California
Column: California voters are fed up with crime and, apparently, inaction by Democrats
Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic legislative leaders vehemently oppose an anti-retail theft measure on the November ballot. But they’re being ignored by California voters who support the proposal overwhelmingly.
Maybe voters don’t know about the governor’s and lawmakers’ strong opposition. Or maybe they do and don’t care. They’re following their own instincts and thinking that California — again — is too easy on bad guys.
The pendulum apparently is swinging back from left to center on crime and incarceration. Three decades ago California was over on the right with the war on drugs and tough three-strikes sentencing for repeat felons. Then we gradually moved left by dramatically reducing punishment. Opinions continue to sway.
The support numbers are stunning for Proposition 36, sponsored by the California District Attorneys Assn. It would increase punishment for theft and hard drug offenses and impose required treatment for repetitive criminal addicts.
The initiative is ahead by an astonishing 45 percentage points, according to a new poll of likely voters by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California: 71% to 26%, with only 3% undecided.
That’s unprecedented for a controversial ballot measure.
Well, controversial among politicians anyway. But seemingly not among voters.
“I was surprised by the level of support,” says Mark Baldassare, a pollster with the Public Policy Institute of California.
But he adds this caution: “Propositions aren’t like candidate races. The bottom can fall out of them. And the campaign for and against 36 really hasn’t started yet. It’s easy for people to say ‘no’ on a proposition rather than ‘yes.’ Especially if someone comes along and points out a fatal flaw.”
Sure. But don’t bet on it. Opponents have a very steep hill to climb to conquer Proposition 36.
It’s ahead among every demographic group, including Democrats by a landslide margin: 63% to 33%. Self-described liberals support it by 56% to 41%.
Baldassare notes that of the 10 state ballot measures, voters consider Proposition 36 the most important by far, his poll found.
Another independent survey last month by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies also showed the measure holding a huge lead: 56% to 23%, with 21% undecided.
IGS pollster Mark DiCamillo cited the “great visibility” of retail theft — caught on camera or witnessed personally by voters — as a reason for heavy support of Proposition 36.
“It’s kind of outrageous to voters, what they’re seeing,” DiCamillo told Times reporter Mackenzie Mays. “And they’re linking it to the approval of Proposition 47.”
That proposition swung California to the left on crime punishment 10 years ago. Federal court pressure had mounted to reduce prison and jail overcrowding. The measure passed lopsidedly, reducing some felony crimes to low-punishment misdemeanors–including shoplifting when the stolen goods were worth less than $950.
Misdemeanor arrests are harder to make because a cop must witness a crime or possess a judge’s warrant. Anyway, judges began freeing petty thieves. So, cops stopped responding to shoplifting complaints. Merchants ceased bothering to report the crimes. And smash-and-grab thefts increased.
PPIC researchers recently reported on a yearlong study of Proposition 47’s impact.
“Under Prop 47, prison and jail populations plummeted as did arrests for drug and property crimes after certain offenses were reclassified from felonies to misdemeanors,” the report stated.
But it said the pandemic also contributed to fewer apprehensions. As people stayed home to prevent the spread of COVID, there were “fewer encounters with police, resulting in fewer arrests,” the researchers contended.
At any rate, public pressure increased on Sacramento Democrats to do something — and they didn’t for several years. They probably thought the growing anti-47 pushback would just fade. It didn’t.
Newsom was one of Proposition 47’s most vocal original advocates and has been a staunch defender.
“We don’t need to go back to the broken policies of the last century,” he insisted. “Mass incarceration has been proven ineffective and is not the answer.”
Newsom’s initial answer included trying to strongarm Proposition 36 off the ballot. It failed awkwardly, leaving legislative leaders perturbed at the governor.
Proposition 36 would roll back parts of Proposition 47. The governor backed a legislative package aimed at curtailing retail theft without significantly altering Proposition 47. But he concocted a nutty “poison pill” that would have automatically killed the Democrats’ own anti-crime legislation if Proposition 36 was approved by voters.
The aim was to coerce Proposition 36’s sponsors into tossing in the towel and accepting the Legislature’s offering. But Democrats rebelled at the governor’s bizarre scheme and refused to insert the deadly pill into their package.
The Legislature ultimately passed 13 bills that Newsom and Democratic lawmakers hope will satisfy voters’ demands that California do more to combat smash-and-grabs and shoplifting.
“The bills they passed do some good things, but by and large they’re half measures,” asserts Gregory Totten, chief executive of the California District Attorneys Assn. “Our law [36] says consequences of stealing have to be ratcheted up.”
