A ballot measure aimed at reforming a controversial proposition blamed by many for increased crime in California is facing what one local sheriff calls an "ingenious" and "immoral" plan to "sabotage" the effort for ideological reasons.
California’s secretary of state announced this month that petitioners had garnered more than enough signatures to place a measure to reform Proposition 47 on the November ballot. Prop 47, a voter-approved initiative passed in 2014, loosened the penalties for drug and theft crimes in California and has been blamed for California's rampant theft problems.
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco discussed the reasons why the ballot measure, of which he is a primary backer, is needed to fix crime issues in the state during an interview with Fox News Digital this week. He also warned that Democrats in the California legislature are mulling a plan to kill the reform.
"Prop 47 is the main contributor to many of the public safety woes that we have in California, from homelessness to drug addiction to theft, and the overall majority, almost 80% of Californians, wants proposition 47 repealed or major reforms, and everyone is aware of that except for our governor and a handful of politicians in California who have got behind Prop 47," Bianco said.
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Shortly after the measure to reform Prop 47 was approved, legislators in the Democrat-controlled Capitol in Sacramento began debating legislation that they say would address crime in the state. Critics say the move is essentially a "poison pill" that Democrats will use to discourage people from voting to fix Prop 47 in November by arguing that doing so would undo the legislation that combats crime.
"The Democratic leadership, particularly our governor, had to come up with a plan of how to sabotage this," Bianco said. "It's going to be important for Californians to know that they're being fooled again, or at least the government, our California state government, is trying to fool them again the same way they did originally with Prop 47 by calling it the Safe Schools and Safe Streets Initiative, which it did completely the opposite."
"They have come up with a plan all of a sudden in an election year to have their own set of public safety bills that they say is going to fix the issues that we have with theft and with drug use and all those things. I need everyone to be fully aware. It is completely disingenuous. It is not true. They are misrepresenting factual law, and they are trying to fool the voters once again."
Bianco said the Democrat proposal, which has divided support within the party, is deceivingly backed by some law enforcement groups who inherently support any legislation that combats crime but is essentially just "window dressing."
"What they are doing is they're making it an emergency, so they're going to get immediate authorization to implement these rules, and then they will use our fraudulent attorney general to create a narrative for the voter guide that says if you support this proposition in the November ballot, it will repeal this, you know, a dozen bills that were an emergency for all public safety, all these crime bills; and so basically, people are going to read the ballot statement and say, ‘Wow, if I vote for this, this is going to completely repeal a whole bunch of laws that are good that law enforcement supported,’" Bianco said.
"And then they're going to vote ‘no’ on the Prop 47 fix. It is unethical. It is immoral, and this is exactly what Californians are sick of," he continued. "From our governor, from our attorney general and from our legislature, we have activists, we have pro-criminal activists that are running our state government, and they are continuously lying to the general public, and we are all tired of it. We're sick of it."
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The November ballot measure, known as the Homelessness, Drug Addiction and Theft Reduction Act, has support from both Republicans and Democrats, including liberal San Francisco Mayor London Breed. It is unclear whether California's Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom, a staunch defender of Prop 47, will back the "poison pill" legislation.
CBS News California reported this week that Newsom's office will not negotiate the legislation in Sacramento unless supporters of the Prop 47 fix agree to push it back to 2026. Newsom's current term ends in 2026, and he will be term-limited from seeking re-election.
A spokesperson for Newsom told Fox News Digital the governor does not comment on pending legislation but pointed to past comments from Newsom saying he is "not an ideologue on this."
"I'm the only guy who has reformed Prop 47," Newsom said this year. "I think it's important to level-set with people. Not to say everything about Prop 47 is perfect, we want to fix some of the ambiguities, but we can do it without reforming or going back to the voters themselves."
Over the next few months, Bianco told Fox News Digital he will be making the case to voters that Democrats in the state don't actually care about public safety but are more interested in pushing through their ideological agenda.
"We have our work cut out for us in the next several months up until voting day, because we know that we are going to be combating a lot of misinformation and a lot of money spent on propaganda to confuse voters into voting the wrong way on this proposition," Bianco said.
"We know 100% that this has all been by design. This entire pro-criminal, create chaos in the state, create business closures, create businesses to leave, close stores, that [it] is a political far-left agenda that makes government in control of everything," Bianco said. "They can't have independent law enforcement. They can't have independent businesses. They can't have independent ownership. Everything has to be done by the government."
"They are going to have to admit that they've been lying to us over and over and over."
