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California lawmakers are proposing to defund any law enforcement agency that refuses to be turned into the state’s “Covid Police.” Senate Bill 1464, introduced by Sen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento), would create a state-mandated program to force local sheriffs and peace officers to enforce public health orders. The bill would prohibit state funding from being provided to any law enforcement agency that publicly announces it will not enforce a public health order.
State bureaucrats should not have the power to defund voter-elected local sheriffs who oppose unconstitutional public health mandates. Independently-elected sheriffs have the constitutional authority to enforce the law and report to local voters, not Sacramento bureaucrats.
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California’s citizens reject this attempt to legislate a bureaucratic takeover of our local law enforcement because of a difference of opinion on state health orders.
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County sheriffs are voter-elected, constitutional officers that must be protected from intimidation from administrative and bureaucratic bullying to impose unconstitutional or illegal health mandates.
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The state legislature should not be threatening to defund local law enforcement when California is experiencing a historic crime wave, which would take money away from law enforcement to combat crime and put the public at risk.
We believe the independence of California’s county sheriffs must be protected and oppose Senate Bill 1464 that attempts to give state bureaucrats the power to threaten and intimidate any local law enforcement agency that disagrees with them by withholding law enforcement funding.