SACRAMENTO —
California is the latest state trying to remove involuntary servitude as a constitutionally protected form of punishment, a move aimed at formally severing the remnants of slavery from the law.
The U.S. Constitution bans slavery, but it allows involuntary servitude for punishment of a crime. Many state constitutions say the same thing, including California’s.
But a movement to get rid of those exceptions has been gaining momentum across the country. Colorado was the first state to get rid of the exception in 2018, and voters in Utah and Nebraska followed in 2020.
Monday, the California Assembly approved a bill that would eliminate involuntary servitude in the state for any reason. The bill now heads to the state Senate. If the bill clears the state Legislature before the end of June, it would be put on the statewide ballot this November for voters to decide.
“The nature of this measure is importantly symbolic,” Assemblyman Ash Kalra, a Democrat from San Jose, said Monday before the vote. “Our constitution serves as the guiding principle for all other state laws. There is no place for slavery, forced labor or involuntary servitude on our books.”
Although slavery was outlawed nationwide in 1865, states for decades used the constitutional exception for involuntary servitude to make money from their prison populations. States would lease inmates — mostly Black men — to private companies for work. The state made money, but the inmates were not paid.
That “convict...
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