By admin 
It is imperative that Gov. Gavin Newsom sign Senate Bill 747 into law to ensure that federal officers can be held accountable when they violate a person’s constitutional rights.
Read more California passes ‘broadest set of guardrails’ on AI chatbots targeted at kids
Introduced by Sen. Scott Weiner, D-San Francisco, SB 747 is similar to laws recently adopted in Illinois, Connecticut, Vermont, Oregon and Maryland. It would provide authority to sue any official — federal, state or local — who violates the Constitution.
SB 747 provides a remedy for those whose rights are violated while holding the violators accountable.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t often happen under current law. While a federal statute, 42 United States Code Section 1983, allows people to sue state and local officials for constitutional violations, no equivalent federal law exists allowing suits against federal officials.
If city or state police officers use excessive force, they can be sued by the victim under Section 1983. But there is no federal law allowing suits against federal officers who use excessive force.
In 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, held that a person whose rights had been violated by a federal officer could sue directly under a constitutional provision even without a law authorizing the litigation. That case involved a man who was subjected to an abusive, unconstitutional search by federal agents. The Supreme Court said the search violated the Fourth Amendment and Bivens could sue the officers for money damages.
But since 1980, without exception the Supreme Court has narrowed Bivens, leaving little — if any — ability to sue federal officers for constitutional violations.
Read more City Council votes to let zoo expand in Land Park. Here’s what happens next
As a result, a dangerous gap has emerged: Federal officers often have de facto immunity and cannot be sued for damages, even for willful violations of constitutional rights. In effect, federal officers may operate without the same accountability the law imposes on state and local actors. SB 747 would close this gap.
Using state law to hold federal officers accountable is nothing new. Prior to Bivens, federal officers who injured people were sued under state tort law —the law that allows injured people to recover for injuries to their persons or property. In fact, both the majority and the dissent in Bivens recognized the ability to sue federal officers who violate the Constitution under state law.
But state tort law is not well suited to remedying constitutional violations. SB 747 would solve this by providing for liability for any government official, at any level of government, who violates the Constitution. Nothing in federal law prevents states from creating such liability.
A federal statute, the Westfall Act, says that if federal officers violate the law in the scope of their duties, the suit needs to be brought against the United States, not the individual government officials. But the Westfall Act has a crucial exception, allowing any lawsuit “which is brought for a violation of the Constitution of the United States.” In other words, it expressly allows for a state to create civil liability for federal officers who violate a person’s constitutional rights.
Allowing suits by those injured serves two crucial goals: compensation for injuries and deterrence of constitutional violations. Those who are hurt by federal offices should be able to receive compensation for the harms they suffer. At the same time, the prospect of liability for unconstitutional acts is crucial in deterring such violations.
Those who violate the Constitution should be accountable, not immune from liability for their acts. If, for example, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents act illegally and inflict injuries, there should be a way to sue them.
Read more Voting lawsuit, ‘Stop Nick Shirley Act’: What Sacramento talked about Aug. 24-30
SB 747 does exactly that, and Newsom must sign it into law.
Erwin Chemerinsky is dean and professor of law at the UC Berkeley School of Law.