A California Senate committee just gutted one of the state\u2019s most substantial DUI reform bills in years, despite widespread support from other lawmakers and families of drunk driving victims.<\/p>\n
The bill<\/a> would have required in-car breathalyzers for anyone convicted of a DUI, bringing California in line with most states. State law currently only requires the devices, called ignition interlock devices, after repeat offenses or injury crashes.<\/p>\n Sabrina Cervantes, a Democrat from the Inland Empire and chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, provided a hint of changes last week when she said there were amendments to the bill that had been approved unanimously by the committee. This week, an updated version of the legislation emerged, and it effectively killed a key provision to start requiring the devices for thousands of first-time offenders. Such changes are commonly referred to as \u201chostile amendments\u201d because they are made without the involvement or support of the bill\u2019s author.<\/p>\n Cervantes was arrested for a DUI in a high-profile incident in Sacramento in May 2025. The District Attorney\u2019s Office did not prosecute her<\/a> after a blood test showed no drugs or alcohol in her system. Cervantes then sued the city of Sacramento and several of its police officers, alleging that that police fabricated evidence and falsely arrested her. Cervantes\u2019s sister, state Assembly candidate Clarissa Cervantes, has herself been convicted of two DUIs in Southern California, according to media reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n Keep up with LAist.<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, you’ll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less. <\/p>\n Sabrina Cervantes did not respond to our request for comment for this story. We will update it if she does.<\/p>\n As news of the bill\u2019s gutting spread this week, Kellie Montalvo was left wondering if there\u2019d been some sort of horrible mistake. Montalvo, whose 21-year-old son Benjamin was killed by an impaired driver in Cervantes\u2019s district in 2020, said she was just in Sacramento two weeks ago lobbying lawmakers \u2013 including Cervantes \u2013 on a slate<\/a> of dangerous driving bills. Many of those bills have already failed.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s heartbreaking, and I try to tell myself not to lose hope,\u201d Montalvo said. \u201cI mean, California has got to do something. Our numbers are horrific.\u201d<\/p>\n Alcohol-related roadway deaths in California<\/a> spiked more than 50% in a decade \u2014 an increase more than twice as steep as the rest of the country, federal data shows. More than 1,300 people die each year statewide in drunken collisions.<\/p>\n Over the last two years, a CalMatters investigation<\/a> has shown how state officials have allowed dangerous drivers to stay on the road and kill, and how elected leaders have looked away even as the death toll skyrocketed.<\/p>\n For years, lawmakers have tried and failed to require in-car breathalyzers for all DUI offenders. Progressive justice reform groups and the DMV have opposed similar bills in the past, citing fears about unfairly penalizing poor DUI offenders, high costs and the DMV\u2019s aging technology.<\/p>\n Montalvo and other advocates thought this year might be different. The DMV has actively participated in state hearings and, she and others said, provided technical advice to make sure the bill was realistic. Gov. Gavin Newsom also instructed lawmakers<\/a> last year to continue to work on the state\u2019s breathalyzer laws and develop \u201ca lasting program that strengthens public safety.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear why this year\u2019s bill was gutted at the 11th hour. Public records show<\/a> that Senate Appropriations committee staff recently expressed concern about costs.<\/p>\n The amendment process is opaque even to Sacramento insiders.<\/p>\n \u201cHonestly it\u2019s sometimes a bit of a black box even for us as legislators,\u201d said the bill\u2019s author, Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, an Orange County Democrat. \u201cI am still trying myself to get to the bottom of it.\u201d<\/p>\n Petrie-Norris, who has spent the past three years trying to pass a version of this bill, said she does not believe Cervantes\u2019 personal experience played a role in the decision to amend the bill. She added that she is still working to re-amend the measure after \u201cunintended consequences\u201d that she says would make the policy unworkable for the DMV and hurt California\u2019s eligibility for federal funding.<\/p>\n Asked for an interview to explain the changes to the bill, Senate President Pro Tem Monique L\u00edmon\u2019s office referred questions to Cervantes. Diana Crofts-Pelayo, Newsom\u2019s chief deputy director of communications, also declined to answer questions about the breathalyzer bill, saying the office does not typically comment on pending legislation.<\/p>\n While the bill heads into the final days of negotiations, Montalvo and other victims\u2019 families are grappling with deja vu. It was just about a year ago that they were standing in the Capitol with photos of their loved ones and told the bill was doomed<\/a>.<\/p>\n She stays busy checking in with the parole officer for the Riverside County driver who killed her son. Last she heard, the driver was trying to get her license back after being released early from prison.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A California Senate committee just gutted one of the state\u2019s most substantial DUI reform bills in years, despite…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":440914,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[48,52,51,47,50,49],"class_list":["post-440913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}