California Gov. Gavin Newsom is trying to defeat a tough-on-crime ballot initiative by convincing voters it would mark a return to the drug war launched by Richard Nixon. Newsom, one of the few prominent Democrats speaking out against the Proposition 36 initiative, calls it a “drug policy reform that takes us back decades.” Civil rights groups refer to the measure as the “War on Drugs 2.0,” Politico reports. “We did that,” said the No on Prop 36 campaign's Anthony York, a former top aide to Newsom. “Voters decided they didn’t like it, and the courts decided they didn’t like it.” At a moment when many Democratic politicians and left-of-center voters are increasingly focused on fighting crime, Newsom is insisting that the initiative goes too far in returning to an era when law enforcement emphasized imprisonment over rehabilitation. While he’s not actively campaigning to defeat it, he is using strong language to advocate against it.
Prop 36, which would reclassify certain theft and drug misdemeanors as felonies, was developed by a group of district attorneys with financial backing from retail giants like Home Depot, Walmart and Target. They sold the initiative as the only way to address the scourge of shoplifting in California. They blamed the decade-old Proposition 47, which relaxed penalties for low level crimes and invested millions into mental health and drug treatment programs, for giving thieves carte blanche to steal with little fear of reprisal. Newsom and Democratic legislative leaders tried to neutralize businesses’ shoplifting concerns by enacting legislation that gives prosecutors new tools to pursue organized-theft rings. Some of the policies go beyond even what Prop 36 would accomplish, including allowing officers to arrest shoplifters for probable cause, protecting businesses that report repeated crimes and making a state retail theft task force permanent. On Thursday, Newsom signed the last of those bills, which adds sentencing enhancements for stolen or damaged property.
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