CA Democrat Bill to Legalize "Crimes of Necessity" Defeated

A rare win in Sacramento. Assembly Bill 2108, the so-called "crimes of necessity" bill, is dead. It died quietly in the Senate Appropriations Committee's suspense file, missing the deadline to reach the floor for a vote.

Authored by Assemblymember LaShae Sharp-Collins, AB 2108 would have created a new diversion program specifically for theft framed as driven by poverty, dismissing charges for offenders who completed the program rather than holding them accountable in court.

The bill came just over a year after California voters passed Proposition 36 with more than 68% support in every county in the state, restoring felony penalties for repeat theft after years of leniency under Prop 47 fueled a wave of smash-and-grabs and open shoplifting. DeMaio said AB 2108 threatened to unravel that mandate.

On the Assembly floor, Sharp-Collins argued that federal budget cuts were pushing more Californians into poverty, and that theft born of that "necessity" deserved treatment instead of punishment. DeMaio didn't hold back in response.

"Stealing Nike shoes or a PlayStation is not a crime of necessity," DeMaio said on the floor. "These are not people who are hard up and hungry. There are a number of programs available to help individuals who are hungry. We are a very generous welfare state. This is not what a bipartisan consensus of voters determined we need to do in the last election."

The bill barely passed the Assembly, 41 to 22, with every Republican voting no and a couple of Democrats joining them. DeMaio said Reform California turned that narrow, party-line vote into a public pressure campaign, using social media, text messages, and digital outreach to make sure voters knew exactly what the bill did and who supported it.

That pressure followed the bill to the Senate, where it sat in the Appropriations Committee's suspense file until missing this month's deadline to advance, killing it without a single senator having to cast a recorded vote.

DeMaio called it a playbook Reform California intends to keep using: read the bill, expose what it actually does, and generate enough public outrage that lawmakers get cold feet before a final vote.

Wins like this don't happen without pressure from people like you. Sign up to volunteer at ReformCalifornia.org, help us deliver our Plain English Voter Guide before ballots hit mailboxes, and join us at one of our Barbecue, Beer, and Ballots events this October.

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