Politics
Tough-on-crime measure officially qualifies for November ballot as rifts in Legislature mount
A ballot measure to impose harsher criminal penalties for drug possession and theft, altering the controversial Proposition 47 passed in 2014, has qualified for the November ballot.
The measure, however, may be undercut by the California Legislature’s Democratic leadership, which is pushing a package of bills targeting the rash of retail thefts across the state. The lawmakers hope the legislation will sway voters to reject the tough-on-crime ballot initiative, and are using the bills to pressure proponents of the measure rescind their proposal.
News of the ballot measure qualifying comes just two weeks before the secretary of state releases the official slate of statewide propositions that will appear on the November ballot. It also comes as Democratic leadership made a hardball move last week by promising to add an amendment to their retail crime legislation that would revoke the laws if voters pass the statewide proposition.
“We’re calling today upon our leaders to stop playing politics,” Greg Totten, co-chair of Californians for Safer Communities, said Wednesday during a news conference. “The Legislature’s plan to include an automatic repeal … proves they are not serious about addressing the explosion in retail theft and the state’s fentanyl crisis.”
Since voters passed Proposition 47 in 2014, the initiative has been the center of debate over whether it is the reason for the rash of retail thefts across the state. Democratic lawmakers say that the measure helped reduce prison populations and that some areas have seen property crimes go down. Republicans say the measure has led to a lack of arrests and less accountability for thieves.
The secretary of state has verified that the measure gathered enough signatures from registered California voters to qualify for the ballot, made possible by a multimillion-dollar signature-gathering effort that big-box retailers including Walmart, Home Deport and Target largely funded. The coalition has so far raised $8.5 million in campaign contributions.
The ballot initiative, called the Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act, would change the law to make a third offense of theft, regardless of the value of merchandise, a felony punishable by up to three years in prison. The measure also would make possession of fentanyl a felony. Finally, the measure would impose a “treatment-mandated felony” the third time someone is arrested for drug possession.
Democrats have crafted a comprehensive 14-bill package that they think will resolve the issue of property crime and drug use in California — without the need to go back to the ballot box.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has repeatedly said he is against bringing Proposition 47 back to the ballot.
“It doesn’t achieve the goals that are intended. I want to do something that can be done legislatively with more flexibility,” Newsom told The Times last Friday. “We have launched a package of bills working in both houses of the Legislature that have been fantastic in addressing legitimate concerns we have been addressing for years now. Not just retail theft, but organized retail theft.”
Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur (D-Los Angeles), who chairs the Select Committee on Retail Theft, told reporters Tuesday that the package of bills was “never intended” to be stacked on top of a “one-sided ballot measure.”
“The combination of the two [efforts] is sort of supercharging this whole process,” he said. “Moving back to a period where we’re going to have much more incarceration.”
Times staff writer Mackenzie Mays contributed to this report.
Politics
Biden special counsel’s ‘runaway train’ scooped up sensitive lawmaker info: ‘Abuse of power’
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Former special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into President Donald Trump swept up text messages from nearly 50 members of Congress, bypassing a required review process in what one victim alleged is a direct constitutional violation.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said the situation is more proof Smith’s probe was a “runaway train” of abuses of power, and the elder statesman and Senate Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., jointly released their filings Tuesday evening.
Grassley and Johnson’s findings were from a full-scale probe of Operation Arctic Frost, the code name for Smith’s endeavor to investigate Trump for alleged corruption and election malfeasance, an operation top Senate Republicans call “worse than Watergate.”
LEGAL WAR ON TRUMP’S AGENDA GAINS FIREPOWER AS FEDERAL LAWYERS DEFECT TO DEMOCRATS
Jack Smith, former U.S. special counsel, arrives for a closed-door deposition before the House Judiciary Committee in Washington, D.C., Dec. 17, 2025. (Getty Images)
Forty-four members of Congress had the contents of their text messages obtained and reviewed by Smith’s team in a way that bypassed protocol. A “filter team” was tasked with reviewing millions of documents in the case and should have had first crack at determining whether such messages were relevant or potentially violated statute or ethics.
Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., one of the lawmakers whose texts were swept up in this way, said Tuesday such reviews amounted to clear violations of the Constitution’s speech and debate clause that protects lawmakers from being questioned in “any other place” than the Capitol for legislative acts.