The initiative also would impose tougher penalties for sales of deadly fentanyl and treat it similar to other hard drugs, such as heroin and cocaine. Some people possessing hard drugs could be sentenced merely to treatment.
Outside Sacramento, some major Democrats have heard the voters, read the polls and are supporting Proposition 36. They include Mayors London Breed of San Francisco, Todd Gloria of San Diego and Matt Mahan of San Jose.
But Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, a former state Senate leader who has spent his career trying to generate treatment for the drug-addicted homeless and mentally ill, opposes Proposition 36.
He contends that 36 offers a “false promise” of treatment. It’ll fall short because the emphasis will be on law enforcement, not treatment of addicts, Steinberg predicts.
But so far, Newsom and Sacramento Democrats haven’t been leading anyone away from Proposition 36. Voters are headed in the opposite direction.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — In the wide-open race for California governor, billionaire Tom Steyer is on a spending binge.
The hedge fund manager-turned-liberal activist is using his personal fortune to saturate TV screens and mobile phones with advertising, while his competitors accuse him of trying to use his vast wealth to buy the state’s most powerful job.
Steyer’s ads — in which he promises to bring down household costs or rails against federal immigration raids — appear inescapable at times in heavily Democratic Los Angeles, the state’s largest media market. Data compiled by advertising tracker AdImpact show Steyer has spent or booked over $115 million in ads for broadcast TV, cable and radio — nearly 30 times the amount of his nearest Democratic rival.
If he makes it through the June 2 primary election, Steyer could easily eclipse the 2010 record set by Republican Meg Whitman, who spent $178.5 million in a losing bid for governor, much of it her own money. At the time, it was the costliest campaign for statewide office in the nation’s history.
Even when ad buys from all his major competitors are combined, along with ad purchases by independent committees supporting candidates, Steyer is outspending the field by tens of millions of dollars.
“Billionaire money is flooding our state in an attempt to buy this election,” former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, one of Steyer’s chief rivals, warned her supporters this month.
Mail-in ballots are set to go out to voters next month. Steyer is among a crowd of candidates hoping to seize a spotlight after former Democratic U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell’s dramatic departure from the race following sexual assault allegations that he denies.
But while Steyer has ticked up in polling amid his spending splurge, he has not broken away from the field, leaving some wondering if he’s getting value for his dollars.
“If your first round of ads doesn’t move you dramatically (in the polls), the third, fourth, fifth, six, seventh and eighth rounds won’t either,” said veteran Democratic strategist Bill Carrick, who for years advised the late Democratic U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein. “There is something inherently holding Steyer back.”
In recent prior campaigns for governor, at this stage a leading candidate was taking control of the race. This year, voters appear to be shrugging at a contest that lacks a star candidate among seven leading Democrats and two Republicans.
“Somehow the campaign is frozen,” Carrick added.
History shows that money doesn’t always translate into votes.
Billionaire developer Rick Caruso spent over $100 million in 2022 in his bid to become Los Angeles mayor, much of it his own money, but he was handily defeated by Mayor Karen Bass, who spent a fraction of Caruso’s total. Billionaire former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg spent more than $1 billion of his own money on his 2020 presidential bid before dropping out. And Steyer’s money was unable to lift him into contention in the 2020 presidential contest, when he dropped out early in the year after a poor finish in the South Carolina primary.
Steyer has never held elected office.
In a 2019 interview with The Associated Press, Steyer was asked what he would say to people who think he’s trying to buy the presidency.
“I don’t think that’s possible,” Steyer said at the time, before adding, “I’m never going to apologize for succeeding in business. That’s America, right?”
His campaign did not respond directly when asked about similar criticism facing his run for governor.
“Tom now stands as the only Democrat with the grassroots energy, institutional backing and resources to advance to the general election,” spokesperson Kevin Liao said in a statement.
The governor’s race was recently reordered by two developments: Swalwell, a leading Democrat, abruptly withdrew from the race then resigned from Congress, following sexual assault allegations. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump endorsed conservative commentator Steve Hilton.
Still, there is no clear leader.
Polling in late March and early April by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California found a cluster of candidates in close competition: Democrats Steyer and Porter, Republicans Hilton and Chad Bianco, and Swalwell. Other candidates were trailing. The polling was conducted before Swalwell withdrew.
Democrats have feared the party’s large number of candidates could lead to them getting shut out of the general election in November. That’s because California has a primary system in which only the top two vote-getters advance to the general election, regardless of party.
Leading Democrats are all claiming to have picked up support since Swalwell’s exit. Steyer nabbed one plum endorsement, when the influential California Teachers Association, which previously backed Swalwell, recommended him.
In his ads, Steyer promises to “abolish” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has been staging raids across California. In another, he laments the state’s punishing cost of housing, “Everybody needs an affordable place to live,” he says.
