How CA lawmakers want to target retail theft

Nearly four months after forming a bipartisan select committee and two hearings later, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas announced legislation Thursday to combat shoplifting and organized retail theft — just beating today’s deadline to introduce new bills.

He joined Democratic Assemblymembers Rick Zbur of Los Angeles, chairperson of the committee, and Kevin McCarty of Sacramento, chairperson of the Assembly Public Safety committee, to unveil the California Retail Theft Reduction Act, which Rivas described as “critical legislation” to address “a serious crime that’s hurting businesses and impacting our communities.”

• Rivas, a Democrat from Salinas: “Organized retail theft is having a chilling effect on our communities. Crime, like everything, evolves. And criminal enterprises are using new and different ways to get around current prohibitions…. It is our responsibility to ensure that our laws are addressing the situation at hand.”

Focusing on “professional retail thieves,” Zbur said the measure would create a new crime with a penalty as long as three years behind bars for the possession of stolen property with the intent to sell. Because “intent to sell” can be difficult to prove in court, evidence can include repeated offenses or possessing an amount of goods that is “inconsistent with personal use.”

Other key provisions of the bill, according to Zbur:

• Aggregation: The value of thefts from different retailers can be added up so they can be prosecuted as grand theft.
• Resellers: Online sellers would be required to maintain records to show that goods were obtained legally and large retailers would be required to report “theft data” (though details remain unclear).
• Enforcement: Police could arrest shoplifters based on a witness’ sworn statement or video footage of a crime.
• Intervention: Courts could refer some shoplifters to alternative programs instead of jail or prison.

Thursday’s measure is in response to a 29% jump in 2022 in shoplifting (though the rate was still 8% below pre-pandemic levels), including some high-profile smash and grabs. Also, there was a 16% rise in commercial burglaries of items totaling more than $950 between 2019 and 2022, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

The $950 is the threshold set by Proposition 47, which voters approved in 2014, to prosecute shoplifting as a felony. Zbur noted that the new bill can be enacted and signed into law without a ballot measure to overhaul Prop. 47, which Republican lawmakers and some Democrats propose.

Prop. 47 is viewed by some legislators and local officials as part of the reason why “rampant acts of theft” are happening across the state. While Rivas did not directly rule out reforming Prop. 47, he said it “has been law for a decade,” and that the legislative process is better for “developing well-constructive policy.”

• Rivas: “We need to get it right. We can’t make a mistake here.”

The select committee on retail theft is expected to hold one more hearing, though when and where that’ll be “are still under discussion,” according to Zbur’s spokesperson.

Speaking of theft legislation: To combat “porch pirates,” Democratic Assemblymember Evan Low of Cupertino also announced Thursday his bill to make it illegal to enter the “vicinity of a home” (not just inside the home) to steal mail packages.

From CalMatters Capitol reporter Jeanne Kuang: 

Business and labor are gearing up to go head-to-head on Californians’ ballots again — this time over a consequential 20-year-old state labor law you’ve probably never heard of.

The two sides released dueling reports this week extolling the virtues, or sins, of the state’s Private Attorneys General Act, which major employers’ groups such as the California Chamber of Commerce are campaigning to repeal via the November ballot.

The law — and a recent string of court decisions over its scope — is deep in the weeds, but here’s the gist:

Workers claiming labor law violations, such as wage theft, can ask the state Labor Commissioner’s Office to investigate, and either cite or sue the employer.

The Private Attorneys General Act offers another option. It lets the state outsource the suing to private attorneys, with a worker taking the place of the state as the plaintiff. If the worker wins, the private lawsuit — just like a suit brought by the state — is used to collect a payout for them and their coworkers. And the state gets a cut, because workers using this law can also sue for civil penalties.

Labor groups like the law because it bulks up capacity for the state Labor Commissioner’s Office. So do the attorneys who bring these cases on behalf of workers and collect legal fees.

Business groups hate the law, saying it enriches lawyers while subjecting numerous businesses to costly suits over technical violations.

Wednesday, they released a report authored by three former state labor officials finding that workers participating in the lawsuits received less money from the payouts than workers participating in a successful state investigation. Workers also waited longer for an award, the report said.

Thursday, the UCLA Labor Center and two advocacy groups issued their own report, saying that without the private lawsuits, the state’s Labor Commissioner’s Office doesn’t have the capacity to take on thousands of new complaints of wage theft.

The sides have until the end of June to reach a deal and get the Legislature to pass a bill making changes to the law in exchange for pulling the repeal measure off the ballot — as business and labor did last year when agreeing on a new minimum wage for fast food workers.

“Maybe if we had been in a different tax bracket, things would have gone differently.”

That’s what one parent told CalMatters K-12 education reporter Carolyn Jones when describing her children’s academic struggles during the pandemic. The parent, Kelly R., belongs to one of a dozen families in Oakland and Los Angeles who reached a settlement with the state over the significant learning loss experienced by low-income students.

As part of the settlement, California schools are expected to spend $2 billion to help students bounce back academically by hiring tutors, adding instructional time and offering extra services such as after-school programs.

But for low-income students and students of color, recovering from learning loss is a tall order, Carolyn explains.

As a pair of reports from UCLA’s Center for the Transformation of Schools found, remote learning magnified pre-existing inequities, and most educators believed the state offered little guidance. Some districts also failed to provide students with enough devices and Wi-Fi hotspots, didn’t address students’ mental health needs and didn’t provide adequate academic instruction.

• Joe Bishop, co-founder of the center: “Schools and districts felt isolated and on their own dealing with this extraordinary moment in our history. They had to be public health experts, help parents find jobs and housing, provide IT support. To a large degree, districts were flying blind for two full school years.”

For more on the impact of school shutdowns, read Carolyn’s story.

Rep. Katie Porter is trying her darndest to get into the top two in the U.S. Senate primary. Thursday, she spent an hour answering questions from CalMatters reporters on her political philosophy and policy priorities. What were the most interesting things she said? Read the highlights from CalMatters politics reporter Yue Stella Yu. And watch the interview here.