Meanwhile in "Far Left" California

California voters just tanked Proposition 6, a measure that would have banned slavery in state prisons, and in doing so, exposed the deep contradiction between the state’s so-called “progressive” values and its reality. This wasn’t some sweeping, radical change; all Proposition 6 aimed to do was stop paying prisoners pennies to perform dangerous, essential jobs like fighting wildfires. And yet, it failed—by a solid 10-point margin, no less. Despite massive support from groups like the ACLU, California’s Reparations Task Force, and various human rights advocates who together spent over $2 million, this “liberal stronghold” decided it would rather keep its prison labor force exactly as it is, propping up a system that pays incarcerated people as little as $0.16 an hour.

The reasons voters turned their backs on this measure are mind-boggling. Critics trotted out vague warnings about potential “costs” to taxpayers, even though the initiative didn’t mandate any wage increases and the estimated financial impact was minuscule in California’s colossal budget. It’s as if California voters, so eager to project progressivism on issues that don’t personally inconvenience them, threw out every claim to those values at the first suggestion that prisoners—human beings—might deserve some basic dignity. Many Californians are content to keep the “tough on crime” policies of decades past, especially if it means they get to keep benefiting from cheap labor under the cover of state-approved legalized slavery.