By David M. Greenwald
Executive Editor
Sacramento, CA – Legislative leaders and Governor Newsom agreed on a crime bill package to put before the voters—the vote will take place on Wednesday evening. In the meantime, Californians for Safer Communities pushed back led by Greg Totten, its co-chair and the Director of the California DA’s Association, who was flanked by San Diego DA Summer Stephan and Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes, among others.
Californians for Safer Communities is the principal sponsor of the Homelessness Drug Addiction and Theft Reduction Act that will be on the ballot in November of 2024.
Totten charged, “I can tell you as a career prosecutor, his provisions are very weak, very watered down, very skinny, and for all practical intensive purposes, they will be largely unenforceable and make little to no difference in the problems of retail theft, the fentanyl crisis, and the homeless crisis that is confronting all California.”
Totten accused legislative leaders of “playing political games in the last few weeks 
seeking to take this measure, our measure off the ballot.”
He noted that “the legislature put poison pills into their retail theft legislative package again in an effort to push our measure off the ballot. Now, after repeatedly claiming there’s no need to amend Proposition 47 legislative leaders have decided to switch tactics and now have proposed a countermeasure to our initiative.”
Totten added, “This is precisely the type of political gamesmanship that the public disdains, they aim to confuse voters in November with their competing measure.”
Governor Gavin Newsom, Senate pro Tem Mike McGuire and Speaker of the Assembly Robert Rivas announced on Monday that they will have a competing ballot measure that would crack down on property crime and the fentanyl crisis, through targeted reforms to Prop. 47.
“With targeted reforms to Prop 47, this ballot measure is a critical step forward in our efforts to strengthen California’s public safety laws and provide law enforcement with additional tools to address the growing concerns of property crime and the fentanyl crisis,” Governor Newsom said in a statement on Monday. “This balanced approach cracks down on crime and protects our communities — without reverting to ineffective and costly policies of the past.”
“Californians want safer, stronger communities, and we’re delivering exactly that with this commonsense approach,” said Senate President pro Tempore Mike McGuire (D-North Coast). “These are a methodical set of measures that will crack down on retail theft and hold offenders accountable for hardcore drug crimes, without enacting the draconian policies of the ‘80s and ‘90s that devastated communities of color and cost taxpayers billions of dollars.”
Governor, Legislative Leaders Announce Ballot Measure to Crack Down on Property Crime and Fentanyl
Summer Stephan, San Diego County District Attorney, also pushed back arguing that the public “realized that something has gone wrong, that for some reason in our state, instead of honoring the rights of victims, the rights of everyone to be safe, it seems like everything prioritizes the rights of criminals and not the right of our community to be safe.”
She said the current situation of rampant smash and grabs and retail theft “is an unacceptable situation and that was the unintended consequence of Proposition 47. “
Stephan said, “This initiative, our people’s initiative is not a three strikes law. It is not a mandatory prison law. It is a balanced common sense initiative that protects the dignity of everybody.”
She argues that the alternative law “actually sets us back.”
She said, “I was appalled to read that they are creating a law that makes it look like they’re doing something that puts the blame on the victims.”
Stephan referred to provisions she said would require a prosecutor to show that a person who overdosed and “whose life is destroyed by this deadly fentanyl has to have known that the substance did not have fentanyl.”
Matt Capelouto, President of Stop Drug Homicide talked about the overdose death of his daughter of fentanyl.
“Alex made a poor choice, but it wasn’t an evil choice. The evil choice was made by that drug dealer who chose to profit off of her life,” he said.
He explained, “I soon found out that California did not have a single law to hold this man accountable and that’s where my advocacy began.”
He continued, “For years, my family has tirelessly worked to pass Alexandra’s law only to be stopped by out of touch. Politicians who seem more interested in protecting drug dealers than preventing new victims.”
He added, “This law is straightforward. If someone is convicted of selling fentanyl or other hard drugs, they will be warned by a court that they can be charged with murder if they sell fentanyl again and it results in someone’s death.”
Sheriff Don Barnes of Orange County said, “I’m here to express my concern with political games being played to stop the solutions to California’s crime problem. Legislative leaders are attempting a last minute counter proposal that could be placed on the ballot as a misinformation campaign intended to confuse voters.”
The sheriff argued, “The countermeasure falls short in addressing property crime, the fentanyl epidemic and social issues like homelessness and drug addiction on the fentanyl crisis.”
Sergeant Jared Wilson, President, San Diego Police Officers Association, said, “Proposition two is not effective. We need to reject this proposed countermeasure as it will not give us tools we need to actually hold, repeat retail theft offenders accountable and help us end this fentanyl crisis.”
Sgt Wilson said that there is a major loophole in theft crimes that “just encourages these to dodge their court dates until the time limit expires.”
He added, “Even worse, once someone has served time for serious crimes, they can get out and immediately start stealing again knowing they will not face consequences.”
He argued, “We need laws that actually give our law enforcement officers putting their lives on the line every day to protect this community and this state the tools they need to hold people accountable and keep everyone safe.”
But not everyone agrees with this approach.
“The crime rate is definitely going down. Retail theft is down. Any number of indicators show that it’s down,” Senator Nancy Skinner told the Vanguard a few weeks ago.
She explained, “I think what we see is… you have some people, some proponents of an initiative that they purport is going to address retail theft when it has really little in it to do with retail theft.”
Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón continues to back Prop. 47, noting that, “Every Californian deserves to feel safe whether they’re at home, at work, at school, or at the store… We don’t need to roll back Prop 47 to accomplish these goals. ”
He said he recognizes that more has to be done to address both retail theft and fentanyl in our communities, “which is why I’ve been working with partners in law enforcement, public health, and the legislature to pursue evidence-backed solutions to keep our community safe.”
He supports the legislature’s comprehensive package.
“The California legislature is currently considering a comprehensive package that responds to the concerns of community members, businesses, and law enforcement on these issues, and they’re working to ensure that this package can go into effect as soon as the governor signs it, bringing real public safety to our communities now, not months later,” he said.
Senator Skinner believes these arguments are disingenuous.
She charged, “The proponents of this initiative are being disingenuous. They are weaving a story that is not true. And they are purporting to have an initiative that’s going to, for example, stop retail theft when the retailers themselves say, no, what we need is bills like Skinner’s.”
Not only is retail theft now declining, Skinner added, “drug use now, fortunately, we are also seeing fentanyl use go down.”
She added, “That’s the other good news statistically, which is really a relief.” She noted, “Having laws criminalizing the user has not reversed the use of that drug.”
Skinner said, “What I’m confident about is that the package of bills that we’ve put forward really address crime and the drug problems. And there are, they’re based on real solutions that have been proven to work. They were crafted with good interaction with stakeholders, with law enforcement, with community-based agencies, with experts, because we want our community safe. And so they were crafted from that perspective.”
Gascón also believes the ballot initiative “isn’t really about public safety because Prop 47 has made our communities safer.”
He noted, “Prop 47 has saved more than $800 million in taxpayer dollars that have been invested into crime prevention efforts in our communities. And these programs work — participants of programs backed by Prop 47 funding have recidivism rates up to 30 percentage points lower than those returning from state prison. That means less crime and fewer victims in our communities.”
He warned that “over the next 10 years, the ballot initiative to roll back Prop 47 would take hundreds of millions of dollars away from the state’s most successful drug treatment and homelessness prevention programs and from services for survivors of crime. So there are real risks to public safety and public health if Prop 47 is rolled back.”
