Classic lines from baseball movies aptly characterize the painstaking play of some Democratic legislators.

What happened in the California legislature was just like a Bush League mistake.

In the 1988 film Bull Durham (arguably the greatest baseball movie of all time), a frustrated minor league manager passionately preaches to an incompetent team. He said, “Baseball is a simple game. You throw the ball. You catch the ball. You hit the ball.”

“I got it?”

Likewise, the hardball game of legislation can be simple. Not always, but sometimes.

Example: If a pimp is selling children for sex, i.e. offering them to pedophiles, it is a serious offense.

There is no “if” or “but”.

Do you understand, Democrats?

And “simple” doesn’t necessarily mean simple. In many cases, it is synonymous with common sense.

Even if it doesn’t fit snugly into someone’s abstract ideological handbook, it’s real-world truth and practical.

Luckily for the Democrats, Gov. Gavin Newsom and incoming Congressional Speaker Robert Rivas in rural Hollister, San Benito County, acknowledged sound policies and read the political playing field. They saved the party from a potentially costly public backlash.

Here’s what I find frustrating:

Two months ago, the Democratic-led state Senate unanimously passed SB14, a bill of Republican lawmakers that would toughen penalties for repeat sex trafficking of minors.

Sex trafficking is now considered a non-serious felony. SB14 If children were peddling, they would officially designate it as “serious.”

The importance of labeling a felony a “felony” is to subject the offender to California’s “three strikes” law. The law could significantly extend prison terms for repeat offenders.

The bill was so simple that all 40 senators voted for it. In fact, both parties agreed not to even bother with a floor debate or a roll call vote. The bill has been placed on the so-called “Consent Calendar,” a place where bipartisan bills soft-land, and too controversial bills are routinely passed en masse, often at the same time.

This was made possible when the author, Sen. Shannon Grove (Republican, Bakersfield), compromised with the Democrats and amended the bill to apply only to trafficking in persons under the age of 18. Initially, she wanted harsher penalties for all sex trafficking, regardless of the age of the victim.

Our next stop is the Congressional Public Safety Commission. And the bill seemed to die until chairman Rep. Reggie Jones Sawyer (D-Los Angeles) was alarmed by Newsom, Rivas and many angry voters.

Over the years, the commission has been the deathbed for tougher penalties legislation. A recent example: measures to increase fines for rape of minors with developmental disabilities. Another is for fentanyl dealers if fentanyl users are seriously injured by the drug.

Opponents of harsher sentences tend to stick to the principle that increasing sentences is wrong because it can overcrowd prisons, and they do so disproportionately to people of color.

They hold up the banner of criminal justice reform, acknowledging, for example, that career pimps must pay a higher price for their vices and must not prey on children at will, but refuse to accept the idea that reform can be achieved.

Odessa Perkins of Bakersfield told a congressional committee last week, “I heard the opposition that black people in California were unfairly harmed in the three strikes.”

“But I am here to tell you that I have been repeatedly sexually abused and raped by black and white men and even some women.

Perkins, who is black, said he had been abused since childhood. “Touched, groomed. Then I was made to have sex with a grown man, and then… a bunch of ‘uncles’ without a quote.” Then I was trafficked by the highest bidder, a drug dealer. But what you’re looking at now are survivors. ”

The Democratic Commissioners were unfazed. They cheated the vote. The bill needed five “yes” votes to pass, but it received just two votes from the committee’s lone Republican.

“Felony is stupid,” says Steve Maviglio, a Democratic political consultant. “Voters get furious when they do things like: [crime punishment] The pendulum has swung too far back and politicians have become too lenient. People are in danger now. ”

Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper, citing a former colleague in Congress, told me, “Some of these people are out of line with their moral standards.” “This bill was easy.”

Cooper, a moderate Democrat before being elected sheriff, said he tried to push several crime bills but never even got a committee hearing.

“In the current Congress, the victim issue is irrelevant,” he argues.

Sex trafficking is important to Newsom. The governor called Mr. Grove to express his disappointment. He then called Rivas and urged the speaker to intervene. At the Democratic Caucus meeting, Mr. Rivas declared that the embarrassing situation needed to be rectified.

The Public Safety Commission immediately withdrew. In a meeting that lasted only a fraction of a second, the committee voted 6 to 0 to reinstate the bill and send it to the Appropriations Committee.

Jones-Sawyer voted in favor of the bill for the second time. But amendments are still needed to ensure that victims forced to help traffickers are not subject to harsher penalties, he said.

Mr. Grove told me the bill was amended sufficiently. “Forty senators thought no further amendments were needed,” she said.

Jones-Sawyer also noted that underage sex traffickers could already face 15 years in prison if there is force, coercion or violence. But that is often difficult to prove, proponents of the bill argue.

“I can’t understand why California doesn’t call child trafficking a serious felony,” said a retired Alameda County district superintendent. Athi. Nancy O’Malley, Democrat.

“People are shocked. That’s why lawmakers are pushing back.”

Politics, like baseball, is basically a simple game. Too much voter opposition and you lose.