Voters favor parole reforms, poll finds
New survey shows a softening of voters’ appetite for Prop. 56 Superintendent’s actions were blasted at House hearing
California voters favor reforming the state parole system, but are more closely divided about slapping a two-buck-a-pack tax on cigarettes, a new Field Poll shows.
And voters also favor extending a tax on the wealthy that they first approved in 2012, the poll shows.
The new poll shows what could be a softening of voters’ appetite for a new tobacco tax to fund health care and tobacco prevention efforts, as the deep-pocketed opposition rolls out a heavy ad campaign attacking the measure as a tax grab for special interests.
California voters narrowly favor Proposition 56 — the tobacco tax — with 53 percent in favor, 40 percent opposed and seven percent undecided, the results show.
The Proposition 57, the parole measure, and Proposition 55, which extends a personal income tax hike on those paid more than $250,000 a year, are both polling at 60 percent approval.
The tobacco tax “appears to be in some jeopardy,” Field Poll Director Mark DiCamillo said Monday.
“The yes number is the most important” in early polling because “many people who are undecided tend to vote no,” he said.
The results come less than a week after a poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found stronger support for the tobacco tax, with 59 percent of voters favoring the measure and 36 percent opposed.
But despite a continuing decline in smokers and widespread condemnation of the health effects, galvanizing voters to hike tobacco taxes is hardly a lock.
Voters rejected the last attempt to raise tobacco taxes in the Golden State in 2012, with 50.2 percent opposed and 49.8 in favor. Philip Morris and other big tobacco companies have already pumped more than $56 million into the No on 56 campaign, according to campaign fiance records updated last week.
Opponents of the measure have raised just less that $21 million.
Supporters of the tax say the slim margin of their lead isn’t surprising because of the tobacco company money being spent against the proposition, said Yes on 56 campaign manager Jim DeBoo.
“They know the tax itself will help prevent passing this deadly, costly habit on to the next generation of smokers. Tobacco will continue to inundate voters with misleading ads.”
A spokeswoman for the No on 56 campaign said “the more voters learn about Proposition 56, the more they will learn” it is deceptive. Most of the $2 a pack tax would ultimately go to insurance companies and hospitals without requiring them to treat new patients.
The Proposition 57 numbers show California voters are “kind of in sync with reforming heavy-handed criminal sentencing,” DiCamillo said.
The proposition, supported by Gov. Jerry Brown, would allow nonviolent felons earlier opportunities at parole and Latest Field Poll results: Proposition 56 Proposition 57 Source: Survey conducted by The Field Poll and the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, Sept. 7-13. Random samples: Proposition 55: 967 likely voters; Proposition 56: 943 likely voters; Proposition 57: 484 likely voters. shorten sentences by allowing time spent in rehabilitation and education programs to count toward time served. It would also require judges to decide after a hearing whether a juvenile can be charged as an adult.
That decision is currently made by prosecutors.
“Californians clearly understand that it makes sense to give people incentives to turn their lives around so we can focus our law enforcement resources on dangerous offenders, and avoid the potential of an arbitrary court-ordered release of prisoners,” said Dan Newman, a spokesman for the Yes on 47 campaign.
But an opponent of the measure called it a “massive fraud being perpetrated on” voters.
“It doesn’t apply only to non-violent felons,” said Merced County District Attorney Larry Morse in a telephone interview Monday, noting that crimes such as “rape of an unconscious person” and human trafficking are considered non-violent under state law.
Proponents vehemently disagree. They say Proposition 57 would put into law an existing federal court order, already in effect for the past 18 months, which excludes crimes that require an inmate to register as a sex offender, such as rape of an unconscious person.
Money on the measure is steeply lopsided. Proponents led by the governor have raised $7.5 million. Opponents have $109,000, records show.
One clear thing in the results of the three polls is that taxes on the rich remain popular in California, DiCamillo said.
The 60 percent of voters favoring Proposition 55 indicate that progressive politics remain strong in California, he said. “This doesn’t affect 90 percent of voters,” he said. “It is very popular.”
The strong showing comes on the heels of the PPIC poll last week that showed Proposition 55 with a more modest lead, with 54 percent of voters supporting the measure and 38 percent opposed.
The Field Poll was conducted from Sept. 7-13 though an online survey of likely voters. By Michael Doyle
WASHINGTON — Yosemite National Park Superintendent Don Neubacher has broadly apologized to park employees, in a remarkable bow to harsh criticisms leveled last week at a congressional oversight hearing.
Amid a newly revealed Interior Department investigation, and with whistleblowers and lawmakers alike now scrutinizing his actions closely, Neubacher offered contrition for what he acknowledged to be “serious staff concerns.”
“It was never my intention, in any way, to offend any employee over the course of the six and a half years I have been superintendent,” Neubacher wrote in an email sent Sunday night to park staff. “If I did offend any of you at any time, I want to sincerely apologize.”
Neubacher added that he and the park’s senior staffers are “working on ways to enhance the working environment at Yosemite,” and he said they hoped to “share some additional information and next steps ... early this week.”
Yosemite’s superintendent since early 2010, Neubacher emailed all park employees Sunday evening after his leadership was blasted at a hearing last Thursday of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The panel zeroed in on Yosemite as part of a broader look at park service management problems.
“In Yosemite National Park today, dozens of people, the majority of whom are women, are being bullied, belittled, disenfranchised and marginalized from their roles as dedicated professionals,” Kelly Martin, chief of the park’s fire and aviation branch, said in written testimony.
Martin added that investigators “are likely to find accounts of women and men being publicly humiliated by the superintendent, intimidated in front of colleagues and ... having their professional credibility and integrity minimized or questioned.”
Martin has worked for the federal government for 32 years and has been at Yosemite since July 2006. She previously worked at Grand Canyon National Park and with the Forest Service at the Carson Ranger District on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains, among other places.
Nationwide, women make up about 37 percent of the park service’s workforce. In wildland firefighting, the percentage of women in public lands agencies is even lower.
At Yosemite, Martin cited several troublesome incidents that included her work on the park’s complex fire-management plan being “discounted and discredited,” as well as her being supplanted as the leader of the park’s response to the 2013 Rim Fire.
One investigation, called an “expedited inquiry,” had been initiated by the park service in August to determine whether a hostile work environment or harassment pervaded Yosemite. Such inquiries can lead to formal Equal Employment Opportunity complaints.
“Some employees chose not to come forward for fear of retaliation,” Martin reported.
Still, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, the chairman of the House oversight committee, disclosed that at least 18 Yosemite employees had complained about working conditions at the park, and he cited one investigator’s characterization of the Yosemite work environment as “horrific.”