The All People’s Health Collective

The All People’s Health Collective views Proposition 36 as part of a broader, ongoing pattern of criminalization in California, a trend accelerated under Governor Gavin Newsom and the Democratic supermajority in the Legislature. Our opposition to Proposition 36 is rooted in our broader analysis and our commitment to our long-term demands: that the right to health, well-being, housing, care, and a quality standard of living be upheld for all people. Proposition 36 directly contradicts this vision.

In order to honestly talk about the passage of Proposition 36, we must acknowledge that it was a mess created by those who failed to defend Proposition 47 and adopted defeatist attitudes.

The people deserve to have problems removed, not piled on. Our analysis challenges the dominant narrative that just media misinformation or rising conservatism explains the passage of Proposition 36. And it reflects who the real bad actors were and the work that still needs to happen, which is vital to understanding if we want to win in the future.

Much like the fire response, Proposition 36 exposes how the state misallocates resources and makes decisions that serve political interests over the needs of the people. Whether in disaster response or criminal justice, both situations highlight the failure of public and private leaders to act in the best interest of all people.

Although this piece was written before the fires, the failure in governance highlighted here mirrors the ongoing issues we’re seeing in the aftermath of the disaster.

We write to underscore the real reasons why Proposition 36 passed this November despite its unjustifiable entrenchment of mass incarceration policies sure to exacerbate homelessness and low-level crime and worsen public safety.

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The Passage of Proposition 36

In 2014, California voters passed Proposition 47 by a nearly 60 to 40 percent margin. Proposition 47 reclassified certain drug possession and low-level theft crimes from felonies to misdemeanors and reduced prison populations, helped reduce family separation, and enabled people to access money and housing without felonies on their records. While Proposition 47 still validates punishment as a response to crime rooted in poverty, we acknowledge it as an important advance away from mass incarceration that destroys so many individuals, families, and communities. However, the passage of Proposition 36 in November 2024 represents a rollback of these successful reforms. In the aftermath, media coverage suggested that people had "voted against their interests," implying that they had been misinformed or didn’t understand their own needs.

This is not the full story. It’s easy to, over and over again, believe that voters should be blamed. While media misinformation always plays a role, if we don’t actually confront the failing strategies that have been entrenched as professional class norms, then the seemingly fickle natures of constituents will be a myth that persists. In reality, the passage of Proposition 36 in November 2024 is due to the failure of criminal justice reform organizations to effectively organize against it.

Criminal Justice Reform Organizations Failure to Defend Proposition 47 and Fight Back Against Proposition 36

Proposition 36 passed not because the people failed to understand their interests or were solely misinformed by the media, but because those responsible for defending Proposition 47, including the media, Democratic leadership, and nonprofits, chose to look defeated. By doing so, they allowed Proposition 47 to fall. Ultimately an unwillingness to fight against the status quo, and a preference to feign resistance within parameters offered by that status quo, is what undid the incremental step forward brought by Proposition 47.

Criminal justice organizations should have rang the alarm and created rapid response immediately via statewide networks instead of letting the governor’s office dictate everything while remaining silent and then asking for money. One example of this was the weak, hollow legislative package pushed by criminal justice reform organizations. In January 2024, they unveiled a legislative strategy called "Smart Solutions," a package of 26 bills and two budget proposals framed as “concrete legislative solutions” to pressing public safety issues. They presented this as a compromise to address concerns around Proposition 47, but in reality, it played into special interest groups' resentment toward that law and Newsom’s punitive approach toward California’s most vulnerable people.

California Republicans have a long history of sadism and bloodlust when it comes to criminal legal policies, and though they may not seem to have much representative power, their foothold is at the top of powerful special interest groups like the District Attorney’s Association, and that is precisely who the criminal justice organizations chose to negotiate with rather than beat.

Proposition 1, meanwhile, cuts local funding for mental health treatment and creates a funding stream that can be used for locked mental health facilities where people with mental health conditions, including substance use disorders, could be confined for extended periods and stripped of the right to leave, consent or refuse treatment.

Rather than confronting the special interest groups seeking to undo Proposition 47, these bills ended up supporting Newsom’s expansion of the carceral state. They co-opted meaningful terms like 'harm reduction,' and several pieces of legislation proposed changes that could make it easier to funnel people into conservatorship and move them into facilities funded under Proposition 1.

