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Progressive prison reforms on the ballot this month in California and Nevada had vastly different results after the votes were counted.
In California, voters chose to maintain the status quo, allowing “involuntary servitude” in prisons to remain legal. On the other side of the state line, voters in Nevada overwhelmingly passed a bill banning “slavery and involuntary servitude.”
This disparity in results between the two neighboring states means that voters in Nevada, where a majority supported Donald Trump’s return to the White House, compared to voters in deep-blue California, home to Vice President Kamala Harris. It raised questions about whether he is more liberal than voters on criminal justice issues. I won.
Some have suggested that California’s rejection of Prop. 6 reflects the state’s shift to the right. In the same vote, voters in the state passed Proposition 36, a tough-on-crime measure that reverses the progressive reforms they approved a decade ago.
But a closer look at California and Nevada’s prison practices reveals two important differences that may explain the surprising results.
The first was the word “slavery.” Nevada’s bill included this language, but California’s bill did not.
The second difference lay in the practical effects of the proposals. California’s measure prohibited forced labor for prisoners. But Nevada’s ban is largely symbolic, leaving it up to courts to decide whether it results in any changes to prison labor.
Luke Scott, who pursued a master’s degree in state prisons last year, is one of the inmates who advocates say would be able to focus more on rehabilitation if California banned involuntary forced labor.
(Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)
“Slavery has been abolished in California, but involuntary slavery has not been abolished. There has been a lot of back and forth on this,” he said, adding that several states are working to pass similar legislation. said Dennis Febo, lead organizer of the National Network to Abolish Slavery. “It didn’t matter to California voters.”
California amended its constitution in the 1970s to ban slavery. This year’s Proposition 6 asked voters to further amend the Constitution to “authorize prisons and jails to impose involuntary servitude to punish crimes (i.e., forcing incarcerated people to work).” )” and asked if they would like it removed.
Nevada’s bill sought to remove both slavery and involuntary servitude at once as punishment for crimes, since both provisions still remained in the Constitution.
Jay Jordan, who led the “Yes on Prop. 6” campaign, said the word “slavery” on the ballot meant Nevada voters didn’t know it was still legal as a punishment for a crime. He said it was highly likely. He said California’s bill did not have the word “slavery,” so it did not create the same sense of urgency or shock.
Supporters of Proposition 6 view forced labor in prisons as a relic of slavery and used the term in their campaign messages. Jordan said he asked California officials to explain the bill in the ballot brief by saying it “prohibits slavery of any kind.”
“But they didn’t put it in there,” he said. “I don’t know why.”
California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta writes the title and summary of each bill that makes it onto the ballot. A spokesperson said his office considers several factors when drafting the bill, including the full text of the bill and how it would change existing law.
California has long prohibited slavery as a punishment for crimes, so references to slavery in the Prop. 6 summary may raise questions about its accuracy. However, involuntary servitude is still provided for in the constitution.
“This is all about language,” Febo said. He noted that both states wanted similar changes in language, but that “Nevada’s campaign was simple,” while California’s vote summary was less straightforward.
Jordan said the California bill faces additional hurdles, including the short amount of time supporters have to campaign. Congress put Proposition 6 on the ballot this summer amid intense negotiations led by the Legislative Black Caucus over a series of bills to address reparations. And the proposal appears on the ballot in a year when voters expressed growing concern about crime, passing Proposition 36, which enacted harsher penalties for certain theft and drug crimes, and advancing Los Angeles and Alameda counties. ousted a public prosecutor.
In Nevada, the state legislature also introduced a bill that became Question 4 on this year’s ballot. Rep. Howard Watts introduced the measure in 2021.
Watts, a Democrat, said he was partly inspired by Ava DuVernay’s 2016 documentary “13th.” The documentary explored how the U.S. Constitution abolished slavery in 1865 through the 13th Amendment, but included a clause that allowed slavery to be a criminal penalty.
As other free nations joined the Union, several also enshrined this language into their constitutions.
Mr. DuVernay and his supporters argue that the language authorizing slavery as punishment for crimes would allow prisons to force inmates to work, often for a few cents an hour. claims.
In recent years, seven states have constitutionally prohibited slavery and involuntary servitude, including Colorado in 2018, Utah and Nebraska in 2020, and Alabama, Oregon, Tennessee, and Vermont in 2022. I am doing it. Louisiana voters rejected the state’s 2022 measure.
Prison workers in Louisiana. Two years ago, voters rejected a similar constitutional amendment that would have outlawed slavery and involuntary servitude.
(Gerald Herbert/Associated Press)
The practical impact of each measure may vary by state. In Tennessee, for example, state officials said the ballot measure was written to remove outdated language without preventing the state from using forced labor on prisoners.
Watts said that while Nevada’s measure is largely “symbolic,” he “welcomes” those who push the interpretation further to apply to prison labor. The ultimate decision on whether to ban forced labor for prisoners will likely be decided by the courts.
“My idea was to keep it simple,” Watts said of the measure. “The more complex it is, the harder it is to understand” for voters.
But in California, Rep. Rory Wilson (D-Shui Shun) went further, vowing that eliminating involuntary servitude would result in a voluntary work program for prisoners. This would allow inmates to opt out of work assignments, choose their own schedules and have more time for rehabilitation, including therapy and schooling, she and advocates argued.
A majority of California voters were not convinced that was the right path.
“These people committed a crime and are being punished for it,” said Chico City Attorney Jeff Gleason, who voted against Proposition 6. is based on normal maintenance that anyone would do.” This is to maintain the facility. ”
He said “calling prison labor slavery” would be “a highly inappropriate use of language”.
San Mateo voter Austin Yu said he was “50-50” about the measure, but ultimately decided to vote yes. Yu said he believes more work needs to be done in California to fix a legal system that he believes is biased against people of color.
“If you’re legitimately incarcerated, I think you have to work,” he said. “But I’m pretty liberal, so the win is not to have a disproportionate impact on the population.”
Jordan, of the Yes on 6 campaign, remains hopeful that California will eventually follow the same path as Nevada, which passed its own ban. His grassroots movement was powered by a corps of volunteers who had served time in prison. He said even if the bill was defeated, getting them involved in politics was a victory.
“They said, ‘Can we do it again?'” he said. “And I say, ‘You can do it as many times as you want.’ This isn’t the end.”
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