Halle Berry and Jennifer Garner are using their celebrity clout to put pressure on California legislators to back a bill that gives harsher punishment to persistent paparazzi.
If passed, this legislation would lay down stricter rules against the paps that follow celebrities, and- more specifically-their children, to snap a photo.
At Tuesday's Assembly Judiciary Committee meeting in Los Angeles, Berry and Garner stood at the podium to speak on SB606, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Berry, who has spoken once before on the importance of passing this bill into law, orated on the seemingly never-ending sea of cameras clicking around her family's house and neighborhood, and how the press has made her daughter fearful of even attending classes at school.
The photographers, she said, can be as close as they want to her kin, so that "they can shout obscenities to me and ask [my daughter] questions that are inappropriate for a 5-year-old to have to answer."
Garner also appealed to the committee with pure pathos, tears welling up in her eyes as she detailed the manner in which photographers harass her three young ones on a daily basis.
She also said that despite the fact that she lives her life in the public eye, her children should not be subject to the same kind of treatment she must endure as a celebrity.
"I don't want a gang of shouting, arguing, law-breaking photographers who camp out everywhere we are, all day, every day, to continue to traumatize my kids," she said, according to the Associated Press.
As the law currently stands, any person who heckles a child due to their parents' employment gets slapped with a misdemeanor, up to six months in jail, or a fine of up to $1,000. This amendment would up the potential jail time to a year, in addition to a heightened fine not exceeding $10,000 for first time offenders. Second-time offenders must pay anywhere between $10,000 and $20,000, with a mandatory minimum of 5 days in a county jail.
