Playing Politics With Crime in California | RealClearPolitics
California s fierce political battle over crime and retail theft faces a key test this week as divided Democrats in the legislature address efforts by Gov. Gavin Newsom and his allies to undermine a public-safety ballot initiative.
The ballot initiative would overhaul Proposition 47, a law voters approved in 2014 that lowered certain theft and drug crimes from felonies to misdemeanors partly as a way of reducing prison overcrowding.
Newsom was among the first elected officials to support Proposition 47, a ballot initiative written by reform-minded George Gascon, who was then the district attorney in San Francisco. (In an unusual move, Gascon is now the DA in Los Angeles.)
But the pendulum has now swung in the other direction, with critics blaming Prop 47 for the steep rise in retail theft and smash-and-grab mob robberies of both high-end department stores and convenience stores that have plagued retailers across the state.
Californians for Safer Communities, a bipartisan group made up of law enforcement officials, elected officials, and businesses, including Walmart and Target, collected more than 900,000 signatures in support of a ballot initiative that would reform Prop 47 by increasing penalties for criminals. In early June, the initiative qualified for the November ballot, a move Newsom and liberal supporters in the state legislature opposed.
Instead of letting voters decide its fate, Newsom and his allies, which includes Assembly and Senate leaders, pushed a raft of public safety bills aimed at addressing organized retail theft, car break-ins, and other crimes. They are also working hard to thwart a separate ballot initiative sponsored by the California District Attorneys Association, which has attracted widespread Republican and law enforcement support.
Democrats in the state Assembly added inoperability clauses to the proposed public safety bills to prevent them from going into effect if voters approve the ballot initiative aimed at reforming Prop 47. They contend that such clauses are needed to ensure that the law is consistent.
The middle class fights against the elites and their clients. Property is the issue. Who says America doesn’t have radical politics. That we have to use the Proposition mechanism to fight back is instructive.