Vice President Kamala Harris refused to say how she voted on California’s Proposition 36, a ballot measure that would impose harsher sentences for retail thefts and drug crimes in her home state, CNN reported.
"I am not going to talk about the vote on that because, honestly, it’s the Sunday before the election, and I don’t intend to create an endorsement one way or another around it," she told reporters in Detroit when asked about the proposition. Harris had been speaking of submitting her vote, saying, "I actually just filled out my mail-in ballot."
Proposition 36 would increase penalties for individuals convicted of retail theft or drug crimes by reclassifying the offenses from misdemeanors to felonies. It also proposes to elevate repeat shoplifting and fentanyl-related offenses to felony status.
The initiative would reverse sections of Proposition 47, a controversial criminal reform initiative approved by voters in 2014 that lessened the penalties for theft and drug crimes in California to reduce overcrowding in jails, according to CNN.
Supporters of Proposition 36 include GOP lawmakers and commercial chain stores, such as Walmart, that have been victims of record-high shoplifting since the pandemic. Opponents of the measure include Democratic state leaders and social justice organizations that argue the proposal would unfairly imprison lower-class people and those with a history of substance abuse.
Since launching her presidential campaign, Harris has emphasized her record fighting crime as a California prosecutor while attempting to downplay her progressive policies.
Harris has refused to say if she supports various of her previously held positions involving crime, such as closing private prisons, allowing taxpayer-funded sex-change surgeries for prisoners, decriminalizing prostitution, and creating a path to citizenship for "dreamers," illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children.