California has one of the highest late fees in the nation, the coalition says. The group says the fees trap lower-income Californians in a cycle of ballooning debt to the courts.
Money collected from the extra charges bolsters court coffers, leading advocates to accuse the state of paying for its judicial system by charging those who can least afford it.
The fees generate nearly $100 million annually, and the courts retain more than half.
In Riverside County, the fees that the court system kept made up 14% of its budget, according to a report published by the coalition this year.
The report gave as an example a San Lorenzo resident who is a CalWorks recipient and mother who could not afford to pay for traffic violations. She was charged late fees on traffic citations five times since 2009, amounting to more than $1,500 of debt, about double the cost of the original tickets.
It made her ineligible for a driver’s license for 13 years, the report said.
“They were trying to take all of this money away from us,” she said, “but we didn’t have any in the first place.”
Civil assessment fees are disproportionately borne by people of color, who are overrepresented in traffic stops compared to their share of the population, the report said.
In January advocates sued San Mateo County Superior Court, challenging its practice of automatically charging the $300 maximum fee in all traffic cases with a missed deadline.
Gov. Gavin Newsom in his January budget proposed halving the fees, to a maximum of $150, and spending $50 million to backfill court budgets.
The proposal by some lawmakers and the Debt Free Justice coalition to eliminate the fees entirely could cost about twice as much. Senate leaders endorsed that plan in their budget proposals last month, as they announced an unprecedented $68 billion projected budget surplus.