Lawmakers ‘Just Say NO’ to Slavery in California

Democrats in the California Legislature voted Thursday to outlaw slavery in California.

Most people think slavery was already illegal under the U.S. Constitution. But this is California. And in California, “slavery” has a different definition: Slavery in California is “forced labor in prison.”

Assembly Constitutional Amendment 8, the End Slavery in California Act by Assemblywoman Lori Wilson (D-Suisun City) says (amendments included):

This measure would instead prohibit slavery in any form. This measure would prohibit the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation or any local entity operating a jail facility from punishing disciplining any incarcerated person for refusing a work assignment. The measure would also clarify that its provisions do not prohibit the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation or any local entity operating a jail facility from awarding credits to an incarcerated person credit toward their sentence for voluntarily accepting who voluntarily accepts a work assignment.

I remember when prison was intended to provide justice to crime victims by incarcerating the convicted criminal.

But in California, forcing a prison inmate to work for meager pay is considered “slavery” by the left.

ACA 8 is one of 14 reparations bills the legislative Black Caucus is trying to get passed. It was debated in the Senate and Assembly Thursday.

Sen. Lola Smallwood Cuevas (D-Los Angeles) spoke in support of ACA 8 in the Senate Thursday. “All work has dignity,” she said. “There are thousands of indentured servants in our [prison] system.”

She spoke about the “free labor of the black people who built this nation,” and claimed “we are forcing laws to force more people into our prisons at this moment.”

Sen. Steven Bradford (D-Inglewood) said “mass incarceration is a direct result of slavery and the emancipation proclamation,” which “forced individuals recently freed to go back and work on plantations.”

“It runs deep in California,” Bradford said.

“The legacy of slavery and forced labor runs deep in California’s history,” said Assemblywoman Wilson. “From the exploitation of Indigenous people in Spanish missions, to Black slaves forced to mine for gold. Today, we have an opportunity to take a step in the direction towards ending that legacy.”

ACA 8 states (amendments included):

WHEREAS, The California Constitution has explicitly allowed involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime since 1849, more than 15 years before slavery was abolished in the United States; and

WHEREAS, More than 150 years after slavery was abolished, correctional institutions continue to rely on the involuntary servitude exception in the California Constitution to demand forced labor from incarcerated people; and

WHEREAS, Forced labor has no redeeming qualities and is inconsistent with California’s respect for human dignity; and

WHEREAS, It is the intent of the Legislature that no person in the State of California, regardless of their circumstance of confinement, be subjected to slavery or involuntary servitude in the state of California and any place subject to its jurisdiction; now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Assembly, the Senate concurring, That the Legislature of the State of California at its 2023–24 Regular Session commencing on the fifth day of December 2022, two-thirds of the membership of each house concurring, hereby proposes to the people of the State of California, that the Constitution of the State be amended as follows:

Slavery in any form is and involuntary servitude are prohibited.

(b) The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation or any local entity operating a jail facility shall not punish discipline any incarcerated person for refusing a work assignment.

(c) This section does not Nothing in this section shall prohibit the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation or any local entity operating a jail facility from awarding credits to an incarcerated person credit toward their sentence for who voluntarily accepting accepts a work assignment.

(d) Amendments made to this section by the measure adding this subdivision shall become operative on January 1, 2025.

ACA 8 bill analysis says “the California Constitution contains the same prohibitions on slavery and involuntary servitude and the same exception for involuntary servitude as punishment for crime.”

Prison and incarceration is where a criminal pays their debt to society; it is supposed to isn’t supposed to be fun. It can however, be productive where inmates can earn a GED or higher education degree. Inmates can work and even learn a trade.

With ACA 8, Democrats will muddy the Constitution, rather than pass policy applicable to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR).

Passage of this constitutional amendment Thursday by the California Legislature will place this constitutional amendment on the ballot to be decided by the voters. Let’s hope voters see how absurd this is.