Still a Slim Chance for California Gang Referendum

California voters saw so many referenda on their ballots, it's hard to keep up. I wrote about the fate of Prop 5 and Prop K yesterday, but what about Los Angeles' Proposition A, a modest property tax increase to fund after-school programs and other efforts aimed at preventing gang violence? That one is losing with 99% of votes counted, but there's still a chance.

Prop A would have taxed property owners an extra $36 a year for job training and after-school programs for at-risk youth, aimed at preventing gang membership. This is the kind of crime prevention we need in our country; even if it fails to reduce crime, at least it provides some additional job training and education. Mandatory minimums and zero-tolerance crime fighting represent the opposite of this soft policy landing. The War on Drugs has failed to reduce consumption of drugs or drug-related violence, and the alternative has been 2 million people in prison - at a huge cost to taxpayers and resulting in the destruction of inner-city neighborhoods across the country.

But opponents of Prop K derided it as another layer of bureaucracy. The LA Daily News wrote "the only thing that the $36-a-year parcel tax would do for certain is funnel $30 million a year more of taxpayers' money into the black hole of Los Angeles City Hall."

The proposition could still pass. It is currently losing by the thinnest of margins: it needed 66.7% to pass, and it currently has 66.12%. Absentee ballots are still being counted, and they could make the difference.

And we're not quite done with with California ballot measures. The only crime-related question to pass in the state was Prop 9, on payments to victims and longer prison sentences. More on 9 tomorrow.