California’s Democrat Lawmakers Must Want Crime, Drugs and Homelessness to Increase

California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 36 to restore felony penalties for repeat theft and drug crimes in November 2024. Prop 36 passed by 68%, and passed in every one of California’s 58 counties.

Within months of its passage, Democrats in the Assembly passed AB 2108, a bill authored by Assemblywoman LaShae Sharp-Collins (D-La Mesa) that creates a pretrial diversion program for retail theft, shoplifting, forgery, and vandalism, allowing the offender’s record to be wiped after completion, undermining Prop 36.

Prop 36 restored felony penalties for repeat offenders after a decade of disaster and rising crime under Prop 47. Fed-up voters demanded accountability for smash-and-grab thefts, organized retail crime, and open drug dealing.

It has become very clear that the Democrat supermajority in the California Legislature care more about themselves and their wicked funders than the people of California, since with passage of AB 2108, they would increase crime, drugs, and homelessness back to pre-Prop 36 levels.

On Tuesday, top law enforcement leaders, business leaders, crime victims, and concerned community leaders, presented testimony, analysis, and vital information against Assembly Bill 2108 in a press conference.

They explained that AB 2108, if approved, “creates a sweeping and overly broad diversion eligibility scheme for theft-related offenses, including petty theft, shoplifting, grand theft, receiving stolen property, and vandalism, while conspicuously failing to disqualify individuals with prior theft convictions. This omission is not incidental. It directly conflicts with the core purpose of Proposition 36, which specifically targets repeat offenders. By ignoring prior theft history, AB 2108 reopens the very loopholes voters sought to close.”

AB 2108 would not only undermine Prop 36, it would destroy any attempt to hold repeat thieves accountable. It will render California retail businesses almost impossible to operate.

At the press conference, El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson, past President and Spokesman of California District Attorneys Association, said that this bill is more than about the legislation –  he asked if the voice of the voters of California still matters, given that AB 2108 completely undermines voter-approved Prop 36.

AB 2108 weakens key accountability elements of Prop 36 by expanding pretrial diversion for retail theft and related offenses in ways that can prevent the buildup of priors needed for enhanced felony charges.

According to the bill, AB 2108 amends existing limited diversion authority (Penal Code § 1001.81) and adds a new chapter on theft diversion. It requires prosecutors or probation departments to evaluate eligibility for diversion in cases involving specified offenses (including shoplifting under § 459.5, certain forgery/check offenses, grand/petty theft, receiving stolen property, and vandalism) when the charged offense is not a felony, did not involve violence or threatened violence, and lacks certain contemporaneous theft-related violations. If eligible, the court can order diversion (potentially including workforce, vocational, or employment programs); successful completion leads to dismissal of the action, with the arrest generally treated as never having occurred (with limited exceptions, such as peace officer applications). It explicitly does not apply to persons charged under Penal Code § 666.1 (the Prop 36 repeat-theft provision) and does not limit other diversion statutes.

According to San Diego District Attorney Summer Stephan, AB 2108 will dismantle Prop 36.

Law enforcement and prosecutors say AB 2108 returns crime conditions that led to locked-up merchandise and impacts to business that Prop 36 sought to address. In short, it is an attack on the serial-theft provisions voters approved in Prop 36.

Successful diversion produces no conviction, so it does not create the prior convictions that trigger Prop 36’s felony treatment for subsequent thefts. This reopens a pathway for repeat offenders to avoid escalating accountability.

The bill requires evaluation for a broad set of theft-related charges and emphasizes documentation of eligibility. District Attorneys describe it as creating sweeping or near-mandatory diversion that reduces prosecutorial and judicial discretion in practice, especially compared to existing discretionary programs. They note that excluding only those already charged under § 666.1 leaves charging decisions as a potential workaround.

The bottom line, as Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said, repeat theft was the issue, without meaningful consequences, until Prop 36. Under AB 2108, the case gets dismissed when the offender completes the diversion program. So someone could repeatedly steal, complete the diversion program, and steal again without real consequences.

It’s reminiscent of Prop 47, which voters thought they were overturning with passage of Prop 36. As the Globe has reported for years, Proposition 47, was passed by tragically misinformed voters in 2014, and deceptively titled “The Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act” by then-Attorney General Kamala Harris, which reduced a host of serious felonies to misdemeanors, including drug crimes, date rape, and all thefts under $950, even for repeat offenders who steal under $950 every day.

Prop. 47 also decriminalized drug possession from a felony to a misdemeanor, removed law enforcement’s ability to make an arrest in most circumstances, as well as removing judges’ ability to order drug rehabilitation programs rather than incarceration.

At the Tuesday press conference, a woman who owns two shopping centers said crime was really bad before Prop 36. “Nobody could open a retail store in California, but Prop 36 changed all of that. AB 2108 encourages criminals to keep stealing. We are the victims,” she added.

Dr. Raymond Kim, Professor of Finance  at Northeastern Arizona University, calculated that if AB 2108 passes and is signed into law, it will cost $9.3 billion annually when crime goes back to pre-Prop 36 rates, and cities and counties are forced to hire more police. He explained that 10% more police presence means 10% less crime. It will take 29% more spending to fight crime with more police, and the state cannot afford that with California’s $35 billion annual structural budget deficit and a staggering unfunded pension debt.

AB 2108 passed the Assembly 41–22 in May along partisan lines, passed the Senate Public Safety, and will be heard in Senate Appropriations in early August 2026.

According to the bill’s author Assemblywoman LaShae Sharp-Collins, ″Voters passed Proposition 36 to address individuals caught in cycles of repeat theft and more serious criminal activity by increasing penalties, including the possibility of state prison sentences. That measure was aimed at chronic and organized offenders. However, Proposition 36 did not establish a tailored approach for people accused of less serious, non-recurrent shoplifting. “This bill fills that gap by ensuring the justice system can identify who would be better served by early intervention and targeted programming.″

Californians for Safety and Justice, the sponsor of this bill, is funded by the Tides Center, sister organization of the Tides Foundation, and has received extensive funding from prominent left-wing groups, including George Soros’s Foundation to Promote Open Society, which issued more than $2 million in grants to the Tides Center in 2023 alone.

Tides Center is also the sister nonprofit of the Alliance for Safety and Justice, an activist organization that promotes left-of-center criminal justice policies. Founded in 2016, the Alliance was created as a project of the Tides Center, associated with the Tides Foundation, a major left-of-center grantmaking organization.

Lenore Anderson is the founder and President of Alliance for Safety and Justice. She also co-authored Proposition 47, the California law that reclassified certain felonies as misdemeanors, and led the campaign to get the initiative passed.

It appears Lenore Anderson is protecting her investment in chaos and disorder.

Assemblywoman Sharp-Collins graduated from San Diego State University with a Bachelor of Arts in Africana studies, a master’s degree in education, and a Doctorate of Education. She previously worked as a professor at San Diego State University and worked as the district Director for former Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, now the California Secretary of State. Weber is also a professor emerita of Africana studies at San Diego State University, where she helped establish the department in 1972, became its chairwoman, and taught for 40 years.