Transparency Item: The Perspectives section of the Graphic is comprised of articles based on opinion. This is the opinion and perspective of the writer.
Whoever decided to call Proposition 6 anything but the “End Slavery Act” on the ballot should be fired.
I was confident that Prop 6, a ballot measure ending forced labor programs in California prisons would pass this past November, but nothing good comes that easily. The measure failed, and the horrendous underpay of over 1,100 firefighters, some still risking their lives to protect California, is the result.
I should have known something was wrong when a friend across the aisle reached out to tell me that she agreed with my endorsement of Proposition 6, despite it polling worse than any of the other propositions. That was a massive red flag for the measure’s chances.
When no money was raised or arguments were filed to oppose the proposition, the proposition was clearly dead in the water. There was no way that the prison-industrial complex would let the California Attorney General’s Department-defended practice of keeping “inmates locked up for cheap labor” go away without a fight.
I am completely uninterested in debating the morality of enslavement, regardless of the victim’s past — slavery is a crime against humanity. The United States fought a war over this, and, if not for 14 words in the 13th Amendment carving out an exception for prison-slavery, there wouldn’t have been a need for the vote.
State governments have used various weasel words since the end of the Civil War to justify slavery by any other name — including “indentured servitude” and “convict leasing.” California could have put an end to it last week. Instead, California, the supposed bastion of progressivism, a ‘Free State,’ failed to end this horrid practice — a practice Oregon, Utah, Alabama and Nevada all ended easily.
So, do I blame Californians for this stunning rejection of justice and fairness? Not remotely.
One could pin Prop 6’s failure on the rising popularity of “tough on crime” policies in the Golden State, like the return of the drug war (Proposition 36) or Nathan Hochman’s electoral thrashing of L.A. District Attorney George Gascón (a race I previously covered for the Graphic), but there’s a much simpler reason. The measure was written terribly.
The official voter guide for Prop 6, which was titled the “Remove Involuntary Servitude as Punishment for Crime Amendment,” referred to it as “involuntary servitude,” a term which many low-information voters are not familiar with. Per Prop 6 advocate Esteban Núñez, the difficulty with the measure was “a matter of getting [voters] to understand what involuntary servitude is.”
The word slavery was conspicuously absent in the ballot summary or the analysis sections of the ballot — it only appeared in the official arguments section of the voter guide.
Ballot measures should explain what they are and why it matters in easy-to-understand terms. The language of proposed policy can massively affect support, as both bad-faith political operatives and clever satirists have repeatedly proven.
In any environment, the omission of anti-slavery language in the title and summary would be glaring. In a fractured and overwhelmingly polarized media environment like ours, the omission was unfair, if not governmental malpractice.
Now, I’m not accusing the California Attorney General’s Office of malice, but the next time a proposition to end forced labor shows up on the ballot, it should just be called the “End Slavery Act.”
Otherwise, I might just have to submit a confusingly worded ballot measure that totally won’t punish negligent ballot measure-writers.
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Contact Hunter Dunn via email: hunter.dunn@pepperdine.edu
