Ballot Measures--the Few but the Mighty Emotional

Nonviolent drug offenders would be diverted from the state’s overcrowded prisons and into treatment under a controversial initiative that California voters will decide on this fall.

The measure, which has already spawned spirited charges about its potential effects, would trigger the biggest shift in criminal justice policy since state voters passed the three-strikes sentencing law in 1994. It also could provoke a national debate over drug policy.

The drug measure is one of five that have qualified for the Nov. 7 ballot.

A sixth, which would reform the way political campaigns are financed in California, could be added by the Legislature next week.

Endorsements Start Popping Up

The most passionately contested initiatives are likely to be the one addressing drug offenders and the one proposing a school voucher system. Fund-raising is well underway on those, and dueling endorsements are popping up daily.

An initiative backed by business would reclassify certain government fees as taxes and require a two-thirds vote of the Legislature or local government for their approval.

Another would ease restrictions on the use of private contractors for government public works projects.

And one would reduce the threshold needed for the passage of local school bonds from a two-thirds requirement to a 55% vote.

The lineup for the fall is paltry compared to the dizzying array of measures--20 in all--that crowded California’s March primary ballot.

Still, initiative advocates will face stiff competition for voters’ attention this election season--namely, the campaign to choose the next American president. There also is a U.S. Senate race between Democratic incumbent Dianne Feinstein and GOP Rep. Tom Campbell of San Jose.

Dubbed the Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act, the initiative seeking to reroute drug addicts away from prison and into treatment already has spawned heated debate.

Backers say the measure would free up prison beds for violent offenders while giving drug addicts the help they need to lead productive lives. Violent offenders or those who deal or manufacture drugs would be excluded from the diversion track.

A study by the nonpartisan legislative analyst’s office predicted that the initiative would divert as many as 37,000 offenders and parolees into treatment each year, saving up to $200 million annually in court, prison and jail costs. An additional $575 million could be saved because a decline in the inmate population would let the state avoid building a new prison.

“You save money, you save lives, and you treat drug addiction as a medical problem, not a crime,” said state Sen. John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara). “We ought to deal with people in ways that help them rather than ways that persecute them and cause them more grief and pain.”

Opponents, a who’s who of law enforcement groups, call the measure a “get out of jail free card” for drug felons--and a step down the road toward the legalization of drugs. The powerful prison guards’ union already has promised to spend heavily to defeat it.

Drug War Opposition

Helen Harberts, chief probation officer in Butte County, called the initiative “bad law badly written, a nightmare of loopholes and changes in criminal law standards.”

Harberts warned that if passed, the measure would undermine spectacular results being obtained through legitimate treatment programs authorized by various “drug courts” throughout the state.

“The way this is written, ‘treatment’ could consist of nothing more than a cassette tape,” Harberts said. “I think it’s a real fraud on the addicts and their families.”

Dave Fratello, a spokesman for the initiative campaign, said the measure requires that treatment programs be certified and allows counties to select which are suitable.

“It has to be licensed, the county has to decide it’s worth spending money on, and the judge has to refer the offender to it,” Fratello said. “I think that gives the lie to the notion that these will be fly-by-night, slipshod programs.”

About 19,700 of the state’s 160,000 prison inmates are serving time for possession of illegal drugs. Tens of thousands more have some sort of substance abuse problem, sustained by visiting relatives and even some correctional officers who smuggle drugs into prisons and jails.

Under the diversion program, addicts who complete their treatment could ask to have their convictions erased from the public record. Those who flunk could be incarcerated by a judge.

Sponsors of the initiative, a group called the California Campaign for New Drug Policies, are veterans of the successful push to pass the 1996 initiative allowing marijuana to be used for medicinal purposes. Funding--including the $1 million it took to qualify the measure for the ballot--comes primarily from three drug war opponents--New York financier George Soros, Cleveland insurance magnate Peter Lewis and John Sperling, founder of the University of Phoenix.

The measure is similar to a law passed in Arizona two years ago. An Arizona Supreme Court study of that program found that in the first year, 61% of participants successfully completed their treatment program. More recently, officials said the success rate is as high as 80%.

In addition to the initiatives that have qualified for the November ballot through petition drives, the Legislature can vote to place its own measures before the electorate.

So far, it appears that only the campaign reform measure--which would restrict contributions to candidates and create voluntary spending limits--is likely to go before voters. It is vigorously opposed by those who see it as an end run around Proposition 208, a tough landmark reform initiative that was approved by voters but is stalled in the courts.