Breed’s pivot on Prop. 47 is misguided

San Francisco Mayor London Breed joined local and national Republicans in their misguided pursuit to roll back Proposition 47 — legislation that was passed a decade ago to help the state address its overcrowded, overburdened and expensive jail and prison system.

With overdose deaths at record highs in San Francisco and retail theft getting national attention, Breed wants to change Prop. 47 to make it easier to charge dealers with murder and increase jail time for certain retail theft activity.

This past week, Breed said there are “no real consequences for crimes that are committed” in the city, which isn’t true. She added that the city’s goal “is not to keep people locked up,” even though repealing Prop. 47 could do just that.

Breed once supported Prop. 47. Her extreme conservative pivot on the measure sets a troubling standard for what it means to be a moderate Democrat in California.

It’s sensible for a mayor to want to aggressively tackle their city’s biggest problems, but the logic Breed is using rejects a San Francisco history that clearly shows harsher sentencing alone won’t solve issues born from deep-rooted social crises.

Maybe Breed is trying to gin up support with moderate voters in the city as her reelection bid approaches. Or maybe she’s reacting to the criticism coming from national conservatives who say San Francisco is an example of failed Democratic leadership. Either way, Breed’s decisions get national attention.

Breed’s public feuds with progressives have made her a media darling, and a popular voice among moderate Democrats in America. But instead of being a unifying force in her party, Breed’s conservative turn on critical issues sends a disturbing message that moderate Democrats in San Francisco no longer prioritize compassion or equity.

Breed isn’t the only moderate to recently oppose Prop. 47. She’s joined by San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, along with other Democrats. But what sets Breed apart from the pack isn’t just her actions but her rhetoric. She’s the vocal moderate pushing the narrative that “compassion is killing people” and her constituents need “tough love” while also calling for more drug users to be jailed, to make it easier to strip needy residents of city-funded cash assistance and for cops in San Francisco to have less oversight.

Being anti-Prop. 47 makes sense for Breed. But make no mistake, if Prop. 47 is rolled back, the consequences will be devastating.

California’s incarcerated population is lower now than it was in the early 2000s, but overcrowding remains a problem in jails and prisons. Removing Prop. 47 will only fill these facilities with even more bodies, which will cost taxpayers more in facility upkeep or expansions. It’s easy to guess who will fill these jails and prisons in a state where Black neighborhoods are overpoliced and Black Californians are incarcerated at a rate that’s 9.5 times that of white people, according to the East Coast criminal justice think tank the Prison Policy Initiative. Black people already represent nearly 30% of inmates in California, which is roughly five times our share of the overall population.

While California hasn’t invested nearly enough in treatment and social services since Prop. 47 was enacted, any minimal gains made in areas of holistic rehabilitation will be lost.

But none of these dangers matter to the anti-Prop. 47 movement. That’s because Republicans have been effective over the years in labeling Prop. 47 as dangerous and misguided. They’ve even convinced some Democrats to argue that overdose deaths rose in places like San Francisco

because of Prop. 47.

Overdoses rose in San Francisco several years after Prop. 47’s passage, but there’s no study that supports blaming the trend on the proposition. The truth is that San Francisco’s overdoses were relatively level between 2014 and 2017. It was within this window, around 2015, that fentanyl first arrived in the city. What followed was a jump in overdoses from 2018 through 2021, a time that included the start of the pandemic, a national civil rights movement and a complete upending of daily life for millions of people. This rise mirrored a national rise in overdoses.

The Republican-led narrative against Prop. 47 omits other important context.

The legislation focuses on low-level thefts of under $950. The smash-and-grabs that have been the most viral in California and had Republicans condemning Democratic policies — like the ones that happened in Union Square in San Francisco a few years ago — occur at upscale stores where the merchandise is worth several thousand dollars. Prop. 47 doesn’t stop these people from being charged with felonies.

Also, California’s modern drug crisis didn’t start because we stopped arresting people. And overly harsh drug laws aren’t the cure for curbing deaths caused by a complicated and dangerous drug like fentanyl. Mississippi, Florida, Arizona and Louisiana all have stricter drug laws than California, but they also have higher overdose rates than does California, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In addition, there are numerous studies showing how Prop. 47 has a positive impact on the state. Studies show Prop. 47 has helped lower the state prison population and reduced recidivism rates, which can save taxpayers money by diverting people with low-level convictions from prison and into programs that provide educational and rehabilitative services.

Prop. 47 isn’t the devil Republicans, and moderates like Breed, want folks to believe it is. Rather than acknowledge the success of Prop. 47, Breed and other moderate Democrats have chosen to align themselves with the regressive thinking of the GOP. Instead of fighting the systemic racism that plagues our criminal justice system, they’re choosing to be complicit in perpetuating it.

The sad reality of California politics is reflected in Breed’s decision to join a right-wing crusade against Prop. 47. Moderates are leaning more right, and some are even willing to abandon their principles in favor of chasing misguided, short-term solutions.