California lawmakers advance last-minute data privacy bill

California state senators advanced a last-minute internet privacy bill Tuesday ahead of a deadline while acknowledging it would need changes if it becomes law.

The bill would let consumers ask companies what personal data they collect and opt out of having their data sold, among other privacy provisions.

Lawmakers voted to pass the measure, AB375, out of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The bill is aimed at keeping a related initiative off the November ballot. Lawmakers negotiated it with San Francisco housing developer Alastair Mactaggart, who spent millions of dollars to place the initiative on the ballot. He said he would pull the measure from the ballot if the bill is signed into law by the Thursday deadline to withdraw initiatives.

The bill now moves to the Senate Appropriations Committee, a spokeswoman for co-author Sen. Bob Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, said. The full Assembly and Senate each plan to vote on the bill Thursday. Gov. Jerry Brown’s office has not said whether he will sign it.

Lawmakers can more easily amend laws they pass than alter voter-enacted initiatives.

Lawmakers say the legislation will affect every California consumer and will likely inform legislation throughout the country.

Mactaggart said he supports the bill and his initiative, though he believes the legislative process is better tailored for enacting such policy. He said he has been pushing legislators to address the issue.

Those who spoke against the bill, including the California Chamber of Commerce, said they favored it over the initiative and urged future changes.

"Although AB375 is deeply flawed, the privacy initiative is even worse," chamber lobbyist Sarah Boot said.

The bill has unclear language and could prevent companies from providing loyalty programs and notifications to customers, Boot said.

The bill would let consumers ask companies such as Google and Facebook what personal data has been collected, why it was collected and what categories of third parties have received it.

Consumers could also ask companies to delete their information and refrain from selling it.

Companies could offer discounts to customers who allow their data to be sold and could charge those who opt out a reasonable amount based on how much the company makes selling the information.

The bill would also bar companies from selling data from users under 16 without consent.

Assemblyman Ed Chau, an Arcadia Democrat and the chief bill author, said he doesn’t like the rushed process forced by the ballot measure deadline, but he stressed that his bill gives Californians important privacy protections.

Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson of Santa Barbara, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, cited negotiations late Sunday night that led to amendments to narrow technology companies’ liability in the event of data breaches.

Consumers could sue under the bill if their data was not encrypted or redacted and the company that collected it did not have reasonable security measures in place to protect it.

Amendments suggested by Mactaggart were scrapped ahead of the committee hearing after a coalition funded by technology giants decried them, demonstrating their influence in the Capitol.

Jackson and the other Democrats on the committee supported the bill, but she said she believes it still has an "enormous" number of problems lawmakers would need to address before it takes effect in 2020.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old former Bernie Sanders organizer, has defeated Democratic incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley, the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House.

Crowley, a lawmaker whose name is often mentioned as a replacement for Nancy Pelosi and the next Speaker of the House if the Democrats take back the majority in that chamber, is the first Democratic incumbent to lose a primary this cycle.

Mark Lennihan/AP

Ocasio-Cortez won the race for New York’s 14th Congressional District with a substantial margin over Crowley. The Bronx native, who has not previously run for elected office, is the first primary challenge Crowley has seen in 14 years.

According to election returns from the New York Secretary of State, Ocasio-Cortez holds a more than 15 percent lead over Crowley with 440 out of 449 precincts in the district reporting.

A member of Democratic Socialists of America, Ocasio-Cortez ran on a proudly leftist platform, calling to abolish the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), fund Medicare-for-all and a federal jobs guarantee, and crack down on Wall Street.

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Ocasio-Cortez’s grassroots campaign raised just $300,000 to Crowley’s war chest of $3,354,370, but garnered significant attention for her campaign announcement video, which went viral.

The primary is in a deep-blue district, all but guaranteeing Ocasio-Cortez a seat in the House come November. She would also make history as the first woman in her twenties to be elected to Congress.

Crowley had been mentioned as a potential candidate for Speaker of the House, should Democrats retake the House of Representatives.

The congressman came under fire this week for sending a proxy on Monday to debate Ocasio-Cortez on his behalf. The surrogate, former New York City Councilwoman Annabel Palma, was not a staff member on Crowley’s campaign, but a commissioner in the office of Mayor Bill De Blasio.

In an opinion piece last week, the New York Times Editorial Board – which did not make an endorsement in the race – chastised Crowley’s decision to skip the debate. Ocasio-Cortez, whose mother is Puerto Rican, told ABC News she found the choice to send a Latina surrogate “bizarre,” and noting that Crowley was just minutes away from the debate, attending an event in Queens.

G. Ronald Lopez via Zuma Press

“He didn’t show up to the Bronx,” she told ABC News. “What it gets interpreted as is absentee leadership, it’s leadership that fundamentally does not care about or understand our community.”

“The fact that he was 20 minutes away just added salt to the wound for Bronx and Queens families. And it really just sent a very clear message that he just didn’t care to be there,” she told ABC News.

Ocasio-Cortez traveled this past Sunday with progressive groups, including Voto Latino, to a detention center in West Texas along the U.S.-Mexico border to protest the Trump administration’s "zero tolerance" policy that led to the separation of some immigrant children from their families.

Mary Altaffer/AP

She also called for a “full audit” of state coffers potentially funding ICE detention centers.

“Every state needs to divest from ICE detention facilities now. Our government needs to do a full audit, and if we are providing any real estate leases to these facilities, if we are accepting any campaign contributions from these detention contractors, we have to divest,” she told ABC News last week.

Crowley conceded the race to Ocasio-Cortez Tuesday night, first by playing the ballad, "Born to Run," on his guitar.

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His performance was followed by a more formal acknowledgement of his unexpected loss, saying in a statement, "It has been the honor of a lifetime to represent Queens and the Bronx."

"I want to congratulate Ms. Ocasio-Cortez on her victory tonight. I look forward to supporting her and all Democrats this November," Crowley said in the statement, "The Trump administration is a threat to everything we stand for here in Queens and the Bronx, and if we don’t win back the House this November, we will lose the nation we love. This is why we must come together. We will only be able to stop Donald Trump and the Republican Congress by working together, as a united Democratic Party."

President Trump also reacted to the news Tuesday night, referring to the incumbent as "Big Trump Hater Congressman Joe Crowley."

The victory also has the potential to influence the high-profile race between former Sex In the City actress progressive Cynthia Nixon, who swapped endorsements with Ocasio-Cortez just yesterday.

Nixon released a statement Tuesday night congratulating Ocasio-Cortez on her victory.

“This is a victory for the people over the powerful, for the grassroots over the establishment, for progressive Democrats over corporate Democrats. This is what happens when you give people a choice. They show up and they reject the status quo," Nixon said in her statement.

Sen. Bernie Sanders also congratulated her on her "extraordinary upset."

ABC News’ Kendall Karson contributed to this report.