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Kamala Refuses to Answer How She's Voting on Key Cali Crime Measure: 'It's the Sunday Before the Election'

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With crime being one of the most out-front issues in the closing days of the 2024 presidential campaign, you’d think support for Prop 36 would be a no-brainer for Kamala Harris.

After all, her campaign has spent months emphasizing that she was once a prosecutor, a way to preemptively strike any soft-on-crime attacks against her. Surely the proposed California law, which is aimed at curbing retail theft and drug use in a state where woke laws have caused an epidemic of it — and the concomitant loss of major stores in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles — is an easy layup for the Harris campaign, right?

Instead, when the measure was brought up, the vice president decided to call attention to the issue by failing to say whether she was on either side of the proposition.

While appearing in Detroit to mark the last day of early voting in Michigan, Harris was asked how she’d vote on the measure — which would see those convicted of certain drug or theft crimes receiving an increased sentence, even if their theft was under $950 — by a reporter.

“I am not going talk about the vote on that because, honestly, it’s the Sunday before the election and I don’t intend to create an endorsement one way or the other,” she responded.

Ah, yes. It’s the Sunday before the election, so she can’t tell people how she’s voting on what’s arguably the most important thing on her home state’s ballot. Because of course. How disingenuous can you get?

It’s worth noting that, when she was the state’s attorney general, Proposition 47 — the measure that reclassified certain thefts and drug crimes as misdemeanors and thus dissuaded police from investigating them — passed by an overwhelming number.

Is Kamala Harris soft on crime?

“Although her office wrote Proposition 47’s summary and title, Harris herself took no position on the initiative,” opinion contributor J.T. Young wrote in The Hill regarding her role in the 2014 ballot initiative passing. “Proposition 47 went on to pass overwhelmingly. And ever since, California has been overwhelmed by the consequences.

“Drug use not only surged but spilled into the streets. Homelessness spiked. What had been felony theft (including shoplifting, grand theft, forgery, and fraud) was now simply a misdemeanor (so long as it stayed below $950), and newly reclassified ‘shoplifting’ skyrocketed,” Young noted.

“And without DNA testing for now-reduced drug and theft offenses, many other serious crimes went unsolved.”

And, of course, this gave her a do-over to say that she supported curbing the excesses of Prop 47 with Prop 36. What did she do? She punted. Of course.

Donald Trump’s social media accounts — along with those of other conservatives — ripped her for the pusillanimity.

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And this is the thing — if she supported it, saying she did would be the easiest thing in the world. It’d make her look tough on crime in the closing moments of a momentous election cycle and might seal the deal for her in swing states.

The fact that she won’t say anything should tell you a lot about what a Harris presidency will look like: an inveterately progressive Californian trying to appear somewhat moderate to middle America while appeasing the worst elements in her own party. If that wasn’t clear enough already, this should clinch it.

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C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014.
C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014. Aside from politics, he enjoys spending time with his wife, literature (especially British comic novels and modern Japanese lit), indie rock, coffee, Formula One and football (of both American and world varieties).
Birthplace
Morristown, New Jersey
Education
Catholic University of America
Languages Spoken
English, Spanish
Topics of Expertise
American Politics, World Politics, Culture




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