolent offenders.”
A recent Modesto Bee editorial reflecting that reality came off as pessimistic while also lauding Alvarado-Gil for fighting the good fight. She is a survivor of childhood sexual assault and feels a personal stake, telling me, “This will be the hill I die on.”
I wrote that editorial. And frankly, I was shocked when the panel not only agreed to hear SB 268, but put it on a path for possible success with a unanimous stamp of approval.
What happened?
Compromise, that’s what.
In its first draft, SB 268 would classify as a violent felony the rape of any person unable to provide consent. Knowing that some powerful legislators are hinky about anything that might add a strike to California’s three-strikes rule, Alvarado-Gil agreed to narrow the bill to focus only on the rape of someone drugged for that purpose.
Did she get everything she wanted? No. But she got something, which is more than any other legislator can say who has tilted a lance at Prop. 57 in years. And she intends to shore up other penalties for sexual assault in future sessions, as soon as January, she said.
“I’m taking this as a win,” Alvarado-Gil said during a phone interview. “This (compromise) is giving me a fair shot. That’s all I could ask for.”
The fight isn’t over, of course. To become law, SB 268 must win the approval of other committees and the full Senate before going to the Assembly, and ultimately, the governor.
It will see at least one friendly face in the Assembly: Modesto Republican Juan Alanis, who is vice chairman of the Public Safety Committee, and who signed on a co-author. So did Assemblyman Heath Flora, who represents northeast Stanislaus County.
Off to a good start
By most accounts, Alanis seems committed to finding bipartisan solutions. Just Thursday, he sang the praises of a package of six Assembly bills addressing the fentanyl scourge; those bills also cleared their first committee hurdle.
“Republicans and Democrats have set aside partisan divides,” Alanis said in a release. “We have proven to find common ground together.”
Let’s review. Freshman legislators representing Modesto in both the Senate and the Assembly — one Democrat, and the other Republican — are making progress, despite calcified “we’re right, you’re wrong” attitudes across an entire nation, by embracing the only thing that can overcome it: compromise.
It’s easy to dig in one’s heels, refusing ever to give an inch. But that never makes friends, and rarely moves the needle in politics.
In a solidly purple region — composed of both red and blue — the most effective approach is finding and holding fast to whatever all sides can agree on.
It seems our representatives, both new and from different parties, are off to a decent start.
This story was originally published April 23, 2023 at 6:00 AM.
