Davis Signs Expansion of Child Car Seat Law

Gov. Gray Davis signed legislation Monday that will require all children younger than 6 or weighing less than 60 pounds to be strapped in child safety seats when riding in vehicles.

One of the first such measures in the nation, the new law will take effect Jan. 1, 2002, along with stiffer fines for violators. Current law requires children 4 or younger and weighing less than 40 pounds to be secured in safety seats.

As the bill made its way through the Legislature, the author, Sen. Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough), cited studies showing that children in cars are often not safely restrained and that small children can slip out of seat belts in accidents.

“The cases of spinal cord injuries and brain injury are real and numerous,” Speier said Monday. “It was high time that we advanced the law to recognize the technology.”

In Washington state, lawmakers approved a similar measure, to take effect in 2002. In several other states ,legislation raising the weight and age limits has failed.

The Speier bill, SB 567, highlighted a day of action as the Democratic governor dealt with about 130 bills sent to him by the Legislature before it adjourned last month. About 500 await the governor’s action before the deadline at midnight Saturday.

Child safety seats lift a child so a car’s standard the lap belt fits over the pelvis and the shoulder strap fits across the chest. Numerous charities provide safety seats to parents who cannot afford them.

Violators of the safety seat requirement will pay heftier fines under the new law. First-time offenders will be assessed $100, instead of $50. Repeat offenders will pay $250, instead of $100. Last year, the California Highway Patrol issued more than 10,000 citations for car seat violations.

In another action, Davis sided with such Internet heavyweights as Barnes & Noble against independent booksellers and vetoed a bill requiring big-name dot-com retailers to pay California sales taxes.

Davis charged that the bill, which barely squeaked out of the Democratic-dominated Legislature, unfairly singled out online retailers for a tax hit.

“Imposing sales taxes on Internet transactions at this point in its young life would send the wrong signal about California’s international role as the incubator of the dot-com economy,” Davis said Monday.

The veto came as no surprise. Davis had spoken out against taxation of Internet sales in February after a meeting with President Clinton and other governors.

Supporters of the Internet tax plan, AB 2412 by Assemblywoman Carole Migden (D-San Francisco), had argued that it would close a loophole by which major online retailers, such as booksellers Barnes & Noble and Borders, can legally avoid paying California sales taxes on transactions.

Their competitors in California, meanwhile, do have to pay sales taxes.

Some retailers in the state, such as Macy’s.com and EddieBauer.com, operate their own online sites and collect taxes on their Internet sales.

Migden noted that some online retailers that also operate retail stores in California bypass collecting the tax on electronic sales by separating their online businesses and moving them out of state.

This gives certain online retailers a competitive advantage, supporters of the bill said, and millions of dollars in tax revenue go uncollected. This shortchanges health, education, safety and other public programs, they argued.

Davis, who counts Silicon Valley dot-com industrialists among his strongest political supporters, rejected the bill, asserting that the Internet “must be subject to a stable and nondiscriminatory legal environment, particularly in the area of taxation.”

The bill, he said, went in the other direction.

“It singles out companies that are conducting transactions electronically and attempts to impose tax collection obligations on them to which, according to California courts, they are not subject,” he said.

The bill was fought by the American Electronics Assn. and supported by the Northern California Independent Booksellers Assn. and various local governments and labor unions.

Teresa Casazza, a vice president of the electronics association, praised the veto, noting that taxation of Internet sales is a highly complex issue that so far has defied a solution in Congress.

“This bill was an attempt to create a Band-Aid [solution for] a very significant issue,” she said. “It was a very small approach to the real issue of how we deal with sales tax collection in an e-commerce field.”

The veto drew criticism from Karen Pennington, manager of a Menlo Park bookstore and president of the 350-member booksellers association, which is fighting major online retailers for sales.

“I’m dismayed. The reality is these sales are being taken out of the communities, which will be poorer for every dollar that is not being collected,” Pennington said.

Davis did, however, sign a separate bill by Sen. John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara) that would create a state commission to study tax issues related to electronic commerce and make recommendations in the next three to five years.

But Pennington said California cannot wait for a long-term study.

In other actions, Davis vetoed a pair of bills by Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angles) that would have given the Legislature information about state laws that run afoul of the North American Free Trade Agreement and regulations advanced by the World Trade Organization.

The bills , SB 1516 and SB 1566, would have required the governor to review trade agreements to determine where conflicts with current policies may exist and report them to the Legislature.

In veto messages, Davis said the state has no role in treaties, so the bills were unnecessary.

Hayden estimates that about 95 of California’s existing and previous statutes appear to be in conflict with international trade agreements. For example, a landmark law that forced the state to divest itself of holdings in South Africa in protest of apartheid in the 1980s would have violated trade agreements, he said.

Hayden charged that Davis’ rejection of his bills “will perpetuate the process in which the Legislature is kept asleep while its laws are under attack by multinationals.”

In other actions, Davis:

* Vetoed a bill, AB 609 by Assemblyman Scott Wildman (D-Los Angeles), that would have required schools to ensure that functionally blind children receive Braille instruction of the same quality as the education offered other children. Davis said the bill would be too costly and would have the effect of reducing services to blind children.

* Rejected a bill, AB 2585 by Assemblyman Tony Cardenas (D-Sylmar), that would have demanded that school districts report on the English proficiency of their students. Davis said that his own school reform program “already holds districts accountable for the progress of all pupils” and that the bill would cost too much.

* Sent back a bill, SB 1514 by Hayden, that proposed creating a committee to study the nutritional value of school foods, including genetically engineered products. Davis said a proposed meeting on healthy schools will examine the issue and called Hayden’s proposal “premature and unnecessary.”

* Signed a bill, AB 484 by Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica), creating a state fund to reimburse local governments up to $300,000 per production for costs involved in allowing filming in their jurisdictions.

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Time staff writer Miguel Bustillo contributed to this report.