This article was originally published in Politico
By LARA KORTE and DUSTIN GARDINER
THE BUZZ: PICKING SIDES — A tough-on-crime ballot measure is getting financial backing from a new source: a group of local Democrats.
The fundraising committee being announced today by San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho and Elk Grove Mayor Bobbie Singh-Allen puts the leaders at odds with Gov. Gavin Newsom and other prominent Democrats who have come out against Proposition 36, calling it overly punitive and unnecessary.
The group shared little about its fundraising strategy, but it could provide an avenue for other like-minded Democrats who are willing to break away from the party brass and associate themselves with the measure.
Mahan, in an interview with Playbook, said the state needs to more forcefully prosecute drug crimes to combat the homelessness crisis. He has zeroed in on a provision of Prop 36 that would force repeat drug offenders into treatment by offering such services as an alternative to incarceration.
“My great fear is that by decriminalizing low-level crime, we have allowed people’s conditions to deepen and worsen,” Mahan said. “And we are seeing a growing number of chronically homeless individuals whose behavioral health issues are getting more severe.”
The local officials join a growing coalition of supporters, including many Democrats, who want a tougher approach to the drug use and retail theft that they say has reached unmanageable levels in California. The new committee is separate from the district attorney-backed committee that is promoting Prop 36.
The ballot measure — pushed by prosecutors and retail giants like Walmart, Target and Home Depot, which spent millions to qualify it — was initially seen as a conservative push to crack down on crime. But it’s also received the backing of several big-city Democratic mayors like Mahan, San Francisco’s London Breed and San Diego’s Todd Gloria, as well as several Democrats in the Legislature who say they have grown frustrated with the status quo.
“Public safety is not about partisanship,” Ho told Playbook. “Public safety, at the end of the day, is about common sense.”
Newsom spent much of this year unsuccessfully trying to negotiate Prop 36 off the ballot. After an effort to introduce his own counter-measure fizzled, the governor turned his focus to slamming the proposal, saying it would increase the state’s prison population at a huge cost to taxpayers.
Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas this week told reporters at the Capitol he opposes Prop 36, arguing it would lead to increased rates of incarceration and a return to prison overcrowding.
“We know from past experience the disparities that exist in our criminal justice system,” he said. “The impacts it will have on our communities of color, in particular Black and Latino communities.”
Rivas also highlighted what is sure to become an opposition talking point: the potential cost of implementing Prop 36. The Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates the initiative would require state and local criminal justice systems to spend tens to hundreds of millions of dollars more annually from increased jail and prison populations, as well as a larger community supervision and mental health and drug treatment workload.
Although lawmakers sent a package of retail theft bills to the governor’s desk this week, officials like Mahan say it won’t address the core problem of addiction.
“We are not going to end the era of encampments unless we have tools to compel people into treatment for addiction,” the San Jose mayor said.
Organizers for the main Yes on 36 committee said the movement has always been bipartisan.
“We know a large majority of Californians support these changes,” they said in a statement, “and if this new group wants to further encourage support for Prop 36, we welcome it.”
–- Lindsey Holden and Emily Schultheis contributed reporting.