XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.california, talk.politics.guns   
   XPost: sac.politics, alt.home.repair   
   From: democrat@idiots.com   
      
   SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday signed a   
   bipartisan package of 10 bills that aims to crack down on smash-and-grab   
   robberies and property crimes, making it easier to go after repeat shoplifters   
   and auto thieves and    
   increase penalties for those running professional reselling schemes.   
      
   The move comes as Democratic leadership works to prove that they’re tough   
   enough on crime while trying to convince voters reject a ballot measure that   
   would bring even harsher sentences for repeat offenders of shoplifting and   
   drug charges.   
      
   While shoplifting has been a growing problem, large-scale, smash-and-grab   
   thefts, in which groups of individuals brazenly rush into stores and take   
   goods in plain sight, have become a crisis in California and elsewhere in   
   recent years. Such crimes, often    
   captured on video and posted on social media, have brought particular   
   attention to the problem of retail theft in the state.   
      
   The legislation includes the most significant changes to address retail theft   
   in years, the Democratic governor said. It allows law enforcement to combine   
   the value of goods stolen from different victims to impose harsher penalties   
   and arrest people for    
   shoplifting using video footage or witness statements.   
      
   “This goes to the heart of the issue, and it does it in a thoughtful and   
   judicious way,” Newsom said of the package. “This is the real deal.”   
      
   The package received bipartisan support from the Legislature, though some   
   progressive Democrats did not vote for it, citing concerns that some of the   
   measures are too punitive.   
      
   The legislation also crack down on cargo thefts, close a legal loophole to   
   make it easier to prosecute auto thefts and require marketplaces like eBay and   
   Nextdoor to start collecting bank accounts and tax identification numbers from   
   high-volume sellers.    
   Retailers also can obtain restraining orders against convicted shoplifters   
   under one of the bills.   
      
   “We know that retail theft has consequences, big and small, physical and   
   financial,” state Sen. Nancy Skinner, who authored one of the bills, said   
   Friday. “And we know we have to take the right steps in order to stop it   
   without returning to the    
   days of mass incarceration.”   
      
   Democratic lawmakers, led by Newsom, spent months earlier this year   
   unsuccessfully fighting to keep a tougher-on-crime initiative off the November   
   ballot. That ballot measure, Proposition 36, would make it a felony for repeat   
   shoplifters and some drug    
   charges, among other things. Democrats worried the measure would   
   disproportionately criminalize low-income people and those with substance use   
   issues rather than target ringleaders who hire large groups of people to steal   
   goods for them to resell online.    
   Lawmakers’ legislation instead would allow prosecutors to combine multiple   
   thefts at different locations for a felony charge and stiffen penalties for   
   smash-and-grabs and large-scale reselling operations.   
      
   Newsom in June went as far as proposing putting a competing measure on the   
   ballot but dropped the plan a day later. Proposition 36 is backed by a   
   coalition of district attorneys, businesses and some local elected officials   
   such as San Jose Mayor Matt    
   Mahan.   
      
   Newsom, flanked by a bipartisan coalition of state lawmakers, business leaders   
   and local officials in a Home Depot store in San Jose, said the ballot measure   
   would be “a devastating setback” for California. Newsom said last month he   
   will work to    
   fight the measure.   
      
   “That initiative is about going back to the 1980s and the war on drugs,”   
   he said. “It’s about mass incarceration.”   
      
   How to tackle crimes in California has become increasingly difficult to   
   navigate in recent years for state Democrats, many of whom have spent the last   
   decade championing progressive policies to depopulate jails and prisons and   
   invest in rehabilitation    
   programs. Newsom’s administration has also spent $267 million to help dozens   
   of local law enforcement agencies increase patrols, buy surveillance equipment   
   and prosecute more criminals.   
      
      
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