Sacramento Report
by Francisco Silva
The California Apartment Association (CAA) is actively working to address the serious flaws in California's Megan's Law. Current state law effectively prohibits use of the Megan's Law Web site to deny housing to listed sex offenders. If a residential rental-property owner or manager learns from the database that someone is a sex offender, he/she cannot deny the sex offender housing or warn other residents based on this knowledge, without the risk of being sued by the sex offender. At the same time, the law also exposes rental-property owners to lawsuits if they fail to protect residents against a known risk—in this case, someone with a documented criminal history of sexual assault against children, women and other potential residents and guests.
To correct the problem, CAA sponsored Assembly Bill 438 (Parra), which would amend the state sex-offender law in order to give rental-property owners and managers the flexibility to protect their residents from dangerous sex offenders. Specifically, the bill requires the swift correction of the Megan's Law Web site if a rental-property owner sends notification that a sex offender no longer lives at a listed address. The bill also amends state law in order to clarify that rental-property owners and managers can use the Megan's Law database to act decisively in the interests and safety of other tenants. The bill provides that rental-housing providers can, but are not required to, use the database to decide whether or not to refuse to house registered sex offenders, regain possession of rental units from dangerous sex offenders, or warn other tenants about registered sex offenders.
Unfortunately, AB 438 is currently stalled in the Assembly Public Safety Committee, where it failed initial passage on a three-to-three vote. The “aye” votes came from Assembly Members Cohn (D-Saratoga), Spitzer (R-Orange) and La Suer (R-La Mesa). The “no” votes came from Dymally (D-Los Angeles), Goldberg (D-Los Angeles) and Leno (D-San Francisco). A seventh member of the committee, Assembly Member Ira Ruskin (D-Redwood City), who expressed his desire to help CAA address the flaws in the law, was summarily removed from the committee prior to the hearing on AB 438.
There is good news. The bill is not dead. CAA's network has initiated a grassroots campaign, taking its case to the public in order to force the Legislature to deal with the problem by making AB 438 law. CAA is garnering support at the local level in order to demonstrate to state elected officials that their constituents support AB 438, and they want legislators to weigh in favor of families and children rather than convicted sex offenders.
As part of the CAA grassroots initiative, each CAA chapter and division is working to get local community groups, cities, counties and tenants to formally support AB 438. As a member of CAA, you can help in these efforts by contacting your local CAA chapter or division, or the CAA Sacramento office. Identify key groups or associations that you are involved with (such as Rotary clubs) that you believe would support AB 438. Perhaps you could even be a lead person in securing support from a particular group. You can also help by getting petition signatures from tenants who support changes to the law.
With your help, CAA will achieve its goal to amend Megan's Law in order to provide safe rental housing for our residents. You can get additional information regarding the grassroots initiative by visiting www.caanet.org.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of SFAA or the San Francisco Apartment Magazine. Francisco Silva is the vice president and counsel of legislative affairs for CAA. Copyright © 2005 by the San Francisco Apartment Magazine. All rights reserved.