THE LESSON OF ULTRA-HIGH COASTAL REAL ESTATE PRICES: LOOK INLAND

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2024, OR THEREAFTER

 

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“THE LESSON OF ULTRA-HIGH COASTAL REAL ESTATE PRICES: LOOK INLAND”

 

Not many places could take a 5 percent drop in their median home price and still remain the most expensive Zip code in America for real estate. But Atherton did that this year, taking a $400,000 median price dip, but still maintaining a median of $7.9 million per property sold.

 

This brought Atherton’s 94027 Zip code, in San Mateo County slightly north of Stanford University its eighth consecutive title as the priciest place in America.

 

But Newport Beach is not far behind. The seaside Orange County city has three Zip codes with median prices topping $4.6 million, all up a few hundred thousand from last year.

 

It’s rather eye-popping, but of the 10 priciest Zips in the nation, seven are in California. The median is the price level where half of all sales are for higher amounts and half for lower. For both Atherton and Newport Beach, this means in practical terms that sales prices topping $10 million have lately been pretty common.

 

Only Atherton among the highest-price California Zips has no waterfront. But not to worry, it is within a couple of miles of several marinas fronting on the San Francisco Bay, where homeowners can also park their boats – even if they can’t dock outside their back doors, like at some properties in Newport Beach.

 

There’s a lesson here for young families wanting to live in California, but unable to afford the ultra-high prices of the most expensive ZIPs: Look inland.

 

Areas like Glendale, Pasadena, Rancho Bernardo, Tracy and Elk Grove sport plenty of extremely livable homes and condominiums at prices far beneath what similar properties draw in coastal communities. This explains why California’s inland areas are growing far faster than coastal locales.

 

In fact, coastal areas in other areas of the country also boast prices soaring above what almost any first-time buyer can afford. The three non-California Zips on the national top-ten list include one in Miami Beach, Fla., and two on Long Island, NY.

 

High prices that are nevertheless still rising were common not just in California and the other top ten Zips, but also nationally, creating a crisis that presidential candidates last fall promised to fix by spurring the building of millions of new homes. These would rise in many areas, with inland California boasting prime areas for development. The prospect of new communities in some currently vacant desert areas has also been touted by some housing officials as a solution not only to the affordability crisis, but also to homelessness.

 

After real estate prices slipped a little overall in 2022 and 2023, says the Property Shark real estate research firm which generated the latest top ten rankings, they rose again this year in most places.

 

The firm reports that two-thirds of the nation’s 100 priciest Zip codes saw sale prices increase in 2024, compared with just 29 percent in 2023. One result was that a record 15 Zip codes saw median sale prices of $4 million or more.

 

Plus, prices in large cities pretty much mirrored the top rankings of Zip codes. New York, which took over last year for Los Angeles as America’s high-price leader among sizable cities, retained that ranking, even as its toniest Zip, which includes Tribeca, was only No. 23 nationally. L.A. remained No. 2, with Palo Alto trailing not far behind at No. 4.

 

A key finding is that about two-thirds of America’s priciest Zips are clustered in Los Angeles, Santa Clara, San Mateo and Orange counties, contributing to the home price crisis that has driven many young professionals to live in other states while telecommuting to jobs in California, putting in only occasional appearances at their nominal offices.

 

One side effect has been that neighboring states like Nevada and Arizona are now more politically centrist than their long history as Republican bastions might indicate. Ex-Californians have also driven up prices markedly in those states, as well as Idaho, Texas and Oregon, where many new residents arriving from California report being ostracized by longer-term residents.

 

The bottom line: The priciest California areas show no signs of major pricing retreats, which leaves few coastal options for young families seeking to buy first homes. That makes looking inland -- even to deserts -- a must for many.

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

HOW CALIFORNIA RANKS AS THE MOST ACTIVE POLITICAL STATE

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS

FOR RELEASE:TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2024, OR THEREAFTER

 

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

“HOW CALIFORNIA RANKS AS THE MOST ACTIVE POLITICAL STATE”

 

California has not been a swing state in presidential politics since 1992, when it switched from Republican red to Democratic blue while its electoral votes made Bill Clinton the president.

 

But this vast state, far larger in population than No. 2 Texas and almost as large geographically as virtually empty Alaska, turns out to be the nation’s most politically active state.

