The California Legislature this week is expected to approve a voter initiative for the November ballot to crack down on retail theft and fentanyl dealers, an effort designed to compete with tougher anti-crime measures championed by a group of county attorneys.
The plan follows days of tense negotiations between Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration and Democratic legislative leaders, with details of the initiative made public in a bill released Sunday afternoon.
The move would complete the controversial criminal justice reform California voters approved a decade ago, Proposition 47, which changed certain low-level drug and property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors and invested in drug and mental health treatment.
The initiative would be a sudden political reversal for Newsom, who earlier this year said he opposed efforts to amend Proposition 47 through the ballot process and insisted that needed reforms could be handled legislatively.
The measure comes just weeks after a crime initiative proposed by a group of county district attorneys is slated for the November election. Newsom criticized the prosecutor-led plan as a regressive effort that could bring California back to the mass incarceration era of the 1990s.
The latest ballot initiative would crack down on shoplifting by making petty theft-related offenses within a three-year period eligible for a three-year prison sentence. In cases involving multiple thefts, if the total amount stolen exceeds $950, the offense can be charged as a felony.
The proposal would also impose harsher penalties on dealers who knowingly mix drugs with fentanyl without the buyer’s knowledge. In the measure, judges must also warn convicted fentanyl dealers of the fatal risks associated with distributing the drug, which would make it easier for prosecutors to charge the dealers with murder if a death occurs. The initiative will also increase resources for drug treatment and mental health programs.
If the measure is approved by the Democratic-led Legislature this week, which is expected, California voters in November will see two competing crime measures on the ballot: the one that will vote in the Legislature this week and the Homelessness, Drug separate. The Addiction and Theft Reduction Act, which has strong support among some district attorneys and anti-crime groups.
The prosecutor’s initiative will change the law to make the third offense of theft, regardless of the value of the merchandise, a crime punishable by up to three years in state prison. The measure would also make possession of fentanyl a felony. Finally, the proposal would make it a “treatment-mandated crime” the third time someone is arrested for drug possession.
California voters approved Proposition 47 in 2014, at a time when past tough-on-crime policies were under fire for ineffectiveness and unfairness, and when courts found the state’s overcrowded prison system unconstitutional.
Before the measure was passed, theft could be considered a felony if the merchandise stolen was valued at $450 or more, but Proposition 47 raised the threshold to $950. Critics have rebuked the change since its implementation, saying that the reduced punishment led to an increase in theft in California. Newsom and other supporters of Proposition 47 said that most other states, including Texas, have a higher dollar limit than California for suspects to be charged with a crime.
Newsom and the Legislature plan to reduce prison costs and transition away from a criminal justice system that relies on incarceration. They argue that prosecutor-led initiatives could end up placing low-level drug and theft offenders back into state prisons instead of jail, where they serve time for misdemeanors, ballooning California’s prison population.
The Legislature is also considering what is now a package of complementary bills that would, among other things, give store owners the opportunity to file restraining orders against repeat offenders and give prosecutors better tools to prosecute car break-ins and other types of theft. that happened. in various districts.
The newly proposed ballot measure was made public on Sunday after weeks of behind-the-scenes discussions and contentious political maneuvering involving the crime bill and ballot measures, which have been intertwined during debate in the Capitol.
Most notably, it comes after Democrats inadvertently introduced an amendment to the crime bill that would have repealed parts of the law — which up to that point had bipartisan support — if voters approved a prosecutor-backed ballot initiative. The amendment was recently struck from the bill, but criticism and disbelief of the maneuvers made remain.
“This is a blow to supporters,” said Yolo County Dist. Atty. Jeff Reisig, one of the prosecutors involved in the initiative.
Since then, members of the Republican and Democratic caucuses, and the leaders of the coalition led by the prosecutor, have argued through live-broadcast press conferences about the political gamesmanship involved.
“Don’t play politics with public safety. This is the wrong thing to do in today’s environment,” said Greg Totten, chief executive of the California District Attorneys Assn. and supporters of prosecutor-led initiatives. “We are all here to plan and have an honest election initiative because the politicians in the Capitol have ignored our concerns.”
The Democratic caucus has reportedly split, and members have dropped names from the bipartisan package due to strong-arm tactics.
Times Staff Writer Taryn Luna contributed to this report.
