The Skinny

In this era of term limits, there may not be a heck of a lot left by way of
tradition. But one ritual that has not died is the practice of hazing a new
member of the Legislature when their first bill is taken up on the floor.
This week, it was the Legislature’s newest member Democrat Ted Lieu‘s turn
for the hazing. Leiu’s first bill, AB 1900, would add new crimes to the list
of convictions that would force criminals to register as sex offenders.
Dennis Mountjoy asked Lieu if he considered his bill a “tough-on-crime”
bill. When Lieu said he did, Mountjoy asked, “How did you ever get a
tough-on-crime bill out of the Public Safety Committee?” But Nicole Parra
won the prize for best quip of the proceedings. When she noticed that
“pimping and pandering” was on the list of new sex offenses, Parra asked
“isn’t that what we do in the Legislature?” before adding “well, except for
the pimping.”