Editor’s Note- Vote Smart is an informational series focused on the upcoming November ballot, and it runs ahead of the Election Day column Mark Your Ballot. Everything on the ballot – propositions, measures and candidates – will be addressed here before being summarized on November 5, 2024.
Proposition 36 is not what is needed. What our society seems to have refused to learn is that blanket sentencing requirements do nothing but fill prison cells. It’s the same inflection as the infamous “Three Strikes” law that put Jerry Williams in prison for 25 to life for stealing a piece of pizza. Proposition 36 would increase the classification for theft to a felony for someone with two prior convictions for theft.
It would also have sentences for some drug dealers lead to state prison rather than county jail, and would increase the consequences for a dealer whose sale of fentanyl kills or seriously injures the user. Filling prison cells, Exhibit A. This is just a fresh serving of the ‘war on drugs’ that perpetuates the lie that punishment is the appropriate way to deal with addictions.
Who is spending on this? Walmart, far and away the biggest donor with more than $3.5 million, followed by Target and Home Depot in for a million dollars each. All these corporations have plenty of disposable cash, because their profits are in the multi-billion range. Walmart made $611.3 billion, Target took in $107 billion, and Home Depot made $152.7 billion dollars last year.
Retail theft is absolutely not the problem they are trying to make it seem to be.
Crime is down, nationally and statewide, and trying to ratchet up the sentencing for theft also underlines the lie that property is more important than people. There are plenty of laws that already prohibit the sale of drugs, and the consequences of dealing.
It’s unnecessary – theft is illegal, and selling fentanyl is illegal. No on Prop. 36.
Judith Martin-Straw
