A signature collection drive to qualify a ballot initiative to amend Proposition 47 ended on Thursday, qualifying The Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act for the November ballot. Californians for Safer Communities Coalition announced that more than 900,000 signatures of the needed 546,651 were collected, and submitted to the Secretary of State’s Office.
Passed in 2014 with a 59.6% 40.4% result, Prop. 47 recategorized some nonviolent offenses from felonies to misdemeanors. These crimes included, up to an amount of $950, shoplifting, grand theft, receiving stolen property, forgery, and fraud. In addition, most drug use offenses were made misdemeanors as well. While the measure was promoted as a way to reduce crowding in prisons and reallocate money for alternate to prison ways to prevent crime, crime rates soon exploded across the state. Criminals became savvy when shoplifting, making sure not to go above the $950 amount, with some even carrying calculators in stores to make sure they didn’t go over the felony limit.
Law enforcement agencies, even those in liberal areas, denounced the proposition. By 2016, retailers were reporting a 15% to 50% rise in shoplifting across the board. High crime rates continued on into the 2020’s, with Prop 47’s “get out of jail free card” reputation exacerbating related problems in cities such as San Francisco.
Lawmakers from both parties flooded the legislature with bills in an attempt to reign in Prop 47 over the years, including a reset bill in 2022 that would have lowered the felony amount from $950 to $400. However, liberal lawmakers, wanting to show that it could work on the long term, refused to make any alterations to it. An attempt at the ballot box was also made in 2020, with Prop. 20, hoping to toughen sentencing in criminal cases, lower the felony amount to $250, and reduce the number of prison inmates eligible for early parole. However, because of the George Floyd protests still a recent memory for many voters, Prop. 20 was crushed that November 61.7% to only 38.3% in favor.
This led the Californians for Safer Communities Coalition to begin a new proposition initiative in late 2023. The Homelessness, Drug Addiction and Theft Reduction Act was largely funded by small business owners and large retailers alike, all of whom were sick of the continuing losses in the state and having to pull out of some areas as a result.
According to the initiative, it would do three things:
- The measure would hold repeat offenders accountable for the safety of our communities, rather than putting them back on the streets.
- The measure would define fentanyl as a hard drug, hold individuals convicted of trafficking fentanyl accountable, and grant judges greater discretion in sentencing drug traffickers.
- The measure would provide critical mental health, drug treatment services, and job training within the justice system for people who are homeless and suffering from mental illness or struggling with substance abuse.
Support for, opposition against Prop 47
While some other controversial parts of Prop. 47, such as the felony amount, would not be touched in the initiative, supporters said that this proposition would be a start and would be most palatable to Californian voters as a whole.
“We’re here from both sides because Prop 47 simply isn’t working as intended,” said Yolo County DA Jeff Reisig a few months ago. “We’ve seen the retail theft crisis spiral out of control and fentanyl is a crisis fueling the highest death rate we’ve ever seen. This is a commonsense fix to have some accountability again. It’s very balanced, very humane, and focused on treatment.”
While there has been opposition from some groups against the new proposition, the opposition has been weaker compared to previous attempts. In fact, law enforcement support has been very high, with many groups opposing Prop. 20 in 2020 now not taking a side.
Signature collection took place in the last several months, with experts saying that around 750,000 or 800,000 signatures would be needed for it to pass. While 546,651 signatures were needed to be collected by April 23rd, a few thousand buffer votes were needed in case of duplicate signatures, invalid voters, and bad signatures.
However, the group announced that over 900,000 votes had been collected, all but assured to be enough for the November ballot.
“So many Californians see Prop. 47 as a reason why things are so bad in the state right now,” said researcher David Lewis, who specializes on crime propositions in each individual state, to the Globe on Thursday. “They keep trying, and over the years, they’ve learned to start off with a more watered down version of what they want, before going into more meatier subjects. This prop they want, they’re focusing on issues that even those on the left have denounced. Plus, ever since the 2020 election, there has been an overall backlash on progressive policies in California. I mean, San Francisco got rid of their DA in a recall. So the time seems right now. They were closing in on a million signatures. That is a strong first message to anyone against this.”
