Why a tough-on-crime initiative is splitting California’s Democrats

SACRAMENTO, California — If you want to know where California Democrats stand on the tough-on-crime Proposition 36, look at where they sit.

On one side of the ballot-measure contest are the Capitol’s top Democrats, including Gov. Gavin Newsom and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, who have fought efforts to roll back parts of Prop 47, the landmark 2014 criminal justice ballot initiative that downgraded certain theft and drug crimes from felonies to misdemeanors.

On the other side are big-city mayors like San Francisco Mayor London Breed and San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria, who have argued that strengthened penalties are necessary to assuage their constituents’ growing concerns about public safety. They have been joined by organizations like the League of California Cities and the California Contract Cities Association, which represent the interests of city hall officials statewide.

San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan and two local officials — Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho and Elk Grove Mayor Bobbie Singh-Allen — are now launching their own committee supporting Prop 36. They hope the Common Sense for Safety committee will open space for other Democratic office-holders willing to cross Newsom and other prominent state officials.

“We see the consequences on the ground every day,” said Santa Monica Mayor Phil Brock. “Look at Mayor Breed, Mayor Mahan, mayors down here in southern California — we’re exasperated, we’re frustrated, and so many days we feel helpless. We need some help, we need some assistance.”

When prosecutors and big-box retailers came forward earlier this year with their initiative to restore harsh penalties for non-violent crimes, Newsom and legislative leaders began working to get it off the ballot. After failing to persuade the initiative’s proponents to drop their quest and abandoning plans to promote an anti-crime measure of their own , the Capitol’s top Democrats are leading the charge against Prop 36. They warn the measure will take California back to the era of mass incarceration and cost taxpayers millions of dollars.

It has not stopped Democratic mayors and other local officeholders from coming out in favor of the initiative. Yes on Prop 36, the main campaign committee supporting the initiative, has put out a steady drumbeat of endorsements from local-level politicians, including many Democrats.

“My great fear is that by decriminalizing low-level crime, we have allowed people’s conditions to deepen and worsen,” Mahan said in an interview ahead of his group’s launch in which he promoted Prop 36 as crucial to tackling interconnected problems in his city, including homelessness.

Local officials and organizations that represent them say there are clear reasons for the measure’s strong support on the local level: They’re less insulated from the effects of retail theft and drug issues than politicians in Sacramento, giving them more of an on-the-ground perspective on how dire the situation really is.

“Cities feel like they’re the first line of defense when it comes to public safety,” said Marcel Rodarte, executive director of the California Contract Cities Association, which endorsed Prop 36 earlier this summer. “They’re the ones their constituents call — they don’t call Assembly members, they don’t call state senators — so they bear the brunt of this.”

Rodarte added that, although not every mayor of the group’s 80 member cities is supporting Prop 36, most are — and the measure hasn’t been especially divisive within the organization, because public safety is an issue that largely draws “consensus” among members.

One notable exception to the surge of Democratic mayoral support is in Los Angeles county, where Los Angeles’ Karen Bass and Long Beach’s Rex Richardson have resisted entreaties from their fellow mayors to join the No on 36 coalition.

“I will likely take a position between now and November,” Richardson told POLITICO of Prop 36. “I can’t associate everything bad with Proposition 47. … It’s scapegoating the problem. We saw crime really pick up after the pandemic. Now we’re starting to see things go down.”

Prop 36’s backers say they do not believe the initiative’s passage will augur a return to mass incarceration, but that it would reintroduce much-needed “accountability” for repeat offenders.

“In an ideal world you wouldn’t need penalties,” said Brock, “but that’s not the reality right now.”

Tyler Katzenberger contributed to this article.