This approach was fundamentally flawed and actually disastrous in the end. Instead of confronting Proposition 36 head-on, these groups pushed a weak, hollow legislative package to create the illusion of resistance, all while holding on to their access to the Governor’s Office. They hoped to amplify Governor Newsom’s tough-on-crime image and appease the special interest groups backing Proposition 36 with the hope of keeping it off the ballot. Instead, their offer was ignored, wasting crucial time, and Proposition 36 remained on the ballot. Even worse, Democratic Assembly member Robert Rivas was emboldened by this approach to champion an even more punitive public safety package that mirrored Proposition 36, and which included legislation to create easier punishment for low-level theft offenses, coerce people into treatment, and enhance prison time for people in relatively rare instances of organized retail theft. Rivas used this as a political maneuver to assert his power over Democratic Assembly member Isaac Bryan, a proponent of the Smart Solutions platform.

Governor Newsom’s decision to sign the final package of legislation, which expanded the categories and punishments for low-level theft offenses more than the Smart Solutions package, inside a Home Depot, alongside Attorney General Rob Bonta, showed which constituencies he truly prioritizes and effectively rendered the fight to oppose Proposition 36 meaningless. Every bill signed that day had the support of the California Retailers Association and law enforcement groups.

By allowing Democratic Party politics to dictate their approach, criminal justice reform groups tried to cut deals with politicians and special interest groups, leading to concessions, worse agreements, and wasted time. By treating a direct democracy fight like a legislative negotiation, they were complicit in the victory of Proposition 36 and failed to organize people directly against it.

It seems likely that these criminal justice reform organizations and the legislators behind the Smart Solutions package preferred their unrelated bills to be signed, rather than defending Proposition 47.

In the big picture, Democrat electeds’ co-optation of progressive language to push bad policy, bloat police budgets, build careers off progressive wins, enable the funding of a genocide, and use identity politics as a shallow substitute for addressing the cost-of-living crisis has long been disastrous. This dynamic has led to denying people the support they need, such as cutting budgets for cash and housing assistance, which has led to a worsening housing disaster, and an ongoing drug epidemic, all of which hurt poor people, while those with wealth and housing are able to manage these situations privately. It is entirely unsurprising, then, that people supported Proposition 36, having been betrayed by the last 10 years of electoral politics, a betrayal embodied and reinforced by the rejection of Vice President Kamala Harris as President.

If you look closely, the legislative approach to block Proposition 36 made little sense from the start. By April 2024, signatures had already been collected, and the initiative was near set to go to the voters. When the District Attorneys' Association submitted their proposal to the Attorney General’s Office in September 2023, criminal justice reform groups should have mobilized the community to stop it before it gained momentum. But they didn’t.

They were simply unwilling to challenge the increasingly powerful Democratic governor, who has his own higher office ambitions and whose carceral agenda has included Proposition 1, CARE Court, Senate Bill 43, a competing Proposition 36 initiative, and signing the punitive retail theft package that passed big pieces of Proposition 36 before the voters had even spoken.

The formal ballot committees created to oppose Proposition 36 did little to mobilize real grassroots support, making organizing look more robust than it actually was, with local organizers deferring to statewide groups for direction and resources. As a result, millions were wasted on late-stage TV ads instead of building a year-round organizing effort. Local nonprofits, which should have been at the forefront, were sidelined, often worrying about violating lobbying rules or deferring to ballot committees that weren’t equipped to handle local needs.

People Do Indeed Feel Unsafe

In fact, there are few more unsafe feelings than knowing you are one stroke of bad luck away from having to leave your home. That is the reality in California, a state where the cost of living has become so obscene that desperation permeates the streets. Without, at the very least, a holistic analysis that openly talks about people needing housing, services, and money, and without acknowledging collective rage at a system that far too many advocacy orgs speak as if they want to protect, we will fall into the chasms of this disconnect. When people see unfathomable amounts of money spent on death and destruction overseas, and record profits raked in by for-profit healthcare industries, and the phenomenon of massive amounts of grants/cash flowing toward legacy civil rights orgs way after events like the election of Donald Trump, George Floyd protests, and others, while they desperately try and navigate ways to provide “coverage” for their families, and when they see food prices soar, gas prices soar, and rents become so absurd that landing a substandard apartment now feels like a luxury, people are not going to trust anyone who holds water for the government or prioritizes relationships with their electeds and department heads over their actual communities.

An example of this, which contributed to the Prop 36 landslide, was when criminal justice reform organizations balked from confronting Governor Newsom and the political power of the Democratic Party establishment. Instead of defending Proposition 47, advocating for its expansion, and organizing a grassroots campaign to oppose Proposition 36, these groups prioritized political access and power, pushed a weak, compromise-driven package that appeased police and corporate interests, and reinforced rather than reformed the punishment system we live under. This incrementalist, co-opted approach is what allowed Proposition 36 to pass.

