As RedState reported, it was a battle between the will of the California people and a stubborn, dictatorial Governor Gavin Newsom. As senior editor Jen Van Laar wrote, Newsom does not want his feather-in-the-cap legislation to be Prop 47 will be repealed and has done everything in its power to thwart the referendum, even after it was approved for the November 2024 vote.
If you thought the state’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, actually cared about the safety of families in his state, email exchanges between Newsom’s chief of staff and California District Attorney Greg Totten, obtained by CBS California on Monday, will prove you wrong.
Newsom, who has presidential ambitions (despite repeated denials), is trying to look like he is trying to do something about the problem. But he is a staunch supporter of “justice reform” and one of the architects (along with then-San Francisco District Attorney George Gascòn) of the 2014 Bill 47 that created the problem in the first place. So he cannot support attempts to repeal or “fix” Bill 47 without admitting that his brilliant ideas didn’t work. Apparently Newsom is unaware that a sign of intellectual and emotional maturity is the ability to recognize and admit when one is wrong or one’s idea didn’t work.
And that’s why he’s pulling out all the stops to prevent the Homelessness, Drug Addiction and Theft Reduction Act, recently approved for the November 2024 ballot and aimed at correcting Law 47.
As RedState further reported, after the approval of the reform Prop 47 ballot initiative, the California legislature (at Newsom’s behest) made a last-ditch attempt to poison the public safety laws to weaken and undermine the ballot initiative’s impact. That attempt also failed, hence this last-ditch attempt to save Newsom’s precious Prop 47 legislative initiative. In the middle of the night, on A weekendNewsom worked with a select group of his Democratic lawmakers to draft an anti-crime initiative that will be put to a vote in November.
NEW: Democratic lawmakers have officially introduced a bill to put a public safety measure on the ballot that would counteract the already approved Prop 47 reform measure.
The countermeasure “would be first on the ballot and would be referred to as Proposal 2”
More: pic.twitter.com/fgNqHtctGN
— Eytan Wallace (@EytanWallace) July 1, 2024
California lawmakers are expected to vote this week on a last-minute, fast-tracked crime initiative that could result in voters being asked not one but two crime-related questions on the November ballot.
Governor Gavin Newsom and a handful of Democratic lawmakers finalized their proposed initiative Sunday evening that seeks to an initiative that has already been approved for voting supported by law enforcement and business groups to toughen penalties for thieves and drug dealers. The initiative, which has already been approved, is known as the Homelessness, Drug Addiction and Theft Reduction Act
At the heart of the problem is Proposition 47, an initiative voters passed a decade ago that relaxed penalties for drug and theft offenses. Critics blame the law for a rise in crime, drug utilize and homelessness.
Legislative leaders and The governor has repeatedly stated this year that he does not believe Proposition 47 needs to be changed and neither of them has yet commented on the efforts to set up the competing initiative, which KCRA 3 first reported last week. Multiple sources told KCRA 3 on Sunday that the governor spent the weekend gathering support from Democratic lawmakers for a legislative initiative.
Additionally, according to the procedure, initiatives require a 131-day deadline to be put on the ballot. The only way to get around that deadline is for the House to agree to put the Skinny Initiative on the ballot more quickly because it is an “emergency matter.” Sound familiar? As San Luis Obispo County District Attorney Dan Dow asked on X on Saturday:
Does anyone have any idea what legal basis the @CAgovernor or @CAlegislature Can one circumvent the 131-day deadline (for filing an initiative) under Section 9040 of the Election Code?
I would really like to know why you seem to think that the statutory deadline does not apply to… https://t.co/hKA4Y8AXo1
– Dan Dow (@dandow) June 29, 2024
Does anyone have any idea what legal basis the @CAgovernor or @CAlegislature to get around the 131-day deadline (for proposing an initiative) contained in Section 9040 of the Election Code? I would really like to know why they seem to think the statutory deadline does not apply to them. While they acknowledge that the deadline applied to the ACA, they passed on Thursday (the last day). Here is Section 9040 of the Election Code: “Any constitutional amendment, bond measure, or other legislative measure presented to the people by the Legislature shall appear on the ballot of the first statewide election held at least 131 days after the adoption of the proposal by the Legislature.” https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=ELEC§ionNum=9040…The 131st day before November 5, 2024 was last Thursday, June 27, 2020.
