Harris won't say how she voted on California's crime-fighting proposal

Vice President Kamala Harris declined to say how she voted on California's Proposition 36, a ballot measure that would impose tougher penalties for retail theft and drug crimes in her home state, CNN reported.

“I'm not going to talk about the vote because, frankly, it's the Sunday before the election and I have no intention of building support for it one way or another,” she told reporters in Detroit afterward was asked sentence. Harris had spoken about casting her vote, saying, “Actually, I just filled out my mail-in ballot.”

Proposition 36 would increase penalties for people convicted of retail theft or drug offenses by reclassifying the offenses from misdemeanors to felonies. It also proposes raising repeat shoplifting and fentanyl-related offenses to felony status.

According to CNN, the initiative would reverse parts of Proposition 47, a controversial criminal justice reform initiative passed by voters in 2014 that softened sentences for theft and drug offenses in California to reduce prison overcrowding.

Proposition 36's supporters include Republican lawmakers and chain stores like Walmart, which have fallen victim to record levels of shoplifting since the pandemic. Opponents of the measure include Democratic leaders and social justice organizations who argue the proposal would unfairly incarcerate lower-class people and those with a history of substance abuse.

Since the start of her presidential campaign, Harris has emphasized her track record fighting crime as a California prosecutor while trying to downplay her progressive policies.

Harris has refused to say whether she supports several of her previously held positions on crime, such as closing private prisons, allowing taxpayer-funded gender reassignment surgeries for prisoners, decriminalizing prostitution and creating a path to citizenship for “Dreamers.” , illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children.