Sen. Pat Bates – California Globe

California’s Rotten Districts Result in Rotten Result

July 13, 2023 7:03 amAugust 7, 2023 2:08 pm

In theory, if an elected official does something unpopular they could lose their re-election bid. If they do something unconscionable – like blocking harsher penalties for convicted child sex traffickers – they should lose their re-election bid. But for the...

California Assembly Democrats Block Bill to Fight Sex Trafficking of Minors

July 12, 2023 11:28 amJuly 12, 2023 5:19 pm

UPDATE below: A bill to make sex trafficking a felony once again in California was blocked Tuesday in the Assembly Public Safety Committee by Democrats, after passing unanimously in the Senate. Currently human trafficking is defined as a “non-serious” crime...

Largest Budget in CA History ‘Falls Short’: $2 billion in New Tax Increases and Lots of Pork

June 13, 2019 5:47 pmJune 14, 2019 1:41 pm

Thursday, the California State Legislature passed the Fiscal Year 2019-20 budget along party lines. At $215 billion, it is the largest budget in the history of the state due to new tax increases and hundreds of millions of last minute...

New Bureau of Environmental Justice Seeking Funding and Enforcement Power?

June 6, 2019 2:05 amJune 6, 2019 1:28 pm

In February of 2018, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra created the Bureau of Environmental Justice within the Environment Section at the California Department of Justice. The mission of this agency within an agency is “to protect people and communities that...

California Legislature Kills Bills to Reclassify Violent Sexual Crimes as ‘Violent’

March 8, 2019 1:05 amMarch 11, 2019 1:49 pm

Six real criminal justice reform bills were killed last year in the California Legislature which would have expanded the definition of violent crime to include human trafficking, elder and dependent adult abuse, assault with a deadly weapon, rape, and other...

Sen. Bates: SB 57 Doesn’t ‘Scrap’ California’s Motor Voter Law

January 23, 2019 11:31 amJanuary 28, 2019 5:37 am

Offering voter registration opportunities at the California Department of Motor Vehicles is causing people to question the integrity of our election system, according to Sen. Pat Bates (R-Laguna Niguel). Bates authored Senate Bill 57 to make the needed legislative repairs. However, a...