Despite having what California state Senator Mark Leno believed to be the number of votes necessary to pass new legislation requiring antitheft technology for smartphones, the bill failed to get enough approval from lawmakers and has been defeated.
Leno told the media after the bill he sponsored failed to get through the Senate that the blame should be leveled at the wireless companies who used their long reach and financial backing to sway officials against passing the law that would have made stealing a smartphone that much more difficult.
Nearly all Republicans and a few Democrats voted against the bill, which had been seen as a push toward better mobile security for users and a new way of putting the customer first. But it didn't get that far, after corporations appear to have derailed the legislation.
"When that kind of force comes up against a public safety issue, one would hope and believe there would be votes there to protect public safety and not the interests of the powerful special interests," Leno said. "We aren't giving up."
According to information following the bill's defeat, it appears CTIA, a wireless trade group that often represents the interests of the large wireless companies, fought hard to not have the bill pass, which would have forced makers to install a "kill switch" on mobile phones. But in the end, the trade group announced it would be offering those switches as a feature on devices made after July 2015.
That made the bill's defeat all that more surprising.
"Today's decision by the State Senate is disheartening given the rampant rate of victimization," Gascón said in a statement. "With their no vote, 17 members of the Senate chose to protect billion dollar industry profits over the safety of the constituents they were elected to serve."
Even in defeat, Leno has promised that he would not all the legislators who argued the kill switch would be bad for business to revel in their victory, as has plans to reintroduce the legislation as soon as possible in order to put the needs of the consumer first.
It comes as Leno continues to push forward on public safety, and in a previous statement discussing his proposal for the bill, said that in San Francisco, over 50 percent of all robberies are of smartphones, making the kill switch a priority for this session.
