Prop. 83 stance defended

Your Dec. 1 editorial criticizing my legal defense of Proposition 83 and alleging that I switched positions misses the mark. Despite our different positions on the proposition, we likely agree that some of the measure’s provisions could have been more clearly drafted. As attorney general, however, my duty is to defend the law as written and approved by the voters, not to advocate a position based on how I or others wished the authors had drafted the measure.

I am convinced that voters intended to protect children by placing a residency limitation on as many convicted sex offenders as possible. The position I’ve taken in defense of the initiative is consistent with that intent. My office’s legal argument has not changed. What we have told the courts has been consistent: The 2,000-foot residency restriction is prospective in nature, applying only to actions taken by sex offenders after the proposition became law, regardless of when they committed their offense.

If I adopted the interpretation urged by The Times, more than 80,000 sex offenders would be immune forever from the residency restrictions, and sex offenders currently in prison would be exempted forever from its GPS monitoring requirements. That is not what the proposition says, and I do not believe that is what voters meant when a large majority of them enacted this measure.

BILL LOCKYER

Attorney General

Sacramento