By Andrew Graham
The Sacramento Bee
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed on Sunday a Republican lawmaker’s bill to make theft by a police officer in the line of duty a career-ending ethical offense, saying it was duplicative to existing law.
Assembly Bill 2337 was authored by outgoing lawmaker and former California highway patrolman Assemblymember Tom Lackey, R-Palmdale. It would have added theft “committed by a peace officer under color of authority,” to the list of offenses considered to be serious misconduct by the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training. It’s the regulatory body that certifies law enforcement officers in the state. The law change would’ve allowed POST to decertify an officer caught stealing, preventing them from working in law enforcement again in California.
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In a brief veto message, Newsom said the law already includes “abuse of power” and “dishonesty” as serious misconduct and theft could fall under either.
“Further particularizing of the definition is unnecessary and may be interpreted to suggest that other unspecified violations are not actionable,” Newsom said in the message.
On the Assembly floor, Lackey, a Mormon, had invoked the rapper Afroman, a fellow son of Palmdale best known for the early 2000s marijuana anthem “Because I Got High,” as he sought the bill’s passage.
Afroman now lives in Ohio and received renewed fame after a 2022 raid on his rural farmhouse by local sheriff’s deputies.
The Adams County Sheriff’s Office conducted the raid on suspicion of drug trafficking and kidnapping — but found nothing with which to incriminate or charge Afroman. The rapper in turn accused deputies of stealing $400 when they confiscated and later returned thousands of dollars in cash. The sheriff, after a review, said evidence was miscounted, but denied theft.
The rapper, whose real name is Joseph Foreman, recorded the aggressive raid on his home surveillance system in videos that showed officers riffling through cash and his CD collection and kicking down his door. In one moment, video captures a deputy taking a second look at a lemon pound cake set out on the rapper’s kitchen counter. Afroman went on to publish songs and music videos taunting the deputies, including one called Lemon Pound Cake that mocked the portly deputy for his apparent interest in the cake.
“Mamma’s lemon pound cake,” Afroman rapped, “it tastes so nice. It made the Sheriff wanna put down his gun, and cut him a slice.”
Lackey unofficially dubbed Assembly Bill 2337 the Lemon Pound Cake Bill. It passed the Legislature with no votes against it and with the support of the Peace Officers Research Association of California — a law enforcement lobby group.
The governor’s veto sends the wrong message to officers, Lackey said in a statement to The Sacramento Bee on Monday.
“Some of us (including Afroman fans), may view this as telling law enforcement to ‘enjoy a slice of that lemon pound cake’ instead of feeling the hard consequences deserved, or in other words — a ‘cop’-out,’” Lackey said.
Gabriel’s Law passes after long fight by Lackey
Newsom’s weekend of bill signings and vetoes was far from pure bad news for Lackey, however. The lawmaker, who is leaving office this year after 12 years in the Assembly, has for several years sought to get a bill through the Capitol called Gabriel’s Law.
The bill — named after Gabriel Fernandez, an 8-year-old who died in the child welfare system in 2013 — tightens the requirements for social workers to ensure children under their supervision receive appropriate medical care. It also makes it easier to prosecute social workers for falsifying records.
Lackey introduced the bill five times, each year from 2018 to 2023, before succeeding in his final session. Lackey made amendments and worked with opponents to find a way to get the law through, he said in a news release on Monday.
“Gabriel was never just a name on a bill to me,” Lackey said. “He was an 8-year-old boy who needed someone to protect him, and the people and systems responsible for doing that failed him. I have thought about that every time I walked this bill into another hearing, another committee and another vote. Today, there is finally something I can say that I have wanted to say for a very long time — Gabriel’s Law has passed.”
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