Will California Voters Finally Rebuke Newsom?

This fall, California voters will get the chance to rebuke Gov. Gavin Newsom and the lenient crime policies that he established.

Their chance will come in the form of a ballot measure to overturn parts of Proposition 47, a 2014 initiative that reduced theft and drug possession offenses from felonies to misdemeanors. Last week, California’s secretary of state certified that the measure will appear on the November ballot.

Newsom was critical to the passage of Proposition 47, as he was the only statewide public official to endorse it when it was passed 10 years ago. He has only doubled down on his support since then.

Under Proposition 47, people can steal goods worth up to $950 and face only a misdemeanor charge. This has led astute criminals to become repeat shoplifting offenders, escalating shoplifting into a full-scale crisis in California. The issue was put on display last year when reports of shoplifting in Los Angeles nearly doubled compared to the previous year.

When I traveled to San Francisco to research my new book, Newsom Unleashed: The Progressive Lust for Unbridled Power, a local recounted witnessing a criminal walk through a store with a calculator app pulled up on his phone to ensure that the value of the goods he stole stayed under $950. (READ MORE: Gavin Newsom Wants to Be an Emperor)

To get a further sense of the mayhem resulting from Newsom’s crime policies in California, consider what happened when Whole Foods tried to open up its “flagship store” in the middle of San Francisco, ground zero for Newsom’s soft-on-crime disaster. Even the New York Times couldn’t downplay the severity of the situation. It reported of that Whole Foods location’s problems: “People threatened employees with guns, knives and sticks. They flung food, screamed, fought and tried to defecate on the floor, according to records of 568 emergency calls over 13 months, many depicting scenes of mayhem.” Under Newsom’s policies, a grocery store was rendered incapable of functioning.

The lenient drug enforcement caused by Proposition 47 has unleashed death. In 2022, the most recent year for which there is data, there were 7,385 deaths caused by opioid overdoses in California. In 2014, there were 497.

Despite Proposition 47’s abject failure, Newsom is using all the hardball tactics he can to keep the anti–Proposition 47 initiative off the ballot.

Newsom created his own alternative legislative framework to address property crime that served as a supposedly superior solution. The framework postures at decreasing crime while aiming to maintain as many protections for criminals as possible. Newsom then attempted to use negotiations over his legislative package to force anti-crime activists to pull their measure off the ballot until 2026. The activists were not going to fall for that. They instead told Newsom’s staffers, per CBS News: “[T]he consultants you’re working with haven’t won anything in a decade. Good luck.”

Next, Newsom’s allies in the Legislature inserted “poison pills” into Newsom’s legislative framework that would invalidate those bills if voters succeed in overturning Proposition 47. Essentially, his allies are trying to deceive Californians into voting against the ballot measure by making them think that doing so will have an adverse effect on public safety. If only Newsom could be this aggressive toward criminals.

Voters will be fooled by none of this. Everyday life in California is plagued by the consequences of Proposition 47. Come November, they will end it.

Ellie Gardey Holmes is the author of Newsom Unleashed: The Progressive Lust for Unbridled Power, which was published this week by Bombardier Books. 

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