Panel Sends Paddling Bill to Assembly

SACRAMENTO — Setting up what promises to be a raucous partisan debate on the Assembly floor next week, a key committee approved an Orange County lawmaker’s measure early Thursday that would allow the paddling of juvenile graffiti vandals.

The Assembly Appropriations Commission voted 11 to 6 to approve the bill by Assemblyman Mickey Conroy (R-Orange).

The measure now goes to the Assembly floor along with a companion measure authored by Conroy that would repeal the state’s decade-old ban on corporal punishment in public schools.

Conroy’s paddling bill for graffiti vandals now has gotten farther than any of the similar legislative efforts spawned by the furor over the 1994 caning of American teenager Michael Fay by authorities in Singapore.

Backers say the measure is needed to curb growing problems with graffiti in California, where upward of $300 million is spent annually for cleanup. But foes contend that corporal punishment will only breed resentment and anger among already troubled teenagers, leading to further social problems.