Prominent liberal supporters of two high-profile California criminal justice reform ballot measures promoted as a benefit to public safety remained largely silent when asked by Fox News Digital about surging crime gripping the Golden State.
California Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment on their past support of either Propositions 47 or 57 in California amid ongoing concerns the measures have made the streets less safe, causing some residents to move to other states.
Additionally, Fox News Digital reached out to former state Sen. President Darrell Steinberg, billionaire climate change activist Tom Steyer and the AFL-CIO but did not receive a comment as to their support of those measures.
Prop 47, passed by California voters in 2014, turned “non-violent” felony property crimes like commercial burglary, possession of stolen property and grand theft to misdemeanors, turned simple drug possession from a felony into a misdemeanor, and allowed for resentencing of individuals in prison for those crimes.
CALIFORNIA IS RUN BY POLITICIANS WHO ARE ‘100% PRO-CRIMINAL,’ 30-YEAR LAW ENFORCEMENT VETERAN SAYS
The measure was supported by then-Lt. Gov. Newsom and co-authored by then-San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon. The latter defended his support in a San Francisco Chronicle article in 2018, saying he was “proud” of the measures and argued that his state is “no longer warehousing those addicted to drugs in our jails and prisons.”
Prop 57, supported by Newsom, Gascon and at least $1 million in funds from Zuckerberg in 2016, increased the chance of parole for many supposedly nonviolent offenders and ensured that thousands of prisoners previously sentenced under the state’s “3 Strikes Law” could seek parole based on good behavior in an effort supporters said would reduce prison overcrowding.
Roughly a decade after the two propositions were enacted, California finds itself mired in a situation in…
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