(The Center Square) – California Governor Gavin Newsom and Democratic legislative leaders officially launched a new ballot measure to compete with a business-backed initiative that recently qualified for the November ballot. Proponents of the business-backed Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act claimed Democrats’ initiative would “confuse and manipulate voters.”
Newsom only introduced his measure after the deadline for TRA to withdraw had passed.
California voters passed Proposition 47 a decade ago making most theft and drug crimes into rarely-prosecuted misdemeanors. With drug addiction and theft running rampant in the state, a business and law enforcement coalition collected enough signatures to qualify the TRA for the November ballot.
The TRA would allow felony charges for serial thieves, enhance organized theft penalties, warn dealers of hard drugs they can be charged with homicide if a user dies and create new penalties for fentanyl dealers on the level of dealers of other hard drugs, create a new crime class called a “treatment-mandated felony” that would let an individual who “successfully completes drug and mental health treatment” have the conviction expunged and face no jail time. Those convicted of treatment-mandated felonies also would “receive “shelter, job training, and other services designed to break the cycle of addiction and homelessness.”
As the ballot measure was certified, California Democrats added “poison pill” amendments to a bipartisan package of anti-crime bills that would prevent those bills from taking effect if the TRA passed. Those amendments failed when a large number of Democrats joined Republicans in opposition.
Newsom’s competing measure, Proposition 2, would require prosecutors to prove individuals charged with selling fentanyl-laced drugs know fentanyl is present in the drug, that the buyer did not know there was fentanyl in the drug, and have not told the buyer there is fentanyl in the drug. It also would create and pass “Alexandra’s Law,” a version of a bipartisan bill named after a 20-year-old fentanyl overdose victim that would allow dealers convicted of selling hard drugs to be notified they can be charged with homicide if one of their users dies from their drugs.
Assemblymember Joe Patterson, R-Rocklin, who co-authored Alexandra’s law — which has failed in the legislature twice — noted no one reached out to the family about using Alexandra’s name in Prop. 2.
“It’s shameful the Governor would use the name of a fentanyl victim to prop up his flawed ballot initiative without even talking to the family. He will go to any length to deceive voters; he owes the family an apology.”
With Prop. 2, serial thieves could face felony charges after two prior theft convictions within three years over $50, which the TRA coalition says will cause “repeated thefts” under $50. The measure — opponents say — was introduced as Proposition 2 to place highest on the ballot, as Prop. 1 already passed in March, and could also invalidate the TRA if it passes, even if the TRA also passes. After the failure of the poison pill amendments, Newsom changed the rules to require a simple majority, not ⅔, of the legislature to vote for the measure to make it on the ballot. With the backing of the Democratic State Senate and Assembly Leaders, the measure appears poised to pass out of the legislature and onto the ballot.
“Here’s what Californians tell us: They don’t want to go back to mass incarceration, and spending billions of dollars to imprison people for years over minor offenses,” said Speaker of the Assembly Robert Rivas, D-Salinas. “Californians know that approach failed. They want tax dollars going to education, jobs, drug rehab and mental health programs
The initiative is eligible for state legislators to vote on it Wednesday, July 3.
