Kamala Harris might look competitive in national polls, but California voters are poised to undo one of the most important aspects of her legacy in the Golden State.
Aside from her refusal to cooperate with federal immigration authorities as the district attorney of San Francisco and later as the attorney general of California — running sanctuary, or de facto running secessionist entities — Harris’s most consequential act in California leadership was her contribution to passing of Proposition 47 in 2014. The law is widely credited with the social collapse of once lovely cities like San Francisco.
Passed with nearly 60% voter support, the initiative reclassified many felonies as misdemeanors, such as, most notoriously, theft of under $950, including repeat offenses. This shift created the now familiar spectacle of thieves leisurely walking into stores and picking up $949 of merchandise — and then doing it again and again, in the plain view of bored security guards.
Proposition 47 decriminalized drug possession, taking away the instrument that allowed law enforcement to pressure addicts to enter rehabs. Picking up a junkie for injecting opiates in public and forcing him into treatment under a threat of prison was no longer an option. The situation with opiate addiction was bad enough in 2014, but once fentanyl appeared on the market a few years later, the authorities had no tools to tackle it. Drug poisoning deaths skyrocketed.
The measure required resentencing of prisoners previously convicted of felonies if under Prop 47 those felonies were reclassified as misdemeanors. What followed was the early release of many so-called justice-involved individuals.
That trend was picked up in 2016 by Proposition 57 that emptied out California prisons further via early parole. The two propositions created the notorious prison to homelessness pipeline of the former inmates, poorly prepared for challenges of everyday life, pouring into the homeless encampments. Over the period of 2018-2022 alone, both the state and the federal governments spent over $12 billion to combat homelessness in California without making a dent in the problem. Although it goes without saying that not all of the unhoused are former inmates, California’s homeless population is growing. As reported in 2023, half of the nation’s homeless now live here. Nine in ten Californians say that homelessness is a problem in their state.
The current post-apocalyptic California landscape, littered with homeless encampments and boarded up storefronts is the consequence of the breakdown of law and order that ensued after the the initiative became law. Moreover, while it was billed as a step in relaxing penalties on non-violent crime, according to the attorney general’s office, violent offenses rose from 151,425 to 199,838 during the period from 2014 to 2023 — and that’s only the reported incidents.
Prop 47 advanced the decarceration part of the social justice agenda — far left political leaders considered the overrepresentation of ethnic minorities among prison population to be proof of racism and something had to be done about it. Even without touching the issue of race, in the progressive worldview, personal responsibility is too harsh of a notion, so crime ought to be prevented by attacking its root causes. It’s fair to say that the goal of the decarceration movement has been at least partially met since the prison population plummeted. Unfortunately, the state is bogged in criminality.
How Prop 47 became law is a fair question. The attorney general office was tasked with writing the description of the initiative in the voter guide. Kamala Harris was elected to lead it at the time and she produced a favorable blurb, promising savings to the taxpayer from reduced spending on court proceedings and prisons and not a word about the potential of increased crime. She explained that the money could be diverted to prevention — education, therapy and drug rehabilitation. The attorney general did not anticipate the social collapse coming at a cost — the revenue loss from businesses going bankrupt or fleeing the state because they were unable to cope with theft or guarantee security to their employees. Harris maintains that she didn’t take a position on the measure. She didn’t need to: the best thing she could do for the cause is misrepresent it.
The gullible California voters deserve their share of blame for the passage of Prop 47. They might not know who is personally responsible for composing the description of the ballot measure, but, given the power dynamics within the state, they should anticipate a far left bias in state-issued materials. A description of a proposed law that purports to significantly affect the rates of incarceration but fails to discuss the potential increase in criminal activity should raise all sorts of red flags. It didn’t.
Yet there is no question that California voters were deceived. Ten years later, the state is looking to roll back Proposition 47. According to a new LA Times/new UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll, 56% of likely voters support the newly introduced Proposition 36. This measure would make the third offense of theft and third fentanyl arrest a felony and require court-mandated fentanyl treatments. Interestingly, it requires warnings to addicts that if they sell the narcotic to another user and that user dies, they can be tried for murder. But it’s hardly a draconian measure.
Support for Proposition 36 stands in contrast with the otherwise progressive inclinations of the California electorate. The same survey found that likely voters favor statewide rent control and increased minimum wage. They will certainly push the lever for Harris — because she has the D behind her name, not because of anything she did or didn’t do. They most likely don’t connect her to the ten-year-old ballot measure that made made their state unlivable.
Nevertheless, even in deep blue California, the policies that have Kamala’s name on them have been tried and turned down. Why do we need her to lead the nation?
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