The Homelessness, Drug Addiction and Theft Reduction Act proposal is expected to be verified soon by the state for the November 2024 ballot.
View Comments (15)
It is a good start.
I would like to see it fully repealed.
This is the only way to repeal the worst of the Prop. 47 issues - voters passed it so voters have to amend it. The Legislature cannot. I'll be detailing this more tomorrow - Katy
A little theft is OK with Californians...It's sort of like being a little pregnant; right?
Thanks Katy, we definitely need more details.
One of the concerns I have is the weak judical system, the SJW type DA’s and Judges will use their discretion to hand down weak sentencing.
Would it not be status quo?
Like I said it is a start.
Great, Katy Grimes~! We will be waiting for your informative efforts~!
Sorry, but the proposition is too weak to be effective. The problem with identifying repeat offenders is you have to catch and convict them multiple times. It's just not practical. I'll vote for it only because it is better than nothing, but I don't expect much in the way of results.
Protect Freedom: Husband and I signed the petition and dutifully sent it in, encouraged others to sign it and will vote for the initiative in November, obviously, and of course we'll see how it all plays out if it should pass. But I'm inclined to agree with you about the problem (for one) of "catch and convict multiple times" aspect of it and its general weakness when we should be hearing endless and righteous screaming from the rooftops about Prop 47 and its very long list of harms over the years. Even the new D.A. Jenkins in S.F. --- an apparently determined prosecutor --- has only been able to score one criminal fentanyl conviction in all the time she has now been in office. Could be there have been more since I last checked, but it's not okay that sensible citizens are always put in a "beggars can't be choosers" position when it comes to extremely important CA issues like this one and when the fallout has now hit a critical mass. Haven't we learned that watering things down to be "acceptable" to the CA voters doesn't work? Why are our prominent Repubs not more forceful and yelling louder and actually screaming bloody murder about this? How many Repub candidates are neglecting to RUN on it? Did I miss it? Maybe.
Showandtell, I submitted my petition - anything to help. If I had deep pockets I would flood TV with ads showing video evidence of endless crime in California. Youtube and X have hundreds of such videos. I would also showcase horrendous crimes committed by individuals AFTER they got their Prop 47 "Get Out Of Jail Free" cards.
There you go, Fed Up! Two low-cost and extremely marketable ideas right there. Candidates? CAGOP? (As if)
NOTE: Of course I shouldn't lump everyone into the same lump. Bad habit. Some Repub politicians are speaking up strongly and some Repub candidates are running strong. But not all or even most.
So thank goodness we have outlets and reporters like the Globe, Katy Grimes, and others who tirelessly seek and tell the truth of the matter, whatever it is, and do it in a compelling way.
The felony limit for shoplifting should be $0.
I am very pleased with this news, because it is a start to correcting the dangerous nonsense the Left pushes!!
Pillories, stocks and chain gangs need to make a comeback.
So, Californians are willing to accept a little theft in their lives and call that normal? It's sort of like being a little pregnant ; don't you think?
The progressive agenda as a whole is in trouble/cracking here in California. Look how long they had to "look" for votes for Prop 1. If Trump had asked for what Newsom did in asking to look for votes Trump would be on trial. With this fix for Prop 47 on the ballot hopefully it will bring a groundswell of common-sense voters to the polls here in California, and that it will help carry other common-sense ideas and candidates into office. The next question is how is the current group in power going to try to stop this ground swell of opposition to their policies? They will need to gin up something, another pandemic, terrorist attacks in big cities in order to declare martial law, or lastly inflate turnout against these proposed changes. No matter what it is the way to win is to have overwhelming turnout. We need turnout to be in the 90% range which will send a loud message. Turnout is what will break the chains that currently hold us back.
stop voting for politicians that voted for the original mess that got you into this mess.