California
Voter frustration with crime, liberal DAs mounting in California while Harris mum on controversial Prop 47
Proposition 47, a progressive proposal headed by George Soros-backed Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon, could be going down the drain come election night as polling shows a partial-repeal effort has the support of the majority of California voters.
Gascon’s job, along with other progressive district attorneys who championed Prop. 47 across the state, could also be at risk from voter backlash.
Voter outrage is “sort of a message to [Vice President] Kamala Harris, who was the one that was a big supporter of Prop. 47 by giving it a misleading ballot title,” former Republican Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley told Fox News Digital.
“So it’s a rejection of her, it’s a rejection of Gascon, who was the official proponent of Prop. 47, and the rejection of Soros-type prosecutors,” Cooley said.
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The Manhattan Beach Police Department is asking members of the public to help identify suspected smash-and-grab robbers. (Manhattan Beach Police Department)
Also known as the Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act passed by Californians in 2014, Prop. 47 made theft under $950 punishable by up to six months in jail and reclassified felonies down to misdemeanors “unless the defendant had prior convictions of murder, rape, certain sex offenses, or certain gun crimes.”
Gascon, who co-authored the ballot measure, sought to rethink tough-on-crime policies and reduce mass incarceration.
But in the last several years, retail chains and mom-and-pop shops have been hit hard by theft, smash-and-grab robberies and organized retail crime gangs. Prop. 36 – titled the Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act – seeks to undo portions of Prop. 47 by boosting penalties for some crimes and could increase depending on each category.
An overwhelming 71% of Californians support Prop. 36, according to a survey last month by the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonpartisan think tank.
Harris, who was California’s attorney general at the time of Prop. 47’s passage, has not said whether she supports Prop. 36.
“She paid her dues to the Soros people when she went along with that phony, misleading title of Safe Schools and Neighborhoods Act,” Cooley said of Harris. “That was an incredible lie to the voters, so she paid her dues.”
San Francisco Mayor London Breed has also thrown her support behind Prop. 36, calling it a “meaningful difference for cities across California.” But Gov. Gavin Newsom remains staunchly opposed to the effort, saying it “takes us back to the 1980s, mass incarceration.”
San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan has also joined the effort to partially repeal Prop. 47. The California District Attorneys Association, the Los Angeles Police Protective League and the California State Sheriffs’ Association all endorsed Prop. 36.
And some Republicans in the state legislature are confident it has enough support to pass.
“Nobody talks about the victims in California,” Republican state Sen. Brian Dahle told Fox News Digital. “The Democrats never talk about them. They talk about the people who they think have been put in jail unfairly, and it’s made it a social justice issue more than just flat-out crime.”
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George Gascon and Kamala Harris (Fox News Digital photo illustration/Getty Images)
Four years ago, Dahle heavily campaigned for Prop. 20, which was another initiative that sought to repeal Prop. 47, but state voters rejected the measure.
But Prop. 36 may not be headed for the same outcome.
“The big difference in my mind is that the retailers are in the game now,” Dahle said. “They went and got the signatures. They realized that, ‘Hey, we can’t continue to bleed out hundreds of millions of dollars in theft,’ and they’re behind it, and that’s why I think you see the change.”
In Los Angeles, where organized smash-and-grab retail thefts and robberies thrived during the pandemic and its aftermath, law enforcement officers often had their hands tied and described what they called a “revolving door” of arrests.
“Right now, we’re just seeing the revolving door of our officers,” Los Angeles Police Protective League Director Debbie Thomas told Fox News Digital.
“They’ll respond to radio calls, and they can arrest somebody up to three times and shift the same officers because of this blanket policy of not holding people that commit under $950 of theft accountable for their actions,” said Thomas, who is also a Los Angeles Police Department officer. “They’re the ones that are praising George Gascon in the penitentiaries.”
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
Thomas said the shift to supporting a repeal effort for Prop. 47 is indicative of other shifts in ideology among some voters, including that of the “defund the police” movement.
“I think that people are more than fed up with the lack of support that they’ve seen,” Thomas said. “Defund the police does not work.”
“It’s just nice to see people starting to wake up and realize that it’s a ‘yes’ to Prop. 36, and also ‘yes’ to Nathan Hochman, who’s currently running for L.A. County district attorney,” he added.
