On Thursday a new Field Poll was released that indicated Californians favor a reform of the state’s Three-Strikes law by a 3 to 1 margin. Specifically, Field showed that 74 percent of Californians would like the law to be modified.
While more Democrats than Republicans favor the reform, the majority of Republicans and independents are ready to retool the law too— with 46 percent of voters favoring reform “strongly.”
This week Tracey Kaplan of the San Jose Mercury News reported that a Three-Strikes reform initiative is, indeed going forward for the November 2012 ballot. (Kaplan has the details about the Stanford lawyers and others who have thus far signed on to launch the initiative).
The Field poll would appear to bode well for the 2012 effort.
However, in 2004 there was an earlier attempt to reform the Three-strikes law through the initiative process. Then too, the idea scored very high in a series of Field polls, and yet when election day came the initiative went down to defeat.
I called Field Poll Director Mark DiCamillo, and asked him about the 2004 gap between the opinion polling and the vote.
“Yeah,” DiCamillo, said, “the proposition had a 40 point lead until one month before election. Then Governor Schwarzenegger and some other respected figures including, as I remember, Jerry Brown, came out strongly against it, and I watched opinion change on a dime. That’s what happens when you have credible sources arousing fear. Often the public can be greatly swayed.
“I don’t think public opinion has changed all that much.” DiCamillo continued. They favored reform then by a big margin, and they favor it now. “But right before the election they got scared. It was a little like [George H. W.] Bush with Dukakis and that whole thing with Willie Horton.
“It’ll be interesting to see what happens this time.”
This time, the reformers may be developing sharper elbows. Tracey Kaplan reports that political consultant Averell “Ace” Smith will be leading the campaign, a signal that the initiative’s backers are gearing up for hardball. Smith, who has run California campaigns for such successful candidates as Antonio Villaraigosa, Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, has a well-earned reputation for being a very tough adversary.
California’s Three Strikes law is the harshest of the 24 similar laws in the nation in that any felony—even the theft of a video game—can qualify as a third strike.
Q: IN THIS LOUSY ECONOMY WOULD YOU LIKE TO PAY MORE TAXES IN ORDER TO MOVE FELONS AROUND?
CALIFORNIA VOTERS: UH, NO.
Elsewhere in the Field Poll, California voters were asked if they agreed with “Governor Brown’s proposal to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling by transferring lower-risk inmates from state prisons to local county jails and other community-based facilities.” (The majority agreed.)
But then they were asked if they: “…agree or disagree with the governor that taxes will have to be increased to pay for this or not?”
Naturally most people said, Nope. Don’t think so.
All well and good—except for the fact that Jerry Brown has not suggested raising taxes, but is asking to extend some existing taxes. Second of all, the tax extension money would go to support a list of programs, education being the most prominent among them. And, yes, it would would also help pay for the inmate transfers.
‘Twould have been nice if the Field folks had asked the question a bit more accurately.
SUPREMES SAY THAT AGE MATTERS WHEN POLICE QUESTION STUDENTS
The LA Times’ David Savage has the story. Here’s a clip:
The Supreme Court bolstered the rights of juveniles for the second year in a row, deciding by a 5-4 vote that police officers who remove a student from class for questioning about a crime usually must warn him or her of the right to remain silent.
The decision Thursday did not set a strict rule for all cases involving police questioning of minors, but the justices said young people deserved extra protection because they would feel they had no choice but to answer….
WHY IS THE STUPID, SEXIST, RACIST ANTI-JANICE HAHN VIDEO TAKEN SERIOUSLY?
When an anti-Janice" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen> Hahn video surfaced early this week, many of us exchanged emails about the thing, but concluded that it deserved merely to be roundly ignored for the attention-seeking, tasteless, talent-free stunt that it was.
But, for some reason the normally sensible Larry Mantle devoted part of Wednesday’s Air Talk show on KPCC to discussing the thing. (Even my wonderful reporter pal Frank Stoltze contributed to the show’s discussion.)
Guys: Just ignore the children until they stop spitting their food on the floor.
Here’s the video. You tell me if you think it merits a serious discussion.
(Okay, here’s what we’re going to do: Let’s make a campaign ad that has the heads of Charlie Mason and some unidentifiable gangsters from the 1930’s randomly floating past a white lady pole-dancer’s bouncing butt while some embarrassed-looking rappers wearing 4th-of July shirts and plaid golfer hats yell “KILL! KILL!” And then we’ll show Janice Hahn with devil eyes and that cool, red, blood-drippy typeface! Yeah! Awesome, dude! This going to make our careers, I’m telling you!!!)
(sigh.)