California Elections and Criminal Justice

Dan Walters has this column at Cal Matters, titled “Where political action is — and isn’t — in 2020.” The bottom line: “The Gascón-Lacey duel and the bail and sentencing ballot measures make criminal justice a significant subtheme of this year’s California elections.”

The duel in question is George Soros’s latest attempt to buy soft-on-crime policy with massive funding of district attorney candidates who favor such policies. This time it is Los Angeles in the crosshairs. Nationwide, Soros has had his best successes in states with partisan prosecutor elections in jurisdictions so heavily Democratic that the primary is the real election and the general is a foregone conclusion. He has had less success in California, with its nonpartisan elections, with the notable exception of San Francisco. Let’s hope he flops again in L.A.

Bail “reform” involves the abolition of money bail, creating a virtual license to skip for many defendants, further weakening the connection between crime and consequences.

The sentencing measure is a modest walk-back on the ill-conceived Proposition 57. It does not go nearly far enough, in my opinion, but in the present environment it may be all that can be achieved. In time, the people of California will wake up to the deception of the “woke,” and then we can make more progress.

Where the action isn’t, according to Walters, includes the presidential race. For all its size, California is a minor factor in the primary and dead weight on one side in the general.