Bill Text: CA ACA8 | 2023-2024 | Regular Session | Amended
NOTE: There are more recent revisions of this legislation. Read Latest Draft
Bill Title: Slavery.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 24-0)
Status: (Passed) 2024-06-27 - Chaptered by Secretary of State - Res. Chapter 133, Statutes of 2024. [ACA8 Detail]
Download: California-2023-ACA8-Amended.html
in any form is and involuntary servitude are prohibited.
Bill Title: Slavery.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 24-0)
Status: (Passed) 2024-06-27 - Chaptered by Secretary of State - Res. Chapter 133, Statutes of 2024. [ACA8 Detail]
Download: California-2023-ACA8-Amended.html
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Amended
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Senate
June 20, 2024 |
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Amended
IN
Senate
June 19, 2024 |
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Amended
IN
Senate
June 12, 2024 |
CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE—
2023–2024 REGULAR SESSION
Assembly Constitutional Amendment
No. 8
| Introduced by Assembly Member Wilson (Coauthors: Assembly Members Bonta, Bryan, Wendy Carrillo, Connolly, Gipson, Haney, Jackson, Kalra, Low, McCarty, McKinnor, Ortega, Papan, Blanca Rubio, Santiago, Ting, and Weber) (Coauthors: Senators Bradford, Dodd, Durazo, Skinner, Smallwood-Cuevas, and Wiener) |
February 17, 2023 |
A resolution to propose to the people of the State of California an amendment to the Constitution of the State, by amending Section 6 of Article I thereof, relating to slavery.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
ACA 8, as amended, Wilson.
Slavery.
The California Constitution prohibits slavery and prohibits involuntary servitude, except as punishment to a crime.
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.
Digest Key
Vote: 2/3 Appropriation: NO Fiscal Committee: YES Local Program: NOBill Text
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:
That Section 6 of Article I thereof is amended to read:
SEC. 6.
(a) Slavery(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.