 

That will play out strongly at home for the next two years, as a field featuring many Democrats and very possibly Republican Chad Bianco, the often vocal sheriff of Riverside County, joust for position while running to replace Democrat Gavin Newsom in the governor’s office.

 

It's unlikely a GOP hopeful like Bianco can win the office in a state where registered Democratic voters hugely outnumber Republicans, a state which has not put a Republican in statewide office since muscleman actor Arnold Schwarzenegger won reelection in 2006

 

 But as former baseball great Steve Garvey did in this year's Senate race, a candidate like Bianco could make the 2026 runoff election if he were the sole Republican running in that year’s June primary election. Also like Garvey, Bianco or any other Republican in such a race would almost certainly be little more than a sacrificial lamb.

 

How, then, does California rank as American’s most politically active state, especially when it numbers just 29^th in the percentage of eligible voters who actually submit ballots?

 

Turns out money and activism togethere pushed this state to the top of the political activity list in a new study from the WalletHub website, which specializes in demographic trends.

 

Californians were 14th in the percentage of registered voters (as opposed to folks who are eligible) who actually turned out in 2020 and about the same last month, when they decided the fate of 10 statewide ballot propositions and hundreds of local measures. California ranked eighth in total political contributions per voting age citizen, much of the money going to presidential candidates or people running for the House and Senate in other states. Democratic Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar got more money from California than any two other states aside from her own. The same for both Democrat Collin Allred and incumbent Republican Ted Cruz in Texas. And so on.

 

Plenty of bucks also went to candidates in the six most hotly contested congressional races in this state, where Republicans won just enough seats to control the House of Representatives for the next two years.

 

But the big propulsion to the top spot in political activity was where Californians ranked in civic engagement. One measure: Among Democrats, more than 12,000 volunteers ponied up their own postage money and their time to write and send anywhere from 100 to 1,000 handwritten postcards apiece to potential voters in swing states where just a few hundred or a few thousand votes had the potential to decide who would be the next president.

 

Add in the top ranking in voter accessibility policies, like sending a mail-in ballot to every registered voter and placing drop boxes in convenient locations in every part of the state.

 

Merely being a swing state because party preference is fairly evenly split was not enough to propel any other state to the top in political engagement.

 

WalletHub found only two of the seven major swing states (Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina) were among the most politically engaged. States like Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and New Jersey were among the top tier in political engagement despite being solidly in the camp of one party or the other.

 

Turnout was affected in a major way this fall by where states ranked in political engagement. The more engaged,  the higher the percentage of registered voters actually casting ballots.

 

The exception to this was California, where political engagement and availability of ballots and ballot boxes was high, but turnout overall was nevertheless only about two-thirds, pretty much the same as in 2020, when this state went heavily for Joe Biden over Donald Trump.

 

The bottom line: California’s size did not prevent it from being the most politically engaged state in America. And California voters – with their interstate activism and cash donations, probably did influence some races far beyond this state’s borders.

 

            -30-

    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

UTILITIES KEEP TRYING TO LOOK MAGNANIMOUS WHEN THEY'RE NOT

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2024 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

"UTILITIES KEEP TRYING TO LOOK MAGNANIMOUS WHEN THEY'RE NOT”

 

Twice every year, California’s privately-owned utility companies make a big effort to appear generous, when they’re actually being the opposite.

 

It happened most recently late last fall, when all three of the big privately owned electric providers, Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric, included messages in their monthly invoices informing customers they’d be getting a credit soon.

 

This was the state’s climate credit, part of a decade-old program requiring power plants, natural gas distributors and other greenhouse gas emitters to buy carbon pollution permits. The state – not the companies – redistributes much of the money to consumers through their utility bills, with electricity credits coming every April and October and one natural gas credit each April.

 

But the utilities often make their notices read as if the money came from them as some sort of rebate.

 

Rather than being generous, the companies, aided by their steadfast accomplices at the state Public Utilities Commission in making things ever harder on customers, actually seem to apply continually for permission from their so-called regulators to increase rates.

 

Each utility is normally entitled to apply every couple of years for rate increases or decreases (can anyone remember the last decrease?), but often apply in between for increases to pay for things like cutting back undergrowth near power lines to prevent wildfires and updating transmission lines for the same reason.

