PROPOSITION 5: FISCAL INSANITY

Proposition 5, which is on the November ballot, calls itself the
"Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act." It seeks to entice your vote
by claiming to support drug courts and rehabilitation, and promises to
reduce our prison population and thereby lessen California's ongoing
budget woes.

As with most initiatives, Prop. 5 was written by an advocacy group.
Those who take the time to read it will find it is very long - my copy
is 36 pages long and printed in a font size reminiscent of what we see
in the "small print" on those late-night TV ads.

You can make a lot of bad law in 36 pages - which is why Mothers
Against Drunk Driving (MADD), both the National and the California
Association of Drug Court Professionals, the California State
Association of Counties and the California League of Cities oppose
Prop. 5. For the record, so does every district attorney and sheriff
in the State.

There are many reasons to vote against Prop. 5 - the way it virtually
destroys the current and highly successful drug courts we now use; the
way it takes the discretion away from judges to decide what drug
treatment program would work best for each individual; the way it
prevents any "dirty tests" while in treatment from being used to
violate a defendant's probation or terminate an incorrigible offender
from the program; or the way that Prop 5 limits the most serious
sanction for the most serious felony offenders who are terminated from
the program to one year in the county jail. You read that right - no
prison can be imposed even for non-drug related felonies even if it is
greatly deserved. Does this sound like a good way to "reduce the
prison population"?

But there is an even more important reason to closely examine Prop.
5.

Deep in those 36 pages, Prop. 5 sets in place a funding structure that
mandates that drug treatment for criminal defendants be a state
priority on par with education. Prop. 5 requires that $610 million -
that's right, more than half a billion dollars - be transferred from
the current state budget for the "start-up costs" of this program.
Having watched the last State budget fiasco, I have a simple question:
where will the state get $610 million?

Based on my experience as your district attorney for the last decade,
the state will either take it from local government - Yuba, Sutter,
and Colusa counties where we live - or cut funding from other
programs. Prop. 5 doesn't create any new funding, it just redirects it
away from other programs. And the best part is, Prop. 5 is exempt from
the annual state budget review process. The $1 billion Prop. 5 is
estimated to cost annually comes right off the top - before education,
public safety, roads and infrastructure, senior services, and
everything else the state pays for. The only way the funding can be
reduced or eliminated is through another voter approved initiative.

This is madness. Everybody agrees that drug treatment that helps
people turn their lives around is a worthwhile goal. However, I for
one am not willing to put drug treatment above services for people who
are not committing crimes and getting arrested. I trust that you don't
either. Join me in voting no on Proposition 5.