The Drug Policy Alliance Network (DPA’s lobbying entity) has collected more than 760,000 voter signatures to put the Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act (NORA), the most ambitious sentencing and prison reform in U.S. history, on the California ballot in November. We submitted all of those signatures—nearly double the number necessary—to the counties’ registrar offices all around the state at the end of April. The signature gathering finished ahead of schedule and with numbers well above our goal!

When NORA goes before voters in November, Californians will have a historic opportunity to push past legislative paralysis in Sacramento and implement common-sense solutions to prison overcrowding. By safely shrinking the size of the nonviolent prison population by tens of thousands within just a few years, NORA will protect public safety and save taxpayers billions of dollars.

Before we can be sure that NORA will go before voters in November, counties must count and verify the signatures we have turned in. We are feeling confident! We need just 435,000 valid signatures to meet the legal requirement, and we have 175 percent of that goal. A big thanks to all of our California volunteers and paid petitioners who worked so hard to collect signatures. Voters would not have the opportunity to support NORA if it weren’t on the ballot. Thank you for making the whole campaign possible!

In November, voters will decide whether they want to stop letting addiction drive record-breaking incarceration rates in California. They will decide whether tens of thousands of nonviolent offenders should have access to treatment-instead-of-incarceration programs—a change that would dramatically reduce the number of people locked up unnecessarily and at the same time decrease the likelihood of recidivism. They will decide whether to make treatment accessible to young people for the first time in the state. And they will decide whether to make low-level marijuana possession an infraction—equivalent to a traffic ticket—rather than a misdemeanor, a sentencing change that could affect 40,000 people a year and conserve millions of dollars in court resources for other, more serious cases.

In a year of fiscal crisis, NORA presents the state with an option for more effective—and less costly—policies to protect public safety and CONSERVE SCARE RESOURCES. The nonpartisan legislative analyst projects that NORA will save at least $2.5 billion in prison construction savings because new facilities will not need to be built.

The campaign is now moving into its second phase, where we are gathering endorsements. If you are a member of an organization that you think should endorse NORA, check out our website and/or contact the campaign. 

Learn more about the campaign by visiting the website, by emailing us or by joining our group on Facebook!