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Californians go to the polls tomorrow with more than just a presidential election in mind. A new referendum aims to reverse the 2014 progressive initiative Prop 47 that turned retail theft into a new industry in the Golden State. A decade of decline and crime later, Californians got so disgusted with the law that they forced a new proposition onto the ballot to stiffen penalties and enforcement against theft, over the objections of Gavin Newsom and the Democrat establishment in California. 

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Kamala Harris played a role in the passage of Prop 47 too, as the New York Post recalled three months ago:

As state attorney general from 2011 to 2017, Harris refused to take a position on two ballot initiatives that have come to define modern California — but her office wrote favorable descriptions for both, likely aiding their passage. 

Proposition 47 downgraded felony thefts to misdemeanors when the stolen property had a value of less than $950. 

Critics have blamed it for the binge shoplifting that has followed — forcing retailers to lock up their inventory or even give up and close stores that can’t stay in business because they’re constantly being looted. 

Proposition 57, meanwhile, allowed the early parole of some inmates to reduce the prison population, introducing violent offenders back into society after serving only half of their sentences. 

As late as last week, Harris touted her experience as a prosecutor and AG as the reason for voters to trust her as president. So what does she think about reversing Prop 47? Harris held a press avail to announce that she’d cast her absentee ballot … but clammed up when asked about her vote on Prop 36:

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Say what? Harrus is running for president, explicitly on the basis that she was a tough prosecutor. She opened up the crime issue with that pitch. Why wouldn’t we want to know her vote on a key crime bill in her own state, especially after the spectacular failure of the progressive-pushed Prop 47?

This is sheer cowardice, nothing more. That’s affirmed by what Axios’ Alex Thompson noted yesterday, too. Harris promised a response to this question a few days ago, after she had time to review the ballot:

If Harris voted for Prop 36, she might gain some minor cred on the Right but would likely drain a little more enthusiasm from her base. If Harris voted against it, then she might boost her standing among progressives but would play directly into a soft-on-crime argument from the GOP … not to mention get humiliated by the massive support in California that appears to be manifesting for Prop 36. 

By saying nothing, however, Harris gets the worst of both worlds. No one trusts a coward, especially a politician running for high office who refuses to discuss her positions or her past actions. Thompson summed up the problem yesterday in an analysis that refers to Harris as the “no comment candidate”:

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Harris and her staff have refused to detail her position on more than a dozen of her previous stances the past three months in response to questions by Axios. The response to those inquiries: No comment.

  • This makes her actual governing plans a mystery even to many Democrats — given her past liberal record and current promise to govern from the middle. 

If she wins, this will be seen as shrewd, thread-the-needle politics.

  • But if she loses, she and her team will be blamed for leaving voters foggy about her true views and self. And President Biden will be blamed for backing a candidate with such a liberal track record.

Shrewd? More like “gutless wonder,” and yet another point of evidence that Harris is the most coddled major-party nominee in history. 

But here’s another question related to Prop 36, as well as the recall election of George Gascón in Los Angeles. The polls show overwhelming turnout for both in California, which is one of the deepest blue states in the country and the main source of Democrats’ popular-vote advantage in presidential elections. With No Comment Kamala at the top of the ballot, do Democrats get apathetic enough and Prop 36 voters charged up enough to significantly narrow that popular vote advantage? If Trump ends up winning the popular vote as well as the Electoral College — a very big if in both cases today still — not only would that eliminate any attacks on the legitimacy of his election, it would be a stinging rebuke to progressives across the nation. 

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