The Black Lives Matter movement does not have many legislative accomplishments. But the passage of Proposition 47 in California in the wake of Michael Brown’s death in 2014 is one of them. It has been a complete and predicted disaster, and California voters are now trying to repeal it with another ballot proposition this year.
Only the corrupt Democratic Party that runs the Golden State is trying to stop them.
Crime in California has become so bad after Proposition 47 lowered the penalties for many nonviolent offenses from felonies to misdemeanors that Democratic lawmakers felt they must reach across the aisle this year to pass more than a dozen bills intended to make it easier for law enforcement to hold criminals accountable for their crimes.
The bills would, among other things, create a new felony for the robbery of a business while part of an organized retail theft ring, create a new reporting mechanism for retailers to report theft, enhance penalties for people who sell more than $50,000 worth of stolen goods, create a new felony for breaking into a vehicle with intent to steal more than $950 worth of goods inside, and establish a new Organized Retail Theft task force within the California Highway Patrol.
These are all good anti-crime measures that will help reduce the chaos caused by Democrats who embraced the Black Lives Matter movement. But they do not go far enough, and California voters want more.
A coalition of business leaders, district attorneys, and victims groups has collected enough signatures to place an initiative on the ballot called the Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act. The measure would raise penalties for fentanyl dealers whose drugs killed or seriously injured a user, allow those with two misdemeanor theft convictions to be charged as felons for a third misdemeanor theft, create new penalties for those who damage property in the process of a robbery (targeted at smash-and-grab robberies), and increase penalties for those who inflict “great bodily injury” on any person while committing a felony.
California Democrats oppose these new anti-crime policies, which Democratic state Senate Pro Tempore Mike McGuire said “would set California back decades with policies of mass incarceration that devastates black and brown communities.”
Instead of taking their case against these measures to the voters on the merits, however, California Democrats are attempting a cynical and corrupt approach. They are adding nullification language to formerly bipartisan anti-crime legislation they crafted with Republicans that would essentially repeal the new anti-crime laws if the Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act ballot measure passes. Democrats could then claim that passing the measure would be soft on crime since it would undo the other tough laws just passed.
“It’s meant to confuse voters,” Republican Assemblyman Tom Lackey told reporters. “That’s not democracy.”
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Not only is it not democracy, but it is hostage-taking. California Democrats are threatening to kill good bipartisan anti-crime legislation if California voters choose to pass other anti-crime policies Democrats don’t like.
Unaffordable housing prices caused by draconian environmental regulations are still the main reason middle-class families are fleeing California in droves. But crime is also a big reason people are leaving, and Democrats seem determined not to let voters address the problem.