Lawmakers have sent Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger legislation that state officials say would result in the online posting of home addresses for about half of California's 101,000 registered sex offenders.

Riverside County leaders said Wednesday they generally support the effort to adapt Megan's Law to the Internet, but wish the measure would have been expanded to make every sex offender's home address, picture, description and aliases available for publication.

"It's a little, tiny, baby step in the right direction," said Assemblyman Ray Haynes, R-Murrieta. "The good news is, at least we're stepping in the right direction."

Riverside County Sheriff Bob Doyle said, "It's better than nothing. It's a good start."

And Temecula Mayor Mike Naggar called the measure a "good beginning" that he said can and should be strengthened with follow-up legislation to cover a wider range of offenders.

"There's no reason for it not to be as tight as possible," Naggar said. "Everybody benefits, except for those who have committed the crimes. And that's how it should be. If you are a sexual predator in our city, we want to post your address so that we know who you are and so that you cannot prey on people in our city."

Megan's Law is named for 7-year-old Megan Kanka of New Jersey, who was raped and killed by a neighbor in 1994. California has required sex offenders to register with state law enforcement authorities since 1947, when it became the first state in the nation to require that. Megan's Law in 1996 made specified personal information about sex offenders available at police and sheriff stations around the state.

Assembly Bill 488, authored by Assemblywoman Nicole Parra, D-Hanford, seeks to expand Megan's Law by setting guidelines for posting information about sex offenders on the Internet.

The Assembly approved the Parra measure Tuesday, 74-2, and sent it to Schwarzenegger's desk. The governor has not publicly taken a position, but several Riverside County officials said they expect him to sign the bill.

While California often is out in front on legislative trends, it is behind other states on posting sex offender information online. More than 30 states already make personal information about sex offenders available through the Internet.

Still, Parra termed the measure "historic legislation to protect families and children from sexual predators."

Hallye Jordan, spokeswoman for the attorney general's office in Sacramento, said Wednesday that the Parra bill, if signed into law, would greatly expand the information that Californians can obtain online about sex offenders who live in or near their neighborhoods.

Jordan said that, based on the state attorney general's examination of the bill's guidelines, the measure would open the way for posting the home addresses of more than 50,000 of the 101,000 registered sex offenders statewide. Those guidelines say that addresses should be posted for people convicted of sexually assaulting children under 14, kidnapping children under 14 in order to molest them or continuing to sexually abuse young children. The bill also lists other crimes that, in conjunction with a prior sex offense, would trigger address postings.

However, the measure requires only the listing of zipcodes for people convicted of other crimes, such as assault with the intent to commit a sex crime, rape of an unconscious or intoxicated person, or sexual assault of a child older than 14 but younger than 16.

Some of California's 58 counties, including Riverside, began posting in March the streets that sex offenders classified as high risks live on, following the first major U.S. Supreme Court decision to weigh in on Megan's Law. The justices, in a 6-3 ruling, upheld Alaska's practice of posting photographs of convicted sex offenders on the Internet. Jordan said the ruling removed the "shadow of a doubt" that had shrouded online postings until then.

The Riverside County Sheriff's Department, as of Wednesday, listed the streets of 23 "high-risk" offenders, including one from Menifee and one from Lake Elsinore. Jordan said there are an estimated 1,800 high-risk offenders statewide.

Besides clearing the way for listing house addresses as well as streets, Jordan said the Parra legislation would expand the list of reportable sex criminals.

Still, Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth, R-Murrieta, said if the Legislature had passed a bill he wrote instead of Parra's, the list would have been expanded a lot more. In a backup strategy, Hollingsworth also sponsored an initiative to accomplish the same goal of posting personal information of all sex offenders. But, in May, the initiative failed to obtain enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot.

"It is unfortunate that this watered-down (Parra) measure is all we were able to get past the Democratic-controlled Legislature this year, but it is, after all, a first step," Hollingsworth said in a press release. "Our efforts in this area will continue."

Assemblyman Haynes also said he believes the bill will result in far fewer sex offenders being posted on the Internet than the attorney general predicted.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2616, or ddowney@californian.com.