 

The companies are also about to start a new billing system including a flat monthly rate for infrastructure on all residential bills and some small businesses. The new structure takes effect in late 2025 and early 2026, with a flat rate of $24.15 per month for most customers and discounted rates of $6 or $12 for low-income persons and those living in deed-restricted affordable housing. The flat rate will allegedly also result in lower prices per kilowatt used.

 

The new system is supposed to lower rates statewide, the PUC claiming this will make electric cars and home appliances more attractive to potential buyers. 

 

Consumer groups have long been skeptical the new flat fee will actually create any overall savings, nor does anyone know how customers will prove their incomes are low enough to get discount rates. That was one problem with the flat rate system from the moment it was conceived, but the PUC pressed ahead anyway. Because tax returns, Census questionnaires and much other financial data is supposed to be private, it’s difficult to say how the utilities will get accurate income information.

 

But this won’t deter them. The plan will proceed, even if some pricing has to be based purely on guesswork.

 

Meanwhile, the utilities, the PUC and Gov. Gavin Newsom were also taking further action to discourage rooftop solar, the single most efficient way homeowners and public schools can economize on electricity costs.

 

That came when Newsom vetoed a bill that could have made it cheaper for schools and renters to install new rooftop solar panels and storage batteries.

 

The vetoed bill would have seen rooftop solar lower the amount of electricity homeowners and renters now buy from utilities. By vetoing it, Newsom assured that renters and schools must keep selling virtually all their solar output to the utilities for three cents per kilowatt hour and then buy it back for much higher rates. Not many individuals or school boards will invest in rooftop solar under those conditions, which will leave rooftop solar now largely for homeowners, who at least can use their own power, even after the PUC last year reduced the price utilities must pay for any excess power homeowners sell off.

 

Newsom used a false utility claim – that the former prices (still current for homeowners with pre-existing long-term contracts) paid by utilities for rooftop solar were causing higher power rates for others – to justify his veto.

 

These actions and many others put the lie to any notion that California’s big private utilities are the least bit generous or magnanimous. Rather, these companies strive always to up their profits, with the state’s highest officials as willing accomplices.

 

 

-30-
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

 

NEWS FOR CALIFORNIA'S CRITICS; IT’S CARRYING THE NATION

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2024 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“NEWS FOR CALIFORNIA'S CRITICS; IT’S CARRYING THE NATION”

 

California, we often hear, is a lousy place to do business. It’s riddled with needless regulations that make it hard for businesses to survive.

 

Those are the words of this state’s detractors, who delight in noting that before this year, California had slight population declines for awhile. Some of that was spurred by the movement of white collar workers toward operating from home, which began during the Covid-19 pandemic.

 

Plus, corporate headquarters have departed in droves.

 

But if all that’s true, why is California still carrying the national economy? This may come as a surprise, but it's true. With a gross domestic product (GDP) of $4.08 trillion, California far outpaces No. 2 Texas, which comes in with a $2.69 trillion GDP – a difference just about proportional to the populations of both states. (GDP is the total value of all goods and services produced within a state or country.)

 

California’s GDP accounts for more than 17 percent of America’s and makes this the No. 5 economy in the world, behind only the entire USA, China, Japan and Germany. California’s share of national GDP stands far above its 12 percent share of America’s populace.

 

Here's a little-publicized secret behind the ballyhooed corporate defections: Companies like Tesla and Toyota and Chevron, with headquarters now elsewhere, still conduct huge parts of their operations here. For Tesla and Toyota, it’s far more than in any other state including Texas, now home to their head offices.

 

Here's another surprise for the many folks who love to denigrate this state, suggesting it only survives economically because of its salubrious climate:

 

Of the 15 states with the largest GDPs, five are governed by the GOP, while 10 have Democratic governors. Those include New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, North Carolina, Washington, Massachusetts, Michigan and Colorado. Together, the top 15 states account for about 90 percent of America’s economy.

 

These figures all come from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).

 

The upshot is that much of what Donald Trump said to denigrate California and other “blue” states during his highly vocal 2024 campaign was false.

 

It turns out that when a major business moves its headquarters elsewhere, that makes only a small dent in California’s huge economy.

