Prop 83 in San Diego

On Sunday, The Union-Tribune reported on the simmering issue in San Diego of sex offenders concentrating in the downtown area. Now that Jessica's Law (Proposition 83) has been overwhelmingly approved by Californians, local officials have been given the greenlight to run sex offenders out of downtown. But has anyone given any thought to where they're supposed to go?

To recap, Proposition 83 prohibits sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of parks and schools (among other things). It also happens to be the pet issue of Republican Assemblywoman Shirley Horton who represents many of my neighbors and who just rode it to a very expensive reelection to the State Assembly. The constitutional applicability of Jessica's Law is already being considered in U.S. District Court, but in the meantime, that would restrict all but a few blocks of the entire San Diego downtown area. The reasoning from City Councilman Kevin Faulconer is that "downtown is a neighborhood now" which leads me to wonder what residential non-neighborhoods he's imagining sex offenders moving into. The NIMBYism that goes on in debates like this is perfectly understandable of course, but regardless of what ruling eventually comes from the courts, shouldn't we be focusing on the bigger issues? Like, for starters, how to prevent sex offenders who are potentially dangerous from being released in the first place?

Southern Californians for Jessica's Law, right on the front page, presumably as the crux of their argument since they went to all the trouble of bolding it, announces the horrible reality that "many [sex offenders] are living in our communities and neighborhoods, near our schools and parks..." Well geez, prisoners are being released and trying to integrate themselves back into communities and neighborhoods? It would be much better if we could keep them all together somewhere, isolated from the rest of us. Maybe we could call it jail or something.

Obviously, this is a complex issue with a lot of wrinkles that's too much for any politician to take on with one bite. It involves reconsidering penalties for non-violent and drug offenders, it involves the rate of prison construction, it involves reviewing and probably reforming the parole evaluation and tracking system. And probably it involves treading a very careful course that many will see as soft on child predators. You can't get everything into a soundbite though, so we get crap laws like this that are wildly popular in San Diego and elsewhere because they glamorously treat symptoms but never dive into the root causes of the problems we face.

Which steers us to the essence of the issue. In San Diego, in California, in DC, we've spent the past several (or more than several) years suffering through reactive legislation dressed up as proactive and visionary. Sex offenders are being let out of prison while still potentially a threat? Don't keep them in jail or innovate treatment procedures, just don't let them live anywhere except prison. Corporations are outsourcing jobs overseas? Don't make American workers more desirable via advanced training and education, create tax penalties. There are people who so hate the way in which the United States has conducted itself internationally that they'll kill themselves and murder innocent people? Don't consider treating people who hold different beliefs with respect or consider dialing back the hegemonic drum-beating, just do your best to kill them. While the stated goals of these policies will always be presented as exceedingly admirable, problems just don't get solved. At the local, state and federal level, we've spent years watching the whack-a-mole school of policy in action.

The application of Proposition 83 is in the hands of the courts now, and we'll see what happens in the next couple of months. In the meantime, is there such a thing as comprehensive politics anymore? Are there politicians willing to take a swing at legitimate, large-scale reform? And if they're out there, is it even possible to accomplish something like this in the age of soundbites?

If there's hope for comprehensive reform, it won't come from the top down. While it's a bit much to expect actual legislation to be written and pushed from the grassroots, it's increasingly clear that a comprehensive platform that reflects the rank and file of the Democratic Party at the local, state, and national level would be best driven by the grassroots, in particular a progressive version thereof.

So when you get a DFA invitation to participate in party elections, or when people talk about Taking Back The CA Democratic Party, it's exactly this issue. It's giving the grassroots an opportunity to ensure that the party's platform and the laws pursued and enacted make more sense from a functional level. Ultimately, that our party and our government is working on sustainable progress with the minimum of wasted effort.

So if your district needs a good progressive to run, do it. If your district already has one, vote for them. It doesn't save the world, but it's a start.