SACRAMENTO, California – California’s top Democrats announced Sunday they will ask voters to approve a plan to crack down on retail theft.
The plan is an effort to compete with another crime-focused measure backed by a coalition of business groups that lawmakers say would result in more people being arrested. Both proposals would include making shoplifting a crime for repeat offenders and increasing penalties for fentanyl dealers.
Under the retailers’ plan, any prior robbery-related convictions, even if they were years ago, would count toward a three-strikes policy for enhanced sentences. Lawmakers are also proposing harsher punishments for repeat thieves, but convictions would have to be three years apart.
Prosecutors could aggregate the amount of all property stolen within three years to charge more serious crimes under the Democrats’ plan.
Lawmakers hope to put the measure on the ballot in November. They will vote to advance the plan and deliver it to Gov. Gavin Newsom for signature before Wednesday’s deadline.
The last-minute plan is an attempt by top California Democrats to quash another crackdown on shoplifters and drug dealers that is supported by a broad coalition of businesses, law enforcement and local officials.
The business groups’ proposal, which is already on the ballot in November, would also make possession of fentanyl a crime and authorize judges to order those with multiple drug charges to receive treatment.
Lawmakers said the change would disproportionately incarcerate low-income people and those with substance use problems, rather than target leaders who hire large groups of people to steal products for resale online.
Republican lawmakers criticized the Democrats’ plan, with one calling it “ a scam ”To confuse voters.
The Coalition of Retailers and State Leaders clashed over how to suppress retail theft crimes.
The retailers’ proposal would reverse parts of Proposition 47, the progressive ballot measure approved by 60% of state voters in 2014 that reduced certain theft and drug possession crimes from felonies to misdemeanors to help deal with overcrowding in prisons. In recent years, Proposition 47 has become the focus of critics who say California is too lax about crime.
Democratic leaders, including Newsom, repeatedly rejected calls unravel Proposition 47 or return criminal justice reforms to voters.
Democratic lawmakers were accelerating a legislative package of 13 bills that look for organized schemes from online dealers and car thieves and provide funding for drug addiction counselors. State leaders planned to sign the proposals into law as early as this month and kill the package if voters approve the business groups’ proposal in November. They abandoned that plan on Saturday night.
Democrats are also concerned that the tough-on-crime retail proposal could attract more Republican and conservative voters to the polls in disputed U.S. House elections that could determine control of Congress.
Crime is becoming the top political issue in California’s November elections. Mayor of San Francisco London breed and Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón face tough re-election bids against opponents who have criticized their approaches to crime and punishment.