Internal communications have been historically included in that clause in the courts as technology has advanced.
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Stefanik said in a statement that the new records prove Smith’s team “unlawfully and unconstitutionally accessed my private text messages, along with 43 other Members of Congress, in clear violation of the Constitution.”
She said she long suspected there had been “unconstitutional spy[ing] on members of Congress.”
The records were provided by the Trump Justice Department to Grassley and Johnson, which the chairmen said indicated Smith’s team had “circumvented its own filter review process.” The process is additionally meant to protect attorney-client privilege, they said in a statement.
OBAMA-APPOINTED JUDGE TORCHES TRUMP ADMIN IN LATEST COURTROOM SHOWDOWN, REFERS ATTORNEY FOR BAR REVIEW
Former special counsel Jack Smith says the Pledge of Allegiance before he prepares to testify during a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill Jan. 22, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Al Drago/Getty Images)
The news also complicated some of Smith’s prior depositions under oath, including an excerpt in which he answered “no” to a question from a congressional counsel whether records he requested from congresspeople included text messages.
Johnson called the situation a “grotesque example” of Biden-era “weaponization” of the executive branch.
“Jack Smith’s criminal investigation of President Trump was a runaway train that had no brakes,” Grassley added Tuesday.
“Based on the information that’s been produced to me and Senator Johnson, Biden DOJ and FBI investigators apparently ignored their own routine investigative protocols to obtain and review work-related messages from me and dozens of my Republican and Democrat colleagues who were outside the scope of the government’s investigation.”
Grassley added that he hopes Democrats caught up in the otherwise bipartisan text tranche will finally discard their partisanship and recognize the severity of the alleged violations by Smith.
He also indicated he planned to recall Smith before Congress to “hold him accountable.”
Of the 44 members swept up in the text reviews, several were Democrats, including Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Adam Smith of Washington.
Grassley, Johnson and Stefanik were also swept up in the situation, along with top figures like senators Mike Lee, R-Utah; Josh Hawley, R-Mo.; Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska; Rand Paul, R-Ky., former Senate Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.; and the late Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
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Former House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., was one of the victims, along with current House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, as well as House Freedom Caucus member Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin of New York, Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins of Georgi, and prominent Trump critic Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky.
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Several lawmakers sounded off on the news soon after Grassley announced his findings, including Hawley, who called for “everyone involved [to] be prosecuted.”
“Joe Biden’s DOJ not only tapped my phone; I just learned they illegally obtained my texts with members of President Trump’s administration,” the Missourian fumed.
Paul called the allegations a “blatant abuse of power and exactly what our Founders warned about,” while citing Smith’s past denial under oath.
Fox News Digital reached out to a representative for Smith for comment.
The federal government agreed to temporarily hold off on construction of a planned Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Northern California.
The voluntary pause until Sept. 9 comes after the California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and Santa Clara County officials sued the Trump administration last month to block the facility from being developed near Gilroy. The lawsuit remains ongoing.
“This pause in the construction, demolition, and development at the site of the challenged ICE facility is a significant step towards protecting our people, our communities, and our environment while the case remains ongoing,” Bonta said in a statement Monday night.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
State and local officials believe the facility will be used for short-term detention of up to 150 people at a time, though ICE denied that it would be a detention center.
Community members and advocates for immigrants swiftly opposed the project. ICE has consistently looked to increase its detention capacity in California, where eight detention centers can now hold a combined 9,000 people, though the state has long been a thorn in the agency’s side.
The halt is part of a compromise between both sides involved in the legal action. After the state and county submitted a request for the court to temporarily halt the project, a hearing was set for Oct. 7.
Now, state and federal officials jointly requested that the court move up the hearing by at least a month. The agreement also extends how much time the federal government has to respond.
A federal judge signed off on the agreement Monday night.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in San José, alleges that the leased land is zoned exclusively for agricultural use and that the federal government violated laws requiring state and county notification, as well as procedural steps before beginning construction.
Supreme Court justices are asking lawmakers on Capitol Hill to increase their 2027 budget, with most of the additional funding earmarked for security. Ann E. Marimow, a New York Times reporter, explains why the justices say these measures are necessary to protect them from rising threats.
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