Gavin Gladding’s widow will try again to get a tougher law passed for DUI drivers

Editor’s note: Gavin Gladding, a Clovis Unified administrator, was jogging in the early morning in northeast Fresno on Sept. 16, 2018 when he was killed by a drunken driver who left the scene. In this Valley Voice essay, Gavin Gladding’s widow, Susan Gladding, relates the experience to get a law passed in her husband’s honor.

It has been two years since we lost Gavin. In that time we have leaned on each other to get through birthdays, holidays and family celebrations — occasions that will never be the same without our husband, father, son, brother and friend.

Thanks to a great deal of faith, hope and a community that has surrounded us with love, we persevered. We found ways to keep Gavin’s memory alive — to champion causes we know he would support. We started the Gavin Gladding Foundation to help local students pay for college and support other experiential educational opportunities. We also embarked upon the greatest, most exciting and intensely frustrating foray into the legislative process — Gavin’s Law.

When we realized there was a loophole in state law that actually benefits drunken drivers who leave the scene of an accident, we knew we had to do something to close it. Shockingly, drivers that leave the scene and sober up before their arrest can avoid the 15-year maximum sentence of a felony DUI conviction. A four-year sentence is the most they will face.

Following the accident that took Gavin’s life, the groundswell of support was overwhelming. More than 10,000 people signed our petition for Gavin’s Law. Voices from here at home and across the state gave us all the confidence in the world that this common-sense legislation would sail through unopposed. After all, who could be against fixing such a glaring failure in the law?

What we didn’t know — what most people don’t know — is common sense reforms like the ones proposed in Gavin’s Law often don’t make it past the first committee hearing because of partisan politics. We defied the odds on our legislative journey, starting with the first hearing in the Assembly Public Safety Committee in 2019. The partisan conclusion was reached before the hearing — Gavin’s Law would die on a party-line vote without any Democrat support.

Sitting in the audience at the Capitol that day, I was well prepared to go home defeated. After we explained the dangerous loophole, we all watched in amazement as a couple Democrat members of this committee agreed with us. After listening to the facts we presented about the loophole, Assemblyman Bill Quirk ignored the directive to vote against the bill. Another member even went a step further and asked to help amend the bill slightly so she could vote for it. Eventually it passed nearly unanimously out of this committee.

This kind of non-partisan, think-outside-the-box mentality is mostly lost on the people making laws in California, especially when it comes to victim’s rights. Democrat Assembly members tuned out partisan rhetoric to support our common-sense changes — ones we hope they will support once again when Gavin’s Law is reintroduced by Assemblyman Jim Patterson next year.

In the end, Gavin’s Law failed to make it out of the Senate Public Safety Committee, falling one vote short. To say we were disappointed would be an understatement. It seemed like we were finally breaking past the partisan barrier that lays waste to so many good reforms.

Gavin was the eternal optimist in our family. He was always on the lookout for a silver lining — always willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. He was our rock. He was our champion. We will keep fighting for Gavin and for every other family faced with the pain of losing a loved one, followed by the devastating realization that the person who didn’t have the decency to stay and help will be back living their life within months.

While we were not successful this time, we know there is hope here. We have seen it before and believe we can continue to convince legislators on both sides of the aisle that Gavin’s Law is about people, not politics.