Proposition 47 is the California initiative passed by the voters in 2014 which raised the bar for property crimes making most retail thefts into misdemeanors. Over the last year, Democrats have been under pressure to do something about Prop. 47 as concern about shoplifting and public drug use has gone up.
A group of California DAs joined an effort to put a repeal of Prop. 47 on the ballot this year and just a few weeks ago we learned that effort was likely to be approved. But Gov. Gavin Newsom and other state Democrats don’t want the ballot initiative to succeed. So they came up with a slate of competing crime bills which they offered to pass (and Gov. Newsom agreed to sign) in record time if only the ballot initiative to reform Prop. 47 was pulled.
In order to make clear this was an either/or choice, the Sacramento Democrats also said they would put “interoperability clauses” into…