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If voters pass Prop. 36 in November, offenders of the law will have to serve out their sentences in state prison “regardless of criminal history.”
Fox News Digital did not hear back from either Gascon’s office nor the Harris campaign by publication deadline.
Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
California
Mother, daughter found ‘alive and well’ after going missing on Southern California hiking trail
A mother and daughter who went missing after going for a hike on a difficult trail in San Bernardino County’s San Gorgonio Wilderness have been found “alive and well,” the sheriff’s department announced Friday.
The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department told KTLA they were uninjured and “walked out on their own.”
Krystal Meyers, 41, and her daughter Alexis Meyers Martinez, 21, were hiking on the Vivian Creek Trail Thursday but didn’t return, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.
They were last known to be at the 10,300-foot elevation mark above the High Creek switchbacks at 11 a.m., according to the San Gorgonio Search and Rescue team.
The Vivian Creek Trail is widely considered one of the more strenuous and hazardous routes in the San Gorgonio Wilderness.
The U.S. Forest Service says it’s the shortest and steepest route to the summit of Mount San Gorgonio and requires experienced mountaineering skills.
Officials did not provide any further details about the circumstances surrounding their disappearance.
California
California Highway Patrol work to keep drivers safe during holiday weekend enforcement
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KBAK/KBFX) — The California Highway Patrol is urging drivers to stay focused on the road as they head out for Fourth of July celebrations.
The holiday weekend can be a dangerous time on our roads as millions of drivers are expected to travel.
CHP Officer Jorge Toro joined Eyewitness News Mornings to share how drivers can stay safe behind the wheel.
Officer Toro also highlighted the importance of sober driving over the holiday.
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He says anyone hosting a party should make sure all of their guests get home safely, ensuring anyone who may be impaired doesn’t drive.
California
California returns stretch of coast to Indigenous tribes. ‘This is beyond huge’
California is returning a stretch of rugged Mendocino County coast to the Indigenous nations whose ancestors once stewarded its shores.
State transportation officials recently approved the transfer of Blues Beach and the surrounding bluffs to Kai Poma, a nonprofit founded by representatives of the Sherwood Valley Band of Pomo Indians, Round Valley Indian Tribes and Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians.
The transfer of 136 acres just south of the community of Westport will mark the first time land managed by the California Department of Transportation has been returned to Indigenous tribes.
“This is beyond huge,” said J. Carlos Rivera, tribal chairman of the Sherwood Valley Band of Pomo Indians. “It’s enormous from our tribal perspective that we are basically obtaining the land that our people once lived on before colonization.”
California purchased the swath of rocky cliffs and windswept shoreline in the 1960s to expand the construction of Highway 1 and create a scenic viewpoint for highway travelers, according to a California Coastal Commission report.
More recently, public access has been largely unregulated, and summer weekends and holidays have drawn large groups who camp and party on the beach, at times driving through sensitive areas, damaging cultural sites and leaving behind trash, the report states.
Kai Poma plans to conduct cultural and archaeological resource studies and environmental surveys and then prepare a resource management plan for the property, according to planning documents. The nonprofit and the Coastal Commission have drafted a public access management plan that states the land will be open from sunrise to sunset.
Rivera described the entire property as a sacred site. The coastal waters are used by tribal people for seaweed and abalone gathering, and the shores host youth cultural camps, he said. “Protecting the land, it has a deeper meaning for us because we’re connected to the land,” he said.
The effort to acquire the land took years — and required a change in state law. Caltrans lacked the ability to transfer land to tribal governments until 2021, when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill sponsored by state Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) that enabled the transfer, according to a news release issued at the time. The law also bars commercial activity on the property and requires public access be maintained.
“With 136 acres now officially transferred into tribal stewardship, one of the most spectacular stretches of the Mendocino Coast will be forever protected,” McGuire said in a statement.
“This agreement, the first of its kind in California, gives these three dynamic Native American tribes the rightful opportunity to reclaim sacred lands and cultural traditions on this special piece of earth. And it’s about damn time.”
The land transfer cleared its last regulatory hurdle June 26 with the approval by the California Transportation Commission, said Neil Thapar, an attorney who works as an advisor and legal consultant to Kai Poma. Caltrans staff will next record the deed transferring the title from the state of California to Kai Poma, which is expected to happen any day, he said.
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