In 2014, California voters approved Proposition 47, known as the Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act, which reclassified some felonies—including theft, fraud, and forgery for amounts under $950, and possession of many illegal drugs for personal use—as misdemeanors. The initiative passed with nearly 60 percent approval.
But in November, Californians will vote on whether to modify Proposition 47. Reflecting voter concerns regarding drug use, crime, and homelessness, a new ballot initiative, the Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act, will appear on California’s November ballot after having gathered over 900,000 signatures.
The proposition increases penalties and sentences for possession of certain drugs and calls for felony charges for thefts under $950 when the individual has two prior theft convictions. Defendants would have drug possession charges dismissed if they plead guilty and complete a drug treatment program. It would also increase sentences for other drug and theft crimes. Supporters of the new initiative include Mayor Matt Mahan of San Jose and Mayor London Breed of San Francisco, and associations representing peace officers, district attorneys, and retail businesses.
What has changed since 2014 to lead to this potential reversal? Proposition 47 has nearly decriminalized retail theft under $950, because only 6.6 percent of reported Proposition 47 crimes result in an arrest; some arrests are not prosecuted; retailers do not report all theft, because they don’t feel it is worth their time; and even when there is an arrest, prosecution, and conviction, the penalty may be minor.
Moreover, the homeless population—among whom substance abuse is very high and crime rates are much higher than among the general population—has increased nearly 60 percent in the last 10 years. As crime has increased, and as some neighborhoods within San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento, and other California cities suffer as homeless camps proliferate on sidewalks and businesses close, some voters have decided that 2014’s Proposition 47 was a mistake.
To understand voter concerns about Proposition 47, note that the number homeless Californians rose from about 114,000 in 2014 to about 181,000 last year. Substance abuse is very high among the unhoused, with 43 percent of homeless individuals experiencing alcohol abuse, 20 percent cannabis, 18 percent cocaine, and 8 percent amphetamine abuse. These rates are as much as ten times higher than those among the general population.
Crimes committed by homeless individuals are over eight times as many as those committed among the general population, based on Los Angeles data. A report citing data from San Diego County indicates that the unhoused are up to 514 times more likely to commit certain felony crimes than members of the general population.
California’s violent crime and property crime rates have increased and are now about 20–25 percent higher than in the rest of the country. Moreover, there have been recent, prominent violent crimes committed by homeless individuals in the expensive beach communities of Santa Monica and Venice, which has raised awareness and concerns about public safety and homelessness. If people don’t feel safe in their own neighborhoods, they demand action, and this has helped push the initiative far over the required number of signatures to appear on the November ballot.
The state’s political leadership, however, has been trying to suppress this initiative. California governor Gavin Newsom and Democrats in the State Senate and Assembly believe it will disproportionately criminalize low-income individuals and drug users.
Newsom and Democrats in the state legislature have advanced their own set of bills that target retail theft being committed by those in organized gangs while leaving Proposition 47 untouched. But last month, Democrats inserted what some call a “poison pill” into their own legislation: an amendment that would nullify their organized gang legislation if the Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act initiative were to pass.
Initiative supporters, Republicans, and prominent media sources viewed this as political gamesmanship designed to confuse voters and prevent the passage of the initiative.
The editorial board representing the Sacramento Bee, Fresno Bee, Modesto Bee, Merced Sun-Star and The Tribune in San Luis Obispo wrote:
Here’s how it would work: If the Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act were to pass in November, then the anti-theft bills would be defunct. . . . Democratic leaders are so certain of their supermajority at the Capitol that they feel emboldened to game the system, and then they don’t have the nerve to answer legitimate questions about their behavior.
The Orange County Register editorial board wrote:
The bills being considered by the Legislature . . . make it easier for DAs to combine thefts at different stores and charge perpetrators with a felony, as well as make it easier to prosecute those who break into cars. Those proposals certainly seem reasonable. Yet the poison pill’s cynicism suggests Democrats are more interested in playing politics than addressing legitimate crime issues.
Then, there was a leaked email chain sent to CBS News that revealed that Newsom’s chief of staff refused to negotiate to strengthen the Democratic package of crime bills unless the ballot initiative were postponed until 2026.
Given this blowback, Democrats pulled the poison pill amendment from their own legislation. However, earlier this month they tried to introduce their own ballot initiative to compete with the Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act. The competing initiative—now withdrawn—would have made it a felony to sell drugs that included fentanyl without disclosing it to buyers and would have made it easier for prosecutors to aggregate low-level thefts when charging defendants.
However, the Democrats’ initiative would likely have found opposition among some in their own party, so it called for a special election to run concurrently with the November 5 general election, since the deadline for normal additions to the ballot had passed. This would have permitted the initiative to pass the legislature with a simple majority vote rather than requiring a two-thirds supermajority. The Democratic initiative also would have nullified the Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act, if the latter were to pass, if the last-minute Democratic initiative received more votes.
Politics is not the only reason why Newsom and the Democratic legislative leadership do not want the Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act to pass. Incarceration costs in California are remarkably high, averaging about $132,000 annually per prisoner. With a $73 billion budget deficit for fiscal year 2024–25, the budget implications of increasing the state’s prison rolls are all too clear for the Democratic leadership.
This second attempt to suppress the Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act also was also met with broad condemnation. A San Francisco Chronicle columnist wrote:
Governor Gavin Newsom and Democratic legislative leaders really, really don’t want California voters to approve a November ballot measure to roll back parts of Proposition 47. . . . In fact, they’re so desperate to prevent the measure from succeeding that they’re willing to subvert and twist the very process they claim to revere more than anything else — democracy — to achieve their aims.
Rebuffed for a second time, the Democrats pulled their competing initiative, which means that the Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act will be voted on without impediments. But there will be one catch: it has been numbered by Shirley Weber, California’s secretary of state, to be the last proposition that voters see on the ballot.