Rapper was stabbed 16 times by fellow inmate in May 2025 while 10-year sentence in Megan Thee Stallion shooting case
Tory Lanez has filed a $100 million lawsuit against the California Department of Corrections stemming from a May 2025 incident where the rapper was stabbed in prison.
Lanez — born Daystar Peterson and currently serving a 10-year sentence after being found guilty in the Megan Thee Stallion shooting case — also sued the warden and guards at the California Correctional Institute in Tehachapi, where the rapper was stabbed 16 times in an “unprovoked life-threatening attack” by another inmate, the lawsuit states.
Peterson was hospitalized following the May 2025 incident, suffering a collapsed lung among stab wounds to his back, torso, and head.
According to the Associated Press, the lawsuit criticized the Department of Corrections for housing Peterson with fellow inmate and alleged attacker Santino Casio, who was serving a life sentence for second-degree murder. “The choice to house Casio with Peterson was known or should have been a known danger,” the lawsuit said, adding that Tory Lanez’ “high-profile celebrity status” made him a target.
The lawsuit also said that prison guards were slow to respond to the shanking, and didn’t employ flash grenades or other measures to halt Casio’s attack.; Casio was not charged for stabbing Peterson, the Associated Press notes.
Lanez, who following his hospitalization was transferred to San Luis Obispo County’s California Men’s Colony, also alleges in the lawsuit that he never received his possessions from the California Correctional Institute in Tehachapi, including songbooks filled with lyrics to his unreleased music.
Lanez is serving a 10-year prison sentence for shooting Megan Thee Stallion in the foot during a confrontation in the summer of 2020. He was eventually convicted on several firearms charges, including assault with a firearm, in December 2022. In November 2025, his appeal was denied by a three-judge panel, and the 10-year sentence was upheld.
From one crackdown on hospice fraud to another.
A few weeks ago, the FBI arrested multiple people in Southern California that were accused of defrauding the government for millions of dollars.
In a more recent announcement last Thursday, California’s State Attorney General Rob Bonta held a press conference to announce a fraud bust of their own.
“Operation Skip Trace uncovered and ended a hospice fraud scheme that defrauded Medi-Cal of $267 million,” Bonta said. “So just to be clear, a quarter billion dollars over funds that are paid for by California taxpayers, funds that are meant to provide care to Californians in need. It is unacceptable. It is illegal and we will not stand for it.”
The operation saw a total of 21 suspects charged as a result and dismantled a major hospice fraud scheme, with two handguns and over $750 thousand in cash seized as well.
According to the state’s attorney general, this is just one of the many cases over the years the state has cracked down on.
“This is just the latest example of the California DOJ’s longstanding ongoing and successful efforts to combat hospice and medical fraud,” Bonta said. “We have been doing this work for years. We’ve been doing it successfully before certain people in this country decided to think about it for the first time. We will continue to do this work. Heads down, sleeves rolled up, important investigative work, prosecutorial work.”
He added to that by taking a shot at the Trump Administration’s latest fraud operations.
“While healthcare fraud might be President Trump’s shiny new political talking point, the California DOJ has been going after healthcare fraud since 1979,” Bonta said. “For decades, Trump is late to the party. Protecting taxpayer dollars and protecting programs sick and vulnerable Californians rely on have been our priority for nearly five decades.”
Governor Gavin Newsom also spoke out about this latest crackdown while taking a shot of his own at President Trump.
In a post to “X” the Governor’s Press Office wrote in part quote…
“California has been cracking down on hospice fraud long before Trump gutted oversight and pardoned the architect of the biggest health care fraud scheme in U.S. history.”
State Republicans have responded to this latest announcement from Attorney General Bonta, calling for a special session to demand accountability from the Governor on widespread fraud.
-
Kentucky5 minutes agoMissing on this PF in the transfer portal could be a good thing for Kentucky
-
Louisiana11 minutes agoAt least 8 children killed in shooting in Louisiana, US
-
Maine17 minutes agoWet, cooler today; rain & snow impacts across Maine
-
Maryland23 minutes agoSpeeding motorcycle rider dies in t-bone crash along Marriottsville Road
-
Michigan29 minutes agoFlood warnings continue around Cheboygan as river level stays high
-
Massachusetts35 minutes agoNew Bedford MS-13 Member, Illegal Alien Pleads Guilty to Role in Brutal Murders In Massachusetts, Virginia
-
Minnesota41 minutes agoVikings Have a Dubious Connection to the Dexter Lawrence Trade
-
Mississippi47 minutes agoMississippi College Baseball Wins Series vs. West Florida for First Time