Attorney General Rob Bonta deserves a full four-year term
He is the only candidate committed to carrying out, rather than undermining, voter-approved criminal justice reforms
The candidates seeking to unseat state Attorney General Rob Bonta share a central campaign theme: California needs a tough law-andorder prosecutor at the helm because crime is soaring.
But the data doesn't back that up. California's population-adjusted property crime rate in 2020 was the lowest in 60 years, and the violent crime rate was near the lowest in 50 years, according to analysis by the non-partisan Public Policy Institute of California.
To be sure, one recent troubling area has been homicides. But even there the state's jump in homicides at the start of the pandemic generally follows the national increase. In fact, the state's homicide rate still lags the country, and California saw a decrease in the first two decades of the 2000s while the nation saw an increase.
It's unfortunate that Californians are being subjected to such shrill and misleading claims in the attorney general campaign about crime trends and to the underlying false implication that the state's criminal justice reforms are failing.
Voters should not let themselves be manipulated. They should support Bonta in the June 7 primary. He is the only candidate fully committed to balancing public safety and fairness — to carrying out, rather than trying to undermine, the criminal justice reforms voters approved.
While his challengers focus on pressing misleading claims about crime in the state,
Bonta recognizes the full duties of the office as he pushes ahead with litigation to enforce and protect the state's environmental, housing, gun, antitrust and anti-discrimination laws.
Gov. Gavin Newsom selected Bonta, a former Bay Area assemblyman, to replace Xavier Becerra, who was picked by President Biden to be U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. Bonta took office just over a year ago, in April 2021.
During his short tenure, his record on transparency has been disappointing. While promising and claiming more openness than Becerra, Bonta has continued his predecessor's court fight to block release of records sought by the non-profit First Amendment Coalition pertaining to police misconduct.
And, like Becerra, Bonta refuses to explain the status of his office's probe, which began seven years ago, of Michael Peevey's atrocious behavior as president of the California Public Utilities Commission. The silence regarding the case of a key public official and ally of former Gov. Jerry Brown smacks of ongoing political coverup.
But, as he should as the attorney for the state, Bonta defends the criminal justice reforms voters approved: Proposition 47 in 2014, which reclassified some felony drug and theft offenses as misdemeanors and raised from $400 to $950 the amount for which theft can be prosecuted as a felony; and Proposition 57 in 2016, a parole overhaul measure that increased good-behavior credits, allowing some prisoners to be released earlier.
The two measures were part of an effort to roll back the state's tough-on-crime sentencing guidelines instituted in the 1990s that were overly punitive in many cases and had packed prisons beyond capacity at great expense to taxpayers.
We supported Prop. 47 but opposed Prop. 57. While we backed the goals of the latter, we were concerned that it was not well-drafted. That said, voters have spoken and, generally, these reforms and others passed by the state since 2000 have been successful.
As the Public Policy Institute noted last year, no research has linked any of the reforms to changes in violent crime, although they have been found to be contributing factors to temporary increases in auto theft and larceny.
There is general agreement, including from Bonta, that the list of crimes eligible for early release and parole under Prop. 57 needs to be narrowed to exclude some troubling offenses, most notably domestic violence.
But, from a big-picture perspective, the solution is to fix the problems, not eliminate the reforms and regress to the costly overcrowded prisons of a decade ago. Yet elimination seems to be the goal embedded in the hyperbolic campaign messages of Bonta's opponents.
As the Public Policy Institute noted last year, no research has linked any of the reforms to changes in violent crime, although they have been found to be contributing factors to temporary increases in auto theft and larceny.
Republican Eric Early calls California a “criminal's paradise.” This from someone unwilling to concede that Biden legitimately won the 2020 election — who claims that the state's universal mail-in balloting is “quite possibly” not constitutional but won't disclose his legal reasoning. It's frightening to imagine where he would go with that if he had the power of the state attorney general's office to challenge California's election laws.
Nathan Hochman, a Republican attorney and former federal prosecutor, says “Californians are fed up with rampant crime” and tries to position himself as the more-pragmatic Republican in the race. He says the outcome of the 2020 presidential election was legitimate but he won't say whom he backed. Beyond crime, when he met with us, he wasn't prepared to discuss the other duties of being attorney general, specifically which of Bonta's legal efforts to protect California laws he would handle differently.
Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert, a former Republican who switched to no party preference and says she never voted for Donald Trump, is also focused on making crime the issue of the campaign. “I think we need a system that isn't pro-criminal,” she says.
There are legitimate discussions to be had about how best to implement the criminal justice reforms passed by voters. But exaggerated and misleading claims about violent crime designed to score political points are not helpful.
California needs an attorney general who can handle the nuanced issues of the debate. That's Rob Bonta. Voters should elect him to a full fouryear term.