SACRAMENTO, Calif. – This morning at 9:00AM, a joint public safety hearing will be underway to discuss the implementation of Proposition 36. Unfortunately, Governor Newsom and Democrat leadership in the Legislature are thumbing their noses at the voters. In today’s hearing on Proposition 36, passed in November by nearly 70% of the electorate, they repeatedly trotted out the canard that since the ballot measure didn’t include a new funding source, well, shrug, sorry, no can do.
That is not how it’s supposed to work. Voters passed the initiative, which means it’s up to Newsom and the Legislature to find the funding to implement it, not decide if they want to implement it. It’s not just Republicans noticing the defiance either. The editorial board at The Sacramento Bee recently agreed and published a column titled Voters approved Prop. 36 in November. Gavin Newsom ignores it at his own peril.
The state’s existing budget is massive, running a couple hundred billion annually. The money is there, there just needs to be a will to prioritize implementation. Support from nearly 70% of the electorate mandates that prioritization.
“Prop. 36’s overwhelming support signals widespread dissatisfaction with the state’s experiment in progressive criminal justice reform,” stated Senator Kelly Seyarto (R-Murrieta), vice chair of the Senate Public Safety. “And the state’s leaders appear largely indifferent to these concerns.”
And 94% of respondents to a Fox26 News online poll asking people their opinion on the lack of funding for Prop. 36’s programs in the Governor’s budget have responded, “It’s a betrayal to voters and should be funded.”
In December, Republicans in the Senate sent a letter to the Governor pointing out that the success of Prop. 36’s treatment-focused approach “depends heavily on the availability of well-funded mental health and substance abuse services, which are critical for breaking cycles of addiction and reducing recidivism.”
In that letter to Newsom, the Senate Republican Caucus urged the Governor then to include funding for the measure in his budget, and here we are now, still urging him to include funding for Prop. 36 in his annual spending plan.
The rest of the story here is that contrary to the Governor’s claim that Prop. 36 can’t be implemented because there is no funding for it, that simply isn’t true. The truth is that he opposes the measure and doesn’t want to prioritize funding for it. He doesn’t want it to succeed.
Remember how he said he would uphold the will of the people on the death penalty during his campaign yet imposed a moratorium on it as soon as he was elected? Here’s yet another example of how Newsom talks out of both sides of his mouth.