Attorney General Rob Bonta’s Complicity in the Passage of Proposition 36

In November 2024, Proposition 36 passed, pushed by law enforcement groups and backed by corporate retailers. Marketed as the "Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act," it was a power grab for law enforcement, aimed at undoing Proposition 47. At the heart of this grotesque title was Attorney General Rob Bonta, who played a pivotal role in allowing its false narrative to take hold in the media.

Bonta's decision to approve the misleading title was not an oversight. It was driven by his own political ambitions. As the overseer of ballot initiative language, he had the power to reject the obviously false framing of Proposition 36, but instead, he let it fester. Instead of rejecting the misleading title, he fueled the hysteria around organized retail theft. Proposition 36 will only lead to increases in the problems noted in the title. Also "homelessness" has no direct connection with the subject matter of the proposition. His alignment with Governor Newsom at the signing of the Robert Rivas public safety package, another set of laws pushed for by the retail lobby and law enforcement, further confirmed his commitment to criminalization, not justice.

Bonta has called himself the “people’s attorney,” but his actions, and lack thereof, suggest otherwise, as he has been a do-nothing politician after pledging to work with families who’ve had loved ones die at the hands of law enforcement. As an assembly member, before being appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom, he pushed for legislation that would have strengthened the prison system by replacing cash bail with an equally bad “predictive” algorithm that would have increased pretrial jailing. More recently, he has focused on the rare issue of organized retail theft, diverting resources and attention from real issues, like holding sheriff's departments and probation offices accountable for the families of victims of police violence, a far graver threat to public safety than organized retail theft.

Just like his predecessor Vice President Kamala Harris, his decisions seem driven by a desire for higher political office. His decision to approve of such an Orwellian title helped set the stage for the media’s lazy framing of Proposition 36, distorting the true realities of the proposition and its impact on the people he claims to represent.

Governor Newsom Prioritizes His Political Ambitions

Despite Proposition 47’s success and popular support, California political figures who once supported it pulled back. Governor Newsom spoke against the initiative but conceded many of its underlying premises. The media wrongly called him the leader of the opposition, which doesn’t hold up. In reality, Newsom introduced a more 'liberal, less punitive' alternative, but abandoned it. He contributed no money to the opposition campaign (unlike his Proposition 1 campaign), and ultimately signed a horrible set of bills that was just as bad as Proposition 36.

Newsom’s actions reflect a broader pattern of siding with law enforcement and corporate interests while scapegoating people. His decisions are consistent with his leadership record over the last several years, especially how he has handled the needs of people who are living on the streets, have mental health conditions, or use criminalized substances. His behavior is clearly motivated by his political aspirations as he positions himself to appeal to what he thinks people want, including special interest groups and national funders, as he eyes a run for the Presidency. Newsom also prioritized his own and his legislative peers’ and their consultants’ political ambitions over any kind of thought-out strategy. Outdated knee jerk “strategy” helped deliver the right turn; they seemed more invested in advancing their own interests than actually working to center the facts in the political discourse or protecting marginalized Californians from violent and destructive criminalization.

The Media’s Role in Legitimizing Proposition 36

Like always, the media played a significant role in the passage of Proposition 36 by being lazy, shallow, and dishonest in its coverage, conduct which, though nothing new, has worsened in the years after the pandemic. Though many editorial boards ended with opposition, their overall coverage often focused on peripheral issues rather than addressing two critical points. First, the media failed to check the retail industry's special interest in Proposition 36, ignoring factors such as their push toward automation, mistreatment of disabled workers, and failure to provide living wages. In doing so, the media legitimized the retail industry's role as a key funder of Proposition 36. Second, they perpetuated the main lie behind Proposition 36: that Proposition 47 was in any way at all responsible for the current housing and health crises. They failed to discuss how Proposition 47 helped remove felonies from thousands of people's records, a change that had a profound impact on countless people’s lives and their ability to obtain housing for themselves and fight the current housing crisis. (Have you ever tried to rent an apartment with a felony on your record?) We also note the broader national indications that mainstream legacy papers endorsements don’t seem to count for much anymore.

Conclusion

Proposition 36 passed as a function of cynical and harmful decisions overseen by a cynical and incompetent Democratic Party. It did not pass because voters organically shifted to the right as a part of some disembodied political pendulum in the sky. Organizations and politicians who had the power to protect us from Proposition 36 chose to let it pass. The failure to protect what was a decent policy step doesn’t land in the lap of the community; it falls squarely on those who should have been transparent and strategic, not self-interested and lazy.

The All People’s Health Collective - APHC is not tied to any political party, elected official, or administrator. We build power through organizing, relentless truth telling, political education, and communicating a long-term vision of what we believe a healthy society can look like.

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