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SAN JOSE, Calif. — Gov. Gavin Newsom used Friday's event to mark his signing of a sweeping bill Anti-theft legislation To attack the crime vote initiative.
Newsom accused the bill’s backers — a coalition that includes the mayors of San Jose and San Francisco — of lying to Californians about their proposal by portraying it as an attempt to tackle alleged criminals rather than convict and sentence them. He called the bill a throwback to the tough-on-crime 1980s and claimed the package actually addresses retail theft.
“This initiative is about going back to the 1980s and the war on drugs. It's about mass incarceration. I don't want to take us back,” Newsom told reporters.
The governor was flanked by retailers, law enforcement officials and Democratic lawmakers as he signed 10 bills to crack down on organized retail theft during a ceremony in the back aisle of a Home Depot store. His office called it the most significant effort to combat property crime “in modern California history,” noting that the legislation would allow prosecutors to more easily charge repeat offenders and crack down on organized theft rings.
The package was initially billed as a form of pressure to persuade big-box retailers and prosecutors to withdraw Proposition 36, a November ballot measure led by prosecutors that would have repealed parts of a decade-old criminal justice reform measure that reduced prison sentences for some theft and drug offenses. But those negotiations broke down earlier this summer, and Newsom and legislative leaders instead sought to use their bill package to divert support and funding from the ballot measure campaign.
Among those who stood behind him was Rachel Michelin, president of the California Retailers Association. She indicated that her group, which still formally supports Proposition 36, would likely reconsider its position. Reducing the number of retailers, a major potential source of campaign funding, was a key part of opponents’ strategy to undermine the measure.
“Retailers have never been interested in mass incarceration or that kind of mentality,” she said.
Michelin later told Politico that the association’s board of directors could vote to withdraw its support for Proposition 36 in the coming weeks. “We’re very focused on retail theft,” she said. “A lot of (Proposition 36) is more focused on drug statutes.”
Major retailers like Walmart, Target and Home Depot have separately contributed millions of dollars to get the measure up for a vote. Newsom and Michelin said they were unsure whether those companies would continue to put their money behind the initiative.
At the same time, the Democratic governor also has to deal with Leaders in his party who supported Proposition 36including major city mayors like Matt Mahan of San Jose, London Breed of San Francisco, and Todd Gloria of San Diego.
Mahan held a news conference outside San Jose City Hall on Friday to respond to Newsom’s public comments. He argued that Proposition 36 would give courts a crucial tool to force more repeat offenders into addiction treatment, though he also supported anti-theft bills that Newsom signed.
“It’s not controversial locally,” Mahan said of Proposition 36. “It seems like this has become very politicized and very partisan in Sacramento.”
Newsom dismissed the idea of a party rift during the event, saying, “This is not the Democratic Party, this is just two mayors.”
The governor was also noncommittal about how far he would go in his campaign against Proposition 36 this fall: “There’s a lot of things I don’t like on the ballot… It’s just, what’s the capacity?”
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