Backers say they have enough signatures to qualify Prop 47 rollback initiative

Critics who blame California’s 2014 Proposition 47 for runaway drug addiction, retail theft and urban squalor said Thursday they have collected enough signatures to qualify a November ballot measure that would restore penalties for serial thieves and treatment requirements for addicts.

Backers including owners of small businesses, social justice leaders and drug victim families gathered in San Francisco and Los Angeles to announce they have collected about 900,000 voter signatures, significantly more than the 546,651 required by April 23, and are turning them in to the Attorney General’s Office.

“Prop 47 achieved notable success in making California’s criminal justice system more equitable,” supporters of the proposed “Homelessness, Drug Addiction and Theft Reduction Act.”

“However, it led to unintended consequences over the past decade — repeat and often organized retail theft, inner-city store closings, and difficulty convincing people to seek drug and mental health treatment — that can only be corrected by the voters at the ballot box with modest amendments to Prop 47.”

Prop 47 was among a series of laws and initiatives over the last 15 years aimed at emptying California prisons that federal courts found overcrowded and addressing social justice concerns that have since been blamed for spurring brazen retail thefts, store closures and unchecked drug addiction.

Promoted to voters as the “Safe Neighborhood and Schools Act,” Prop 47 reduced most drug possession and property crimes valued at $950 or less to misdemeanors and allowed for resentencing of those serving felony sentences for those offenses. The pitch was to stop wasting costly prison space on drug addicts and petty thieves convicted of non-violent crimes.

Backers included former San Jose and San Diego Police Chief William Lansdowne, progressive former San Francisco and now Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon, Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen, former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and then Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, now the state’s governor. Critics included most law enforcement officials like then Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley, crime victim advocates and business organizations and then-U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Prop 47 passed with nearly 60% voter approval, and a 2020 ballot measure that would have toughened some of the penalties it and other criminal reform measures like Assembly Bill 109 and Proposition 57 had reduced failed by a similar margin.

The impact on crime of Prop 47 continues to be furiously debated. The Public Policy Institute of California linked Prop 47 to some theft increases in 2018, and in a subsequent report found commercial shoplifting rose 28.7% from the unusually low rates of the pandemic years.

Newsom in January called for a package of new laws to crack down on retail theft while insisting Prop 47 isn’t the problem and doesn’t need to be touched. A bipartisan Assembly coalition obliged earlier this month with seven bills: AB 2943, AB 1794, AB 1972, AB 3209, AB 1779, AB 1802, AB 1960.

But supporters of the proposed November initiative say there’s no way to fix the state’s theft and drug problems without walking back parts of Prop 47. Backers of the initiative include San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, San Francisco Mayor London Breed and Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper, all Democrats.

Supporters stress that the proposed initiative would amend but not repeal Prop 47. It would make a third conviction for retail theft a felony, regardless of the amount stolen. Before Prop 47, a second conviction would become a felony, but the 2014 initiative eliminated consequences for repeat offenses. The proposed measure also would add penalties for dealing fentanyl, a cheap and deadly synthetic opioid, and provide incentives for convicted addicts to seek treatment.

Cooper said the legislative bill package mostly addresses organized retail thefts, but that what he and other law enforcement officials mostly see are individual thieves stealing with impunity under Prop 47.

“The real problem is individual thieves and the lack of accountability we all got stuck with since the passage of Proposition 47,” Cooper said in a post on X on the legislative bill package.