Newsom signs retail theft bills, taking a shot at Prop. 36. How will it affect the campaign?

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Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a slate of bills Friday to crack down on retail thefts, making moves on an issue that has drawn ire from business owners for years and spurred a ballot measure to undo parts of a landmark, decade-old criminal justice reform law.

Newsom signed 10 bills Friday at a Home Depot store in San Jose, flanked by retail industry leaders, Speaker Robert Rivas, D-Hollister, Senate President pro Tem Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, and a bipartisan group of lawmakers.

In many ways, the bills go further than the retail theft and drug crackdown ballot measure Proposition 36 . That measure is supported by a majority of likely voters, according to a new poll.

The legislative package gives Newsom and other top Democrats ammunition in their campaign against Prop. 36, a prosecutor- and retailer-backed initiative to increase punishments for theft and drug possession for people that have two prior related convictions.

The bills signed Friday require online marketplaces such as Facebook and eBay to take additional steps in ensuring products for sale were not stolen and to alert police if a California-based seller is attempting to sell stolen goods on their platforms.

Other bills close a “locked door loophole” which requires prosecutors to prove a car was locked before they can charge someone for auto burglary, allow prosecutors to combine the value of items stolen over multiple thefts to reach a $950 felony threshold, and allow courts to ban criminals from entering retailers they’ve targeted.

The governor called the package “the most significant legislation to address property crime in modern California history.”

“This goes to the heart of the issue, and it does it in a thoughtful and judicious way,” he said.

It’s unclear whether the new laws will convince any retailers to back down from supporting Prop. 36.

Home Depot, the store that hosted Newsom’s bill signing event, has already given more than $1 million to the Prop. 36 campaign.

“I can’t speak for individual member companies. That’s their own decision,” said Rachel Michelin, president and CEO of the California Retailers Association. She said she’s heard from a number of retailers that “are very enthusiastic about this package.”

Not on hand was San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, who is breaking with Newsom to support Prop. 36 with a handful of other mayors and Democratic lawmakers.

“While these bills are an important first step to address the crisis of retail theft, they are just that — a first step,” Mahan said in a statement before Newsom signed the bills. “Fully addressing the rise in retail theft requires acknowledging one of the key underlying causes of those thefts: drug and alcohol addiction.”

Mahan has said Prop. 36 could use $6.4 billion in funding for behavioral health treatment now available under Prop 1, which was approved by voters earlier this year, to treat people for addiction.

“Like the governor, I never want to go back to the era of mass incarceration. But the time to begin the era of mass treatment is now,” Mahan said.

“Respectfully, completely reject that premise as factually inaccurate and misleading,” Newsom said when asked about Mahan’s comments. He said Prop. 36 could take away funding — required under 2014’s Prop. 47 – for drug treatment and other programs.

The governor also pointed out Prop. 36 is expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars in additional court cases. It does not contain a mechanism to fund the increased workload.

“Any of you that are fiscally conservative should be screaming from the rooftops,” he said. “Not one dollar to support the courts. You’ve got backlogs already.”

California voters support Prop. 36 by a two-to-one margin, according to a Berkeley IGS poll released Friday. The survey shows 53% of likely voters said they would vote for the measure, while 23% would vote no. Twenty-one percent said they were undecided.

At the signing event, Newsom also touted more than $1 billion since 2019 to help cities fight crime by bolstering enforcement, investigations and prosecution of retail theft.

Assembly Republican leader James Gallagher criticized Newsom Friday for acting late on retail theft and said he “doesn’t deserve an ounce of credit.”

“For his first five years in office, he ignored and downplayed rising crime. He is only acting now because he knows the people of California are fed up with the lawlessness and are taking matters into their own hands with Prop. 36,” Gallagher said.

Violent and property crime rates are down from historic highs of the 1980s, but Newsom and lawmakers acknowledged the toll theft takes on businesses of all sizes.

“I have a message for criminal gangs, who as we know, have brazenly been preying on our stores,” said Speaker Rivas. “Your time is up. If you break these laws, you will pay the price.”