California Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislative leaders have launched a last-minute push to put a second crime-fighting measure before voters this fall after unsuccessful attempts to negotiate a more stringent proposal off the November ballot.
Their measure, Proposition 2, would toughen penalties for repeat shoplifters and drug dealers who lace substances with fentanyl. It must win approval from a majority of each house Wednesday night to make it on the ballot before lawmakers break for a month-long summer recess.
Perhaps the Prop 2’s most controversial aspect is a provision that would nullify the more stringent crime initiative on the ballot, provided both measures pass and the Newsom-backed measure receives more votes.
The move comes after weeks of back and forth with the coalition backing the already-qualified anti-crime initiative, and a failed effort to reach a compromise by last week’s deadline to remove issue questions from the ballot. Newsom and Democratic leaders have argued the existing measure would lead to a sharp increase in the state’s prison population — and fretted privately about the ripple effects it could have down-ballot, particularly for Democrats in competitive House districts that may determine control of Congress this fall.
At the heart of both measures is the question of whether and how to roll back parts of Proposition 47, the landmark 2014 criminal justice initiative that reduced penalties for some non-violent felony crimes in a state that had adopted harsh sentencing laws in the 1990s. A coalition of prosecutors and big-box retailers in June successfully qualified an initiative that would increase penalties for certain drug- and theft-related crimes, allowing repeat offenders of theft or possession of certain drugs, including fentanyl, to be charged with a felony rather than a misdemeanor.
Lawmakers responded in April with their own package of public safety bills, arguing it was possible to curb retail theft without changing Prop 47. Those bills would establish a new crime category targeting serial theft, empower police to make arrests without witnessing an incident or having footage of it, and allow the value of stolen goods from multiple retailers within a 60-day period to be aggregated to grand theft, which can carry stricter penalties.
But efforts to negotiate with proponents of the existing initiative got off to a tough start in June after Democrats in the Legislature announced they would be adding clauses that would revoke many of the laws if voters approved the initiative in November.
Backers of the ballot measure and Republicans in the Legislature quickly denounced the amendments as “poison pills,” and those clauses were removed from nearly all of the bills following the backlash, including defection by some moderate Democrats. Democrats also on Saturday removed language that would have established a new felony for serial theft.
The new initiative is expected to win wide support from Democratic elected officials and candidates up and down the ballot. The existing initiative had shown signs of splitting the Democratic coalition, garnering support from prominent Democratic mayors like San Francisco Mayor London Breed and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan and candidates in competitive House districts like Dave Min.
At a press conference Friday in downtown Los Angeles, the head of the committee behind the ballot measure previewed the message it would use against Newsom and the Democrats’ counter-measure: that it’s “the people’s initiative” versus a “politician’s initiative.”
“Now they’re apparently considering putting their own watered-down or skinny measure on the ballot,” said Greg Totten, CEO of the California District Attorneys Association. “We are confident that when California voters see what’s in our initiative, an initiative that more than 900,000 of them signed, they will reject the gamesmanship of Sacramento, they will reject a politicians’ initiative in favor of a people’s initiative, and that is what this is.”
Asked afterward about the strategic challenges a competing measure would present for his coalition, Totten acknowledged it will create new dynamics: “I mean, it’s something we’ll have to deal with.”
But he argued that given the choice, voters will choose the stronger measure.
“I think Californians are very astute and they’ll figure that out, and they will support our initiative — we just need to get the message out,” Totten said in an interview.
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