By: Matt Mahan
This article was originally published in the Santa Cruz Sentinel
In the final few weeks of election seasons, hyperbole is no substitute for facts. And when it comes to Proposition 36, voters deserve the facts on this common-sense safety measure.
Prop. 36 reforms a 10-year-old law, called Proposition 47, which was enacted in 2014 to reclassify many non-violent drug and property crimes as misdemeanors. This helped shrink the number of incarcerated Californians by tens of thousands.
In working to lower the prison population, Prop. 47 also took away the power that judges used to mandate treatment for repeat drug offenders, and to impose consequences for serial thieves. The result has been a dramatic rise in retail thefts, homelessness, and preventable drug overdose deaths.
Theft raises the price of everyday goods for working families by $200 per person per year. According to the state auditor, every chronically homeless individual costs taxpayers over $50,000 per year in emergency response, sanitation, emergency room visits and other costs. Open-air drug markets and tent encampments have hollowed out too many urban centers. And fatal drug overdoses are now the No. 1 killer of Californians aged 15-44.
Prop. 36 gives us back the tools we need to fight back against the worst of these unintended consequences of Prop. 47. It gives judges new tools to require repeat drug offenders to engage in treatment for addictions. It holds fentanyl dealers accountable for the death they bring to our communities. And it ends the era of consequence-free stealing from our small businesses.
In doing so, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office projects the measure will leave almost all of the important gains our state made against “mass incarceration” under Prop. 47 intact. Prop. 36 will ensure more of the people who need help most finally get it. Instead of leaving small businesses unprotected against repeat thieves who repeatedly exploit loopholes in current law, Prop. 36 will restore real accountability for serial lawbreaking. And instead of leaving people to suffer on the streets, Prop. 36 will address the shocking rise in street homelessness we have seen since Prop. 47 passed by requiring more people get the drug and alcohol addiction treatment they need to escape the streets.
Opponents of Prop. 36 — many of whom are Sacramento politicians who don’t deal with the downstream effects of untreated addiction, homelessness, and property crime every day — would have you believe that the question before voters is whether to outright repeal Prop. 47.
Fact check: It’s not. Not even close. It’s a measured and thoughtful response to gaps in current law.
That is why hundreds of locally elected officials — including many Democrats and non-partisan leaders of most of California’s biggest cities — are backing Prop. 36. Most of us also voted for Prop. 47, and Proposition 1 to expand mental health and addiction treatment capacity last March. But we understand common sense reforms are needed to help both achieve their stated goals.
I have never been more hopeful or more optimistic about our ability to meet this moment, because local officials — regardless of party — are standing together in support of the common sense that Prop. 36 represents. So too are the overwhelming majority of voters according to recent public polling.
Together, we are standing up to save lives, protect small businesses, and take the first step toward bringing more of our unhoused neighbors indoors. We are eager to work with state leaders when they are right — as we did in supporting Prop. 47 and Prop. 1. But we share a responsibility to solve problems when they are not. That’s why we support Prop. 36 — because it uses a scalpel to solve the problem of gaps in current law. It does not use not a machete.
The bottom line is that in saying Yes to Prop. 36, we are also saying yes to facts.
Matt Mahan is Mayor of San Jose and co-founder of a bipartisan committee organized to help pass Proposition 36.