Just when we thought it was secure to get back in the water, California Democrats are now calling a meeting for Wednesday evening, July 3, to pass an alternative to Proposition 47. Capitol staff received the news delayed Sunday.
This won’t end well.
No, it is not – not for the staff, not for the legislature, not for Gavin Newsom. Can you say “desperation,” boys and girls?
Before readers are tempted to give the Capitol staff the middle finger, they should remember that many of them are very competent policy experts who genuinely want a functioning state government. And the really good staffers have been in office for many years – some decades – and have sat through long, arduous budget sessions, often only to see their working policy recommendations go up in smoke.
The current issue is the ballot initiative to reform Proposition 47 of 2014, which received 900,000 signatures and was approved for the November ballot. Democrats in the House and Governor Gavin Newsom are trying to block the initiative, even though it would bring essential legal improvements to California’s egregious crime problems, and ultimately make crime illegal again in California.
“Selfish Democratic legislative leaders are throwing a tantrum because all their efforts to stop the initiative to repeal Prop. 47 have been blocked, primarily by their own members,” a senior Republican Senate aide told the Globe Sunday on condition of anonymity. “They are threatening to keep lawmakers and staff in session all night from July 3rd into July 4th. When Sen Min (driving a state vehicle while drunk) announces he stands for ‘law and order,’ you know vulnerable Democrats are in ‘CYA mode.'”
“This could hopefully be the biggest political revolution since Prop 13!”
Wow, just wow.
“Wow,” was exactly what I said after going through all the details, including the watered-down language on fentanyl dealers and possession. But in a very obvious move to undermine and destroy the law to reduce homelessness, drug addiction, and theft: the ballot initiative reform Prop 47. If Newsom’s skinny initiative gets more votes, it will render the grassroots coalition’s hard-fought ballot initiative null and void.
Choice 9 of the novel countermeasure states that it would be considered “in conflict” with the reform measure Prop 47. It then adds that if this novel measure receives more votes than the reform measure Prop 47, the novel measure will go into effect while the reform measure 47 will be null and void. pic.twitter.com/X8S4qmuuFZ
— Eytan Wallace (@EytanWallace) July 1, 2024
When asked by District Attorney Dan Dow what right Newsom and his legislators had to circumvent election law to put the issue on the ballot, an aide told Grimes the following.
I asked the Capitol staff how this could be legal. Here is the answer:
“With a three-quarters majority and a governor willing to declare a state of emergency, anything can be done. If the case is challenged in court, the state Supreme Court will cave in and say it is ‘not willing to interfere with the legislature,’ etc.”
How can people defend themselves against this? Information warfare.
Remember once again that the whole year @GavinNewsom and these same Democrats said Prop 47 did NOT need reform. They spent the whole year trying to stop the citizens’ initiative. Now, at the very last minute, with only 72 hours’ notice, they are launching their own deep phony reform initiative. The…
— James Gallagher (@J_GallagherAD3) July 1, 2024
Remember once again that the whole year @GavinNewsom and these same Democrats said Prop 47 did NOT need reform. They spent the whole year trying to stop the citizens’ initiative. Now, at the very last minute, with only 72 hours’ notice, they are launching their own deep phony reform initiative. The initiative had been circulating for months and had well over 900,000 citizen signatures.
Proposition 47 organizers and informed Californians will need to utilize every tool at their disposal to get people to vote YES to the Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act and a resounding NO to Newsom’s Skinny Initiative. Newsom likes to talk about how democracy is at stake in this election; what he doesn’t want to show is that he and the Democratic supermajority are doing everything they can to destroy it.
‼️WARNING TO CALIFORNIANS‼️@GavinNewsom has not given up his attempt to deceive voters into not voting to repeal Proposition 47. Just hours after abandoning the “poison pill” amendments, he is putting a misleading “competing” measure (Proposition 2) on the ballot.
Don’t be fooled. NEVER vote for Newsom! https://t.co/osNaCZHA7B
— Houman David Hemmati, MD, PhD (@houmanhemmati) July 1, 2024
