Last-Minute Sacramento Ban on Shock Gloves Hits Federal Wall

With four days left in the legislative session, Assemblymember LaShae Sharp-Collins (D-San Diego) stood with fellow Democrats on Thursday and sold Assembly Bill 2760 as a moral emergency: ban local, state and federal law enforcement from buying or using electronic shock gloves in California. 

Her last minute attempts come on the heels of the Department of Homeland Security published a notice that ICE intends to spend $10 million to $20 million on the CTG-5 G.L.O.V.E.—Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter—made by Compliant Technologies of Kentucky. The glove looks like a patrol glove until an officer hits a wrist switch. Then a contact shock of up to 380 volts is supposed to produce compliance in seconds, without the burn marks of a Taser. 

Federal officials call it a less-lethal option. Democrats call it torture with better branding. 

“We cannot spend state money or tax dollars on technology that is not to better our state,” Sharp-Collins said at the Capitol news conference. “It cannot be used on our children, it cannot be used on our teachers, our business owners, it cannot be used on anyone.” She said the measure was drafted with the attorney general’s office and Legislative Counsel to survive a Trump administration challenge. 

The bill is not a clean introduction. AB 2760 was filed in February and rewritten August 21 into a ban on “wearable electroshock devices,” including clothing and accessories, covering federal agencies operating in California. It would bar state and local departments from using state funds to buy the devices and force them to rewrite use-of-force policies. 

On Monday the Senate voted 30-9 to suspend Joint Rules 61 and 62(a) so the rewritten text could skip the usual deadlines before sine die at midnight August 31. That is the Democrats’ supermajority playbook: gut, amend, suspend the rules, and hope the governor signs before anyone reads the fine print, including the dyslexic governor. 

U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli did not wait for the press conference. After the New York Post reported the rewrite, he posted: “This proposed California law will have no force or effect on federal law enforcement because of the Supremacy Clause. It will be struck down like their silly attempts to ban agents from wearing masks. California should instead focus on combating the rampant fraud plaguing the state.”

After the press conference, Essayli added: “This bill is DOA, just like their mask ban. California does not have the authority to dictate what tools federal law enforcement can or cannot use. That’s the job of congress.”

This bill is DOA, just like their mask ban. California does not have authority to dictate what tools federal law enforcement can and cannot use. That’s the job of Congress. https://t.co/USi1gC4aEU

— F.A. United States Attorney Bill Essayli (@USAttyEssayli) August 27, 2026

That is a similar response he used when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the “No Secret Police” mask ban and the “No Vigilantes” ID mandate. Essayli told agencies the state has no jurisdiction over federal officers, directed them not to change operations, and said if Newsom wants to regulate federal agents he can go through Congress. Federal courts have already weighed in.  A Ninth Circuit panel held that California’s attempt to tell ICE how to identify itself “attempts to directly regulate the United States in its performance of governmental functions.” The Supremacy Clause, the court said, forbids it.

AB 2760 walks into the same wall on purpose. Sharp-Collins wrote federal agencies into the ban. It is also why Essayli can treat the bill as political theater.