Lawmakers OK Inmate DNA Testing

Entering the home stretch of the lawmaking year, the California Assembly began deciding the fate of dozens of bills Thursday and approved a measure allowing authorities to use force on inmates who refuse DNA testing.

Meanwhile, a bill supported by an array of Hollywood celebrities to cap recording-industry contracts at seven years was pulled by its author as it appeared headed for defeat in an Assembly committee, and the committee’s chairwoman declared it dead.

With the end of the legislative session coming Aug. 31, bringing with it the death of hundreds of bills at the stroke of midnight, lawmakers began making a final push Thursday to pass financial privacy protection by reviving a bill that stalled last year.

The measure, SB 773 by Sen. Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough), initially sought to prevent banks and other financial institutions from selling or trading a customer’s private information without obtaining formal consent.

However, it is now expected to be amended in hopes of removing at least some of the strong opposition from banks, insurers and credit services, and its details are in flux.

Lawmakers also approved legislation by Sen. Jack Scott (D-Altadena) to require state-sanctioned trigger locks on older guns before they can be resold, and a bill by Assemblyman Juan Vargas (D-San Diego) to ban smoking within 25 feet of a playground. The Scott bill, SB 1670, must still obtain final Senate approval, while the Vargas bill, AB 1867, now goes to the desk of Gov. Gray Davis.

The DNA bill, SB 1242 by Senate Republican Leader Jim Brulte (R-Rancho Cucamonga), seeks to clear up ambiguities in state law that some authorities say prevent them from forcing inmates to provide DNA samples.

The samples, which would be used to determine whether the inmates had committed other crimes, would be entered in a database run by the office of Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer, who strongly supports the legislation.

“We contend there was no need for the bill. But obviously, if there are any ambiguities in the law, this will clear them up,” said Manuel Valencia, a spokesman for the Department of Justice. “This gets everyone on the same page.”

Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg (D-Los Angeles) objected to the legislation on grounds that it would encroach on inmates’ 5th Amendment rights.

Some inmates “might be the scum of the earth,” Goldberg argued, but “they have a right not to incriminate themselves.”

However, Assemblyman Dick Dickerson (R-Redding), a former police officer, noted that authorities are already granted power to demand fingerprints and Breathalyzer tests from suspected criminals, and said the DNA samples would be no different. The measure now awaits final Senate passage.

The recording contract bill, SB 1246 by Sen. Kevin Murray (D-Culver City), garnered strong support from music stars, including Don Henley and Beck. A number of artists even held benefit concerts to raise money and awareness for the cause. But it encountered stiff opposition from the Recording Industry Assn. of America, and the two sides were unable to find a compromise.

While Murray stopped short of declaring the bill dead for the year Thursday, he acknowledged he had been unable to bridge differences. Assemblywoman Rebecca Cohn (D-Saratoga), whose Arts, Entertainment, Sports, Tourism and Internet Media Committee was scheduled to debate the legislation Thursday, was more direct.

Cohn said in a statement that the contract issue was finished for the year because Murray “chose to walk away” and that the panel would now focus on music privacy.

Also on Thursday, a measure to give movie and television productions millions of dollars in wage-tax breaks to keep them from going out of state suffered a setback in the state Senate and may now survive only in watered-down form.

The legislation by Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson (D-Culver City), AB 2747, is backed by both labor unions and studio executives, who believe its financial rewards would keep film shoots in California and away from Canada, where production costs are cheaper.

But critics, including influential Senate Democrats, have balked at the notion of providing years of tax breaks to the film industry when the state is in the midst of a $23.6-billion budget shortfall and is facing additional budget problems in the next few years.