California’s top Democratic leadership is trying to subvert a citizen-led initiative to reform aspects of a controversial law called Prop 47 that loosened penalties for theft and drug possession statewide. If they succeed, they will force voters to choose between the reform of Prop 47 and a slate of new anti-crime bills — ensuring the state remains incapable of effectively addressing endemic serial shoplifting. Newly leaked emails between the Governor’s office and the initiative’s leader show Newsom’s complicity in a backdoor scheme by Assembly lawmakers to kill a package of new anti-crime bills if voters approve the initiative to reform 47 in November.

We’ll explain exactly what this means below, and why it’s so troubling. But first, let’s define some key terms:

• Prop 47 is a 2014 law that downgraded a handful of crimes (including theft of goods worth less than $950 and personal drug possession) from felonies to misdemeanors. The law’s proponents promised it would improve public safety by redirecting a portion of money otherwise spent on incarceration toward school truancy prevention programs, substance abuse treatment, and victim support services. But a decade after its approval, overdose deaths have skyrocketed, serial shoplifting has become commonplace statewide, and chronic absenteeism at the state’s schools continues to rise.

• The “citizen-led initiative to reform Prop 47” is the “Homeless, Drug Addiction, and Retail Theft Reduction Act,” a proposition that would effectively repeal Prop 47 by reinstating felony charges for repeat theft offenders who steal under $950 worth of goods, authorizing harsher penalties for selling deadly amounts of fentanyl, and offering treatment in lieu of jail time for those repeatedly found in possession of hard drugs like fentanyl or meth. Since the proposition has received over 900,000 certified signatures — far more than the required ~550,000 — it will appear on the ballot in November. If passed, it would take effect immediately.

• The “package of new anti-crime bills” are 14 bills state lawmakers have proposed this legislative term to curb retail theft and drug trafficking. These include AB-2943, which would make it easier to prosecute repeat instances of shoplifting across jurisdictions, AB-1845, which would expand the California Highway Patrol’s ability to tackle cargo theft, and AB-3209, which would allow retailers to seek restraining orders against thieves who assault their employees, among others. Democrat leaders opposed to reforming Prop 47 claim these bills are enough to tackle the retail and property theft that has become pervasive statewide; advocates for repealing Prop 47 argue the two would work in tandem, and that the package alone is not sufficient to address California’s serial theft crisis since it doesn’t allow the state to effectively prosecute those who repeatedly steal merchandise worth less than $950.

Now, here’s where the backdoor dealings come in:

Earlier this month, the LA Times reported Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas held a closed-door meeting with the leaders of the coalition to reform Prop 47, and threatened to insert “inoperability” and “urgency” clauses into most of the new anti-crime bills unless the coalition withdrew their ballot measure. The urgency clauses would make the new bills take effect immediately after Newsom signed them into law in July, while the inoperability clauses would automatically revoke the bills if voters approved the measure in November.

In other words, Assembly Democrats opposed to reforming Prop 47 were going to force voters to make a choice: reform Prop 47 and kill the newly implemented anti-crime bills — leaving the state with a legal system in which it is, say, easier to prosecute fentanyl dealers but still challenging to prosecute those found repeatedly shoplifting across county lines — or don’t reform Prop 47 and keep the anti-crime bills — leaving the state with a legal system in which it is, say, easier to prosecute repeat shoplifters within a county, but difficult to prosecute those who steal repeatedly across county lines.

Further, since Attorney General Rob Bonta (a strong proponent of Prop 47) is responsible for writing the title and description of measures that appear on the November ballot, the new provisions would allow him to emphasize to voters that, by reforming Prop 47, they will roll back the already implemented anti-crime bills. As NBC4’s Conan Nolan put it: “A cynic would say [the provisions] are designed to write the [description of the] ballot measure in such a way that voters think they’ll make the laws weaker if they vote [to reform Prop 47] as opposed to not.”

After news broke, Rivas and Senate President Pro Tempore Mike McGuire held a press conference to defend the poison pill provisions. They were intended to avoid “incompatibility” between the bills and the ballot measure, McGuire said. When pressed for specifics, he pivoted. “The [ballot measure] brings back massive incarceration,” he told the press, “California locked up a generation of residents from black and brown communities.” He went on: “We will make our communities stronger in this 14-bill package, without implementing the draconian Republican agenda [of reforming Prop 47].” (In fact, the ballot measure has received support from a number of prominent moderate Democrats statewide, including SF Mayor London Breed and Sacramento DA Thien Ho.)

But as Emily Hoeven observed in the Chronicle, what McGuire and Rivas really seemed to fear was that the combination of the ballot measure and anti-crime bills would “supercharge” prosecutors’ ability to incarcerate fentanyl dealers and serial thieves.

Later, Yolo County DA Jeff Reisig, one of the leaders of the coalition to reform Prop 47, alleged it was Governor Newsom, a major proponent of Prop 47, who had instructed Assembly lawmakers to insert the poison pills into the bills. The newly leaked emails between Newsom’s chief of staff Dana Williamson and Greg Totten, another leader of the anti-Prop 47 coalition — which suggest Newsom is not willing to negotiate anti-Prop 47 concessions until 2026 — seem to confirm this. “It’s really amazing how you are incapable of taking a win,” Williamson wrote, in response to Totten’s refusal to postpone the ballot measure in exchange for concessions on the anti-crime bills.

Why are Newsom and allied legislators threatening to kill bills they support if voters approve the reform of Prop 47? Is it, as they claim, in service of the “black and brown communities” that supposedly benefit from Prop 47? Follow the money and a more likely explanation comes to light. California is currently attempting to close a budget deficit of epic (multibillion-dollar) proportions, and Prop 47 saves the state hundreds of millions of dollars it would otherwise spend locking criminals up. Newsom and his allies don’t want to revise their budget projections, which are already grim for the upcoming fiscal year, to account for the effective re-criminalization of theft and attendant incarceration costs.

It’s unclear whether the poison pill gamble will pay off; several prominent moderate Democrats have already pulled support for the anti-crime bills in light of the new provisions, and we should know within a day’s time whether the modified bills passed. But even if they fail, Newsom and allies may still triumph; new reports suggest they are working on their own attenuated anti-crime initiative for the November ballot — an eleventh hour attempt, it seems, to overload voters with choice and weaken growing opposition to Prop 47.

— Sanjana Friedman