Tell CA Officials to Stop Blocking Desperately Needed Prop 47 Reform

Tell CA Officials:
Stop Blocking Reform of Prop 47

BACKGROUND:
Prop 47, titled the “Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act,” was passed by voters in 2014. Prop 47 required charging drug and property offenses in most cases as misdemeanors instead of felonies. Among other things, it reduced the charge for possession of certain drugs including fentanyl to a misdemeanor, and reclassified theft of goods valued at less than $950 for each incident as a misdemeanor. As a result of these ill-informed changes, California cities have seen massive upticks in serial organized theft, fentanyl poisonings and drug tourism.

WHAT'S HAPPENING NOW:
In an effort to address the rise in crime due to Prop 47, over the past year, a citizen-led effort to reform Prop 47 has collected over 1M signatures and has just qualified the “Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act” for the November 2024 ballot.
Now that it has qualified for the ballot, our California legislature and governor are trying to block reform through “poison pill amendments” and renaming the Act to be deliberately misleading. Our CA legislators are quickly passing public safety bills that contain “poison pill” amendments.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:
Make your voice heard loud and clear. Tell your CA elected officials that poison pills and misleading renaming are UNACCEPTABLE.

Send an email today!
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Dear Governor Newsom, Attorney General Bonta & California Legislators:

Californians weren’t paying attention for a long time while the legislature has enacted many laws that have chipped away at public safety and have been otherwise detrimental to Californians. We are now paying attention and we are not happy. The Reform of Prop 47, titled the “Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act,” collected nearly 1M signatures from California voters and has qualified for the November 2024 ballot. When Prop 47 passed in 2014, CA voters were misled. Cities across CA have shared for years that the unintended consequences of Prop 47 include skyrocketing serial organized theft, an addiction crisis, drug tourism and record-breaking fentanyl poisonings and deaths. Our CA legislators have had at least 8 years to pass multiple bipartisan pieces of legislation to modify Prop 47, but they were blocked on numerous occasions in our legislative public safety committees. Alexandra’s Law had 41 bipartisan coauthors to treat fentanyl poisonings as felonies but it was still blocked multiple times in state legislative committees.

This reform of Prop 47 is a citizen-led initiative to put major modifications of Prop 47 on the Nov. 2024 ballot. Citizens are forced to do this in part because only the voters can make constitutional changes to Proposition 47. The proposed ballot measure brings back felonies for serial organized theft, redefines fentanyl as a hard drug to hold dealers accountable and grants judges greater discretion to sentence drug traffickers. Fentanyl accounts for 20 percent of youth deaths in California. This reform also prioritizes drug treatment and recovery, to break the cycle of homelessness and crime that is strongly affiliated with it.

Any legislative efforts to put “poison-pill amendments” into upcoming safety bills is undermining public trust and efforts by Californians to improve public safety in our communities. Voters should not be undermined by the very legislators who we elected. 1M voters have made it clear that we demand these amendments to Prop 47 and efforts to thwart this democratic process are abhorrent. We voters should not be tricked or confused by our elected officials out of achieving our goal of public safety for ALL Californians.

Numerous law enforcement officials, public safety advocates, Mayor London Breed and other mayors across California are siding with everyday residents to reform Prop 47. We find it disingenuous at best that public safety legislation designed to further address Prop 47 reforms would include amendments to sabotage a citizen-led initiative.

We urge our California Legislators to protect the citizen-led reform initiative and denounce poison pill amendments or efforts to induce our California attorney general to rename this ballot measure into something misleading.
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Tell CA Officials: Stop Blocking Reform of Prop 47

Tell CA Officials:
Stop Blocking Reform of Prop 47