BoSMom
10-31-2004, 11:23 PM
Bring 20 people in your car to the polls on Tuesday, make several trips
if necessary. People connected to a prisoner outnumber all the voting groups but it makes no difference if we aren't voting.
http://www.presstelegram.com/Stories/0,1413,204~21479~2498243,00.html (http://www.presstelegram.com/Stories/0,1413,204~21479~2498243,00.html)
False advertising
Governor's anti-Prop. 66 commercial misrepresents facts.
Whether we've agreed or disagreed with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's positions on certain issues since he's been governor, we haven't caught him in a flat-out misrepresentation of the facts.
That is, until his anti-Proposition 66 commercials recently started to air. In the advertisements, Schwarzenegger repeats the same extreme exaggerations that a Superior Court judge called "patently false," before blocking opponents of the measure from using it in their ballot arguments. Schwarzenegger appears in the brief television advertisement walking past a gallery of ominous looking black-and- white mug shots (presumably of criminals), telling voters that Proposition 66 would result in "26,000 dangerous criminals being released from prison," including rapists, murderers and child molesters.
The claim is pure fiction. Proposition 66 would amend California's three-strikes law so that only violent, serious crimes would be considered as third-strike cases, which bring sentences of 25 years to life. The proposition would not automatically release a single prisoner. Current prisoners whose third strike was for a nonviolent, nonserious offense would be granted a resentencing hearing before a judge.
Prosecutors would have the option of refiling charges that could bring a longer sentence. In no case would this amount to an automatic release. Nor does the proposition contain any provisions to grant early release hearings to any second-strike prisoner.
As for the 26,000 number: In July, while ruling on a challenge to the ballot argument, the Superior Court judge called it a "mathematical impossibility." According to the nonpartisan state legislative analyst's office, about 4,200 nonviolent, nonserious third- strikers would be eligible for resentencing hearings. In the end, ballot opponents were permitted to use the disingenuous "The California District Attorneys Association estimates Proposition 66 will release as many as 26,000 convicted felons from California prisons."
Yet the association has never backed up its extraordinary claims. As we noted in our editorial endorsing Proposition 66, California is the only state with three-strikes laws on the books that counts nonviolent, nonserious offenses as third strikes.
And there is no evidence that the tougher law had any effect on crime rates. New York, which does not have any kind of three-strikes law, saw a greater drop in crime during the 1990s than California did. California, however, is now spending hundreds of millions of dollars to lock up nonviolent offenders for life.
That money would be much better spent on law enforcement and crime prevention programs. Schwarzenegger has every right to disagree, of course. But he doesn't have the right to misrepresent the facts to voters. In the anti- Proposition 66 ads, unfortunately, that's exactly what he's doing.
if necessary. People connected to a prisoner outnumber all the voting groups but it makes no difference if we aren't voting.
http://www.presstelegram.com/Stories/0,1413,204~21479~2498243,00.html (http://www.presstelegram.com/Stories/0,1413,204~21479~2498243,00.html)
False advertising
Governor's anti-Prop. 66 commercial misrepresents facts.
Whether we've agreed or disagreed with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's positions on certain issues since he's been governor, we haven't caught him in a flat-out misrepresentation of the facts.
That is, until his anti-Proposition 66 commercials recently started to air. In the advertisements, Schwarzenegger repeats the same extreme exaggerations that a Superior Court judge called "patently false," before blocking opponents of the measure from using it in their ballot arguments. Schwarzenegger appears in the brief television advertisement walking past a gallery of ominous looking black-and- white mug shots (presumably of criminals), telling voters that Proposition 66 would result in "26,000 dangerous criminals being released from prison," including rapists, murderers and child molesters.
The claim is pure fiction. Proposition 66 would amend California's three-strikes law so that only violent, serious crimes would be considered as third-strike cases, which bring sentences of 25 years to life. The proposition would not automatically release a single prisoner. Current prisoners whose third strike was for a nonviolent, nonserious offense would be granted a resentencing hearing before a judge.
Prosecutors would have the option of refiling charges that could bring a longer sentence. In no case would this amount to an automatic release. Nor does the proposition contain any provisions to grant early release hearings to any second-strike prisoner.
As for the 26,000 number: In July, while ruling on a challenge to the ballot argument, the Superior Court judge called it a "mathematical impossibility." According to the nonpartisan state legislative analyst's office, about 4,200 nonviolent, nonserious third- strikers would be eligible for resentencing hearings. In the end, ballot opponents were permitted to use the disingenuous "The California District Attorneys Association estimates Proposition 66 will release as many as 26,000 convicted felons from California prisons."
Yet the association has never backed up its extraordinary claims. As we noted in our editorial endorsing Proposition 66, California is the only state with three-strikes laws on the books that counts nonviolent, nonserious offenses as third strikes.
And there is no evidence that the tougher law had any effect on crime rates. New York, which does not have any kind of three-strikes law, saw a greater drop in crime during the 1990s than California did. California, however, is now spending hundreds of millions of dollars to lock up nonviolent offenders for life.
That money would be much better spent on law enforcement and crime prevention programs. Schwarzenegger has every right to disagree, of course. But he doesn't have the right to misrepresent the facts to voters. In the anti- Proposition 66 ads, unfortunately, that's exactly what he's doing.