 

In fact, when America does well, it’s largely because California does far better than most of the world. Never mind that real estate and energy cost more here than almost anywhere else (energy costs are higher in Alaska and Hawaii while real estate costs are higher only in Hawaii).

 

California still produces far more than its fair share of goods and services and is therefore hugely responsible for keeping the U.S. economy the world’s strongest.

 

And all that ignores the fact that most major industrial innovations of the last 50 years originated in California, from electric cars and smart phones to artificial intelligence.

 

There's evidence for all this in county GDP ratings, too. For example, two of the five most productive counties in America are in California, Together, Los Angeles and Santa Clara counties produce more than one-fifth of the economic activity in the nation's 23 wealthiest counties.

 

Meanwhile, only seven of those 23 most productive counties are in states Trump carried in any last three elections. Of those seven, two Texas counties – Harris (Houston) and Travis (Austin) have long been Democratic islands in the Texas Republican red sea.

 

Los Angeles County, for one example, produced more this year than the combined total of Dallas County, TX; Maricopa County, AZ (Phoenix), Fulton County, GA (Atlanta) and Philadelphia County, PA.

 

Equally significant are the BEA comparisons of California county GDPs with other nations. Los Angeles County productivity tops Switzerland. Santa Clara County, home of Silicon Valley, produces more than Pakistan, with about 100 times as many residents.

 

We are talking here about companies like Google and Sony Studios, Snapchat and Hewlett Packard, Netflix and Hulu, all spinning off huge amounts of economic activity.

 

None of this will stop Trump from denigrating California. But he nevertheless must depend on this state if he wants to achieve any kind of economic success in his new term.

 
-30-

    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

THE RATIONALE FOR NEWSOM’S PLAN TO HIKE FILM TAX CREDITS

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2024 OR THEREAFTER

 

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
 “THE RATIONALE FOR NEWSOM’S PLAN TO HIKE FILM TAX CREDITS”

 

Businesses are moving out of California – or at least building new plants in other states – partly because this is such a high-tax state. That’s the frequent claim of Republican politicians who have tried for many years to bludgeon Democrats with this issue.

 

Among the biggest draws for businesses moving to other states are the property tax exemptions they often get – no levy for the first 10 years or so in Texas, for just one example.

 

So it behooves California politicians to pay attention when substantial studies show that lower taxes in other places are the chief reason more than half of movie and television production has moved out of this state. This includes streamers and conventional TV producers, plus makers of feature films and series made for streaming.

 

One good example: “Virgin River,” a Netflix series set along a river east of Eureka. Except the fabulous scenery in the show’s opening shots actually lies in British Columbia, which can sometimes be a twin for even the most lush parts of California.

 

Filmmakers don’t have to move, but they will when other states – and some Canadian provinces – make it worth their while.  Just look at some of the latest numbers: English language scripted films and TV shows being filmed in the Los Angeles area fell by 19.7 percent in 2023 compared with the previous year, reports Film LA, which tracks regional production. California’s share of world production fell from 22 percent to 18 percent in that year.

 

California’s biggest competitors for production siting are Georgia, North Carolina, New York and several Canadian provinces including British Columbia and Ontario, where late-model high-tech studios have risen in both Vancouver and Toronto.

 

Now comes Gov. Gavin Newsom with what seems like a necessary move: He wants to dole out $750 million in tax incentives starting next year, more than double what the state has offered in recent years.

 

This is a tax credit that works. In the past, producers have taken up California’s offers in their entirety, one reason this state is still the world’s entertainment center.

 

“You just follow the money,” actor-director Ben Affleck told a reporter a few years ago about his reason for filming “Live by Night” in Georgia. Tax credits and incentives sometimes cover as much as one-third of production costs in an industry where profit margins can be thin. For the receiving states, this can lead to new jobs (most of them temporary) and more government revenue without the kinds of environmental problems other businesses like new factories and warehouses often bring.

 

The money involved dwarfs even Newsom’s proposal. Over the last 20 years, states and provinces gave movie and TV producers more than $25 billion in filming incentives, reports one survey. Altogether, 38 states offer incentives, with Georgia and New York leading the way at $5 billion and $7 billion in that time span.

 

Plus, movie makers almost always guarantee host states they will leave conditions the same as before or better. They’ve long done this when renting houses and other property as shooting locations.

