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Retired NASCAR and Indy Car driver Danica Patrick is attacking Presidential candidate Kamala Harris for her refusal to weigh in on a controversial ballot measure in her native California.
After speaking at a rally in support of Donald Trump in Pennsylvania on Sunday, Patrick addressed Proposition 36, which aims to bolster criminal punishments for drugs and shoplifting in California.
Specifically, Patrick took issue with Harris’ refusal to tell reporters how she voted on her early ballot in her native California.
‘If this is what she is admittedly hiding, it just makes you wonder,’ Patrick wrote on X. ‘What else? And why?
‘Like in a relationship,’ Patrick added, ‘this is kind of a red flag.’
Retired NASCAR and Indy Car driver Danica Patrick is attacking Vice President Kamala Harris
Kamala Harris has refused to weigh in publicly on proposition 36 on the California ballot
Proposition 36 comes one decade after a previous ballot initiative that downgraded many nonviolent felony crimes to misdemeanors, such as petty shoplifting and drug use. The hope, in 2014, was that it would lead to a more equitable criminal justice system and help end mass incarceration.
A decade later, many Californians now oppose such leniency.
The issue has resulted in some tight races this year up and down the solidly blue state for Democratic and progressive members of Congress, mayors and district attorneys who are up for reelection. And a new statewide measure on the ballot, Proposition 36, would partly roll back the 2014 law.
The criminal justice reform, critics say, has been a failed social experiment.
Two years after San Francisco voters ousted one of the first reform-minded prosecutors elected to office, voters across the bay in Oakland will decide in November whether to recall another progressive district attorney.
To the south in Los Angeles, District Attorney George Gascón, who co-authored Proposition 47 and won in election 2020 after protests and racial reckoning following the police killing of George Floyd , faces stiff competition from a former federal prosecutor who calls himself a ‘hard middle’ candidate.
District Attorney George Gascón has faced intense criticism over lenient sentencing
It was only a few weeks earlier that Gascón endorsed Harris for President.
‘I’ve known @kamalaharris for decades,’ he wrote on social media. ‘We worked together in San Francisco and I admired her work ethic, intelligence, and passion for helping victims of crime. I’m proud to support her candidacy this November and I encourage all LA County residents to do the same.’
Frustration over retail theft has pushed Gov. Gavin Newsom to champion a slate of bills cracking down on serial offenders and auto thieves, but stopping short of making retail crimes felonies again.
Proposition 36 goes further: It would make theft of any amount a felony if a person already has two theft convictions, lengthen some theft and drug felony sentences, make fentanyl possession a felony and require people with multiple drug charges to complete treatment or else serve time.
Voters rejected a similar initiative in 2020, but this time around there is a bipartisan coalition backing Proposition 36. Over 180 Democratic elected officials, including 64 mayors, signed onto a campaign supporting the initiative last month.
The measure also is endorsed by the California Chamber of Commerce and major retailers such as Walmart, Target and Home Depot. A recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found 71% of likely voters said they would vote yes.
‘It’s hard for businesses and communities who are really on the front line of it,’ said Jennifer Barrera, president of the California Chamber of Commerce. ‘I think that it will likely increase incarceration … but I do also hope and expect that it certainly will have an impact on reducing crime.’
Neighbors and local business owners join in to support California’s Proposition 36
Opponents of Prop 36, who include Newsom and Democratic legislative leaders, say it would take the state back to the policies of prosecuting a failed war on drugs and locking up tens of thousands of people, mostly Black and Hispanic, in overcrowded prisons.
The measure could increase California’s 90,000-strong prison population by a few thousand and would cost tens of millions of dollars annually at both the state and county level, according to a Legislative Analyst’s Office report.
It also would reduce drug and mental health funding that comes from savings from incarcerating fewer people.
Patrick has not been particularly vocal about California’s Proposition 36, but has found her voice during this year’s presidential campaign.
Speaking to thousands of fans in Lititz, Pennsylvania on Sunday, Patrick – who says she has never voted in an election before this one – ripped the celebrities who have come out in support of the Democrats.
‘Now I’m speaking. I’m not paid to be here. I don’t have a teleprompter. I’m winging this right now, everybody. I don’t need a telephone,’ she said, referencing rapper Cardi B who endured teleprompter issues at her speech for Harris before eventually reading her words off a phone.
Patrick continued: ‘I never went to a Diddy party. I’m doing this because I love this country and there’s nobody that’s been tested more than Trump.’
Patrick made a reference to Diddy’s links to Democrats, while avoiding any mention of the scandalized rap mogul’s connections to Donald Trump (pictured with Coombs and Melania)
While there are no suggestions any celebrity who has campaigned for Harris went to a Diddy party, some who have campaigned with her have crossed paths with the scandalized rapper, whose real name in Sean Combs.
Combs is in jail awaiting trial on sex trafficking and racketeering charges. He denies all of the allegations, insisting he is being unfairly targeted.
Jennifer Lopez, who endorsed Harris at a rally in Las Vegas on Thursday, dated Combs for two years from 1999 until 2001.
Barack Obama has collaborated with Combs before – in 2004 he was interviewed by him on MTV at the Democratic Convention.
Of course, Trump is no stranger to Diddy, who invited the reality television star to his 29th birthday party in 1998. In fact, Trump was actually included in the video invitation for the party, according to Newsweek.
‘I love Diddy,’ Trump told singer Aubrey O’Day in a resurfaced clip. ‘You know he’s a good friend of mine, he’s a good guy.’
