Introduction and background of the bill
This bill aims to protect legislative employees and staffers who report illegal activities including sexual harassment, assault and other inappropriate acts from retaliation. Any person who violates it will be fined up to ten thousand dollars and no more than one year in jail. It encourages legislative staffers and lobbyists from speaking up and report illegal behaviours, especially sexual assaults.

This bill has failed to be passed for four years in a row since 2014 (including AB 1788, AB 289, AB 2065) and has just recently been passed in Feb 2018. There were similar legislation proposed in California, but failed to turn into a law. AB 2256, proposed by Anthony Portantino, which aimed to protect legislative …show more content…
Potential supporting groups of this bill include Legislative Women’s Caucus, California Whistleblower Protection Act, and California Coalition Against Sexual Assault (CALCASA). According to the Assembly Bill Policy Committee Analysis for AB 403, registered supporter includes Support Southwest Legislative Council, and there are no opposition on file yet .

It is likely that four legislative leaders of California will support this bill, as it promotes further protection against whistle blowers and hence reduce the chances of people being sexually harassed. Among the four legislative leaders, two have already shown public endorsement to this legislation. Governor Jerry Brown has already signed the bill into Law, and Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León has already set up a committee in order to understand more about how sexual harassment relate bills are being dealt with in Senate and Assembly, and try to establish a uniform approach for both to deal with similar bills in the future, which shows his focus on related …show more content…
AB 403 has been turned down for four years, each time receiving a pass from the Assembly, but being buried and ignored by the Appropriations Committee without reason, leading to the failure of this bill. The plan Assemblymember Melissa Melendez made to make it pass by the appropriation committee, is to get more sponsors for the bill, and continue to propose the bill every year. This year, in Feburary, with the co-sponsorship of four other Assemblywomen, the bill was finally passed by the Appropriations Committee. Similar plan is used to get the bill out of the appropriations committee in the other house. There was little information on who being the ideal member of the other house to “jockey” the bill. It is known that the bill failed for the last four years due to “unknown delay” by the appropriations committee. In my opinion, for sexual harassment related bills, there are usually no public or clear opposition to the legislature of these bills as it will harm the reputation and legitimacy of both the opposer as well as the organization he or she belongs