The Greenberg Brief: Holding Out Hope for Prop. 47’s Survival

It’s now 10 years since the passage of the Safe Neighborhoods & Schools Act. How could voters not have been in favor of it back then?  Well, we can now blame the deceptive ballot measure name in hindsight, as it has ultimately led to upheaval in California’s criminal justice system. Proponents of that voter initiative obfuscated its true intent.

Welcome to Proposition 47.

Today, voters’ remorse is in full swing. Rogue District Attorneys letting accused thieves go free while “civil rights” activists and organizations turn up the heat to decarcerate and close jails.  The rhetoric to dismiss perpetrators’ accountability has run rampant for a decade, all to the detriment of our state’s civil order. Car break-ins, chain pharmacy lootings, mom and pop shops’ inventory stolen with many acts caught on camera, all have enabled and encouraged the spike in crime, making California famous on the world stage, for all the wrong reasons.

Stark similarities exist between those donors who’s financing passing Prop. 47 in 2014 also gave rogue DA’s like San Francisco’s Chesa Boudin a viable, flush-with-cash campaign, leading to his election in 2019. Who funded the Prop 47 effort? The largest were George Soros’ Open Society ($1.5 million); Several ACLU chapters ($3.5 Million); Public Storage’s CEO B. Wayne Hughes ($1.25 million); and Molly Munger, Nick Pritzger, Reed Hastings, Cari Tuna and Sean Parker’s combined giving $750,000 to make Prop. 47 a reality.

The overlap of contributions between the Prop. 47 measure and funding rogue DAs is damning evidence, a who’s who of disrupting criminal justice, hence, greatly reducing perpetrators’ accountability.

Proposition 47 is a Public Defender’s dream. Up and down the coast, from San Francsico, Oakland, to Los Angeles and beyond mayhem has reigned. Prop. 47 is one key piece of the puzzle upending civil order, along with rogue DAs, as well as well-funded and effective Public Defenders, left-wing city council members, overbearing anti-cop Police Commissions, a defunded police force, activist judges, and closed jails. Apart from the decarceration activists, there are those who allege racism is to blame for a high percentage of minorities’ arrested and convicted of crimes, as well as asserting property crimes of $950 or less are victimless. This mentality, to excuse, is truly exhausting; it is disregard for an orderly society. And of course, the “petty” crimes almost always lead to more severe and costly crimes, functioning like a gateway drug.

This year, California voters may have an opportunity to rectify this wrong, with a ballot measure to repeal Prop. 47. And we are already seeing opposition, even from an unlikely Prop 47 supporter, one who is now making public excuses as to why it needs to be kept in place: a UCSF medical doctor.

Earlier this week, Margot Kushel, MD, director at UCSF’s Center for Vulnerable Populations, and the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, posted her view on the very real prospect Prop. 47 being repealed later this year, calling such repeal a “costly mistake” which would increase racial inequities. She immediately was torched on social media for this view. And I concur.

The notion of needing to excuse perpetrators of crime by a preferred race is inexcusable and indefensible. Such bias is what led to the mass spike in crime across the nation during the 2020 Summer riots and the extending of periodic mass retail lootings and crime sprees til today. This is what led to the eventual recall of rogue San Francisco district attorney Chesa Boudin, the current turmoil under Los Angeles DA George Gascon, Alameda’s Pamela Price’s controversy. Society has awoken to the Woke DAs and false promises of the so-called “Criminal Justice Reform” movement. Law-abiding, hard-working taxpayers have had enough.

It is equally inexcusable for people in a position of power, and a voice, to pretend we haven’t experienced the result of a mass avoidance of prosecuting crimes. Wealthy individuals throwing huge sums of cash, often tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars, toward failed “social justice” policy efforts make we victims wonder if those megadonors are actually aware of the damage they are directly, personally contributing to.

​This year marks the sixtieth anniversary of the passage and signing of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. African-Americans, and indeed every American has been afforded equal treatment under the law, regardless of race, color religion, sex and national origin. States across the nation have enacted similar language to their constitutions and laws as well, a full array of workplace, education, housing, consumer goods, all for making society a pleasant place to live and impetus to further contribute to. Those who choose not to contribute and instead break our laws, harming persons and property, must be prosecuted, not given a pass just because they are of a certain race, nationality or gender orientation. Martin Luther King Jr. would be extremely dissatisfied with what has happened with his legacy of hard work for civil rights, as it seems much of it is for naught.