Proposition 47 is the California initiative passed by voters in 2014. It raised the bar for property crimes making most retail thefts into misdemeanors. Democrats have been under pressure to do something about Prop. 47 as concerns about brazen shoplifting have gone up.
Last year, an effort launched by California DA’s and funded by big retailers (Walmart, Target, Home Depot) aimed to rollback prop. 47 by putting a new initiative on the ballot. Ever since that effort got going, elected Democrats led by Gov. Newsom have been doing their best to sabotage it.
In June the new initiative had made it onto the ballot, but Newsom had a plan to kill it. He offered a set of bills aimed at retail crime which he offered to sign immediately (no waiting for the ballot initiative to pass). The catch was that the promoters of the ballot initiative would have to agree to drop it.
To ensure this became…