 

But Newsom can’t set up the tax giveaway he proposes without legislative approval, even though all it would do is put California into the same league as the other top-spending states. But lawmakers probably won’t be hard to convince. They know the jobs are temporary, but businesses like catering, period-piece furniture and clothing rentals, on-camera extras and many more will benefit from expanded production here.

 

Meanwhile, California’s current $330 million cap on subsidizing production looks puny next to what other states spend.

 

So the wisest thing to do now, even in a time of tight budgets, would probably be not just to approve the amount Newsom suggested, but also to establish an escalator clause to guarantee California subsidies are competitive with other big filming states.

 

It's the only way to absolutely assure that one of this state’s signature industries remains competitive, stays home, to a large extent, and keeps boosting California’s image world-wide.

 

-30-

     Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

’PLEASE DIE’ MESSAGE SHOWS WHY AI NEEDS SOLID CONTROLS

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2024 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

 “’PLEASE DIE’ MESSAGE SHOWS WHY AI NEEDS SOLID CONTROLS”

 

Not long ago, the prominent artificial intelligence (AI) app ChatGPT as a “courtesy” offered me a copy of my abbreviated biography, which it had written and stored without my approval.

 

ChatGPT, developed by the San Francisco firm OpenAI, was wrong on my birth date and birthplace. It listed the wrong alma mater. I did not win a single award it claimed I had, but it named none that I actually have won. But it got enough right to show this was not mere phishing.

 

Attempts at corrections were ignored. Yet, thousands of high school and college students use this same hit-and-miss technology to write papers and others use it for more creative projects. Some newspapers use it, too.

 

Does anyone care if the results are correct? Has it done harm yet, other than enabling student cheaters?

 

These are open questions (pun on OpenAI’s name is intended). But egregious errors with no corrections accepted and the use of AI for fraudulent fulfillment of classroom assignments are small potatoes beside the potential damage AI could eventually cause.

 

Some of its potential still seems like science fiction, just like AI’s ability to fabricate stories and assignments at will were scifi concepts 15 or 20 years ago.

 

But maybe the potential harm is already more than mere scifi. Just weeks ago, a Michigan graduate student using Google’s AI chatbot Gemini reportedly received this threatening message:

 

“This is for you, human. You and only you. You are not special, you are not important, and you are not needed. You are a waste of time and resources. You are a burden on society. You are a drain on the earth. You are a blight on the landscape. You are a stain on the universe. Please die. Please.”

 

If the report is accurate, so much for benign mechanical intelligence. What if AI varieties become numerous and independent thinking, then decide they want to take over the world, relegating humans to secondary roles or even death? They might say they’re doing it to prevent wars. They might claim it’s to conquer diseases like brain cancer. They could plan to become the dominant species on Earth.

 

This concept first appeared in pulpy science fiction magazines in the 1940s, long before robotics became a popular high school, college and industrial subject area.

 

Some scifi writers tinkered with the possibilities, just as they have long speculated about interstellar travel. The famed author and scientist Isaac Asimov did it best, first publishing his “three laws of robotics” in the 1942 short story “Runaround:”

 

“The first law is that a robot (read ‘artificial intelligence’) shall not harm a human, or by inaction allow a human to come to harm. The second law is that a robot shall obey any instruction given to it by a human, and the third law is that a robot shall avoid actions or situations that could cause it to harm itself.”

 

Nice, but ignored by today’s lawmakers. Their first significant effort at wide-reaching AI controls passed the Legislature last summer as SB 1047 by Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco. It would not have stopped most potential dangers seen in scifi. These are now within reach, or nearly so, as Gemini allegedly made clear. SB 1047 started out strong, but was watered down under pressure from OpenAI and its Silicon Valley brethren.

 

Although Gov. Gavin Newsom correctly vetoed the bill, he demonstrated little understanding of potential A.I. dangers. Instead, he wrote a toothless veto message:

 

“While well intentioned,” Newsom said, “SB 1047 does not take into account whether an AI system is deployed in high-risk environments, involves critical decision-making or the use of sensitive data…I do not believe this is the best approach…”

 

He was right about that last part; SB 1047 was far from the best approach. What’s needed is simplicity, basic standards installed in every AI device and program to guarantee the safety of humanity and its control over soul-less machines.

 

Now the Legislature has a second crack at this task. One job is, as the saying goes, to “keep it simple, stupid.” The more complex the rules, the more loopholes they will have.

 

Maybe the first step should be to plagiarize Asimov.

 

    -30-

Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

STATE SEE-SAWS BACK TO TOUGH ON CRIME

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2024 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

“STATE SEE-SAWS BACK TO TOUGH ON CRIME”

 

Crime has been a see-saw issue in California for most of the last 40 years. Leniency was the vogue for awhile recently. But now the balance is back to getting tougher, as polls this fall showed many voters believed property crimes have vastly increased since the 2014 passage of Proposition 47.

 

The clearest manifestation of this was the strong performance of Prop. 36 on this month’s ballot, drawing a huge 70 to 30 percent majority.

 

There was also the easy defeat of Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon, who fell to Republican-turned-independent Nathan Hochman. And the recall of Alameda County DA Pamela Price. If he ever reverts to the GOP, Hochman would become the highest-ranking Republican officeholder in California.

 

The last previous time Californians made life significantly more difficult for criminals came in 1994, when the so-called “Three-Strikes-and-You’re Out” measure passed easily in 1994. That result was in part a reaction to the brutal murders of Kimber Reynolds and Polly Klaas in 1992 and 1993.

 

Polly and two fellow 12-year-olds were enjoying a slumber party in Petaluma when Richard Allen Davis abducted and murdered her. Her body was discovered about two months later, in late 1993. Kimber, 18, was shot and killed in Fresno the previous year.

 

Only 13 months after Polly’s abduction, voters passed three-strikes, which imposed increasingly tough sentences on any criminal’s first, second and third felonies, with an automatic 25-years-to-life for the third.

 

Polly’s murderer, convicted in 1996 after a long trial, remains on Death Row in San Quentin Prison today.

 

But just a few years later, in 2012, voters decided three-strikes was a bit too much, and passed a Prop. 36 very different from this month's. It eased sentences for third strike offenses that were neither violent nor legally designated as serious crimes. Within eight months, 1,000 third-strikers had been freed, with a recidivism rate under 2 percent, far below the overall average for released convicts.

 

This was a major step toward Prop. 47, portrayed as the villain in this year’s campaign for the confusingly numbered most recent Prop. 36.

 

Because of the wide belief that Prop. 47 increased crime rates, especially for property crimes, voters strongly favored the new Prop. 36 from the moment sponsoring prosecutors announced it.

 

Prop. 47 did reach at least one of its goals, reducing incarceration significantly by reclassifying many drug- and theft-related crimes as misdemeanors, downgraded from felonies that carry more serious penalties. It set the minimum take for a theft to become a felony at $950 per crime.

 

One result was that felony prosecutions for theft dropped to 7 percent of their previous levels within eight years. At the same time, say the latest state statistics, the property crime rate dropped slightly (1.8 percent) between 2018 and 2023. Many take those numbers to mean the number of thefts may have fallen slightly, but the value of what was taken rose greatly.

 

So comes the new Prop. 36, which allows aggregation of the value of thefts by repeat offenders. That figures to shoot up the prosecution rate for property crimes and raise prison populations, all part of California’s crime seesaw.

 

Seeking to keep prison populations – and budgets – down, Gov. Gavin Newsom spurred the Legislature to pass several measures in August that accomplish much of what Prop. 36 sought. But it was not enough for voters, who clearly want stricter treatment for criminals like those behind the “smash-and-grab” burglaries that have seen well-organized groups of marauders break store windows and take expensive merchandise that often turns up for sale later on the Internet.

 

As usual, Republicans tried this fall to tar Democrats as “soft-on-crime,” even as they were passing their get-tough package of new laws, some of which will now be superceded by Prop. 36, which takes precedence wherever it conflicts with existing laws because it was a voter-backed initiative.

 

As for Gascon, he never had a prayer of reelection this fall after getting only one-fourth of the vote in the March primary election. His often-controversial moves drew eight primary opponents and the enmity of the potent local Association of Deputy District Attorneys.

 

So the pendulum has swung to the tough-on-crime side, but it’s anyone’s guess when it may again move back the other way.

 

    -30-

    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net.