Earlier, we told you how Gov. Gavin Newsom commuted the sentences of 548 California death row inmates. This was, once again, an undemocratic move by Newsom. In both 2012 and 2016, California voters rejected ballot initiatives to repeal the state's death penalty.
Proposition 34 (2012) was rejected 52-48; it would have abolished the death penalty and replaced it with life in prison without parole. Proposition 62 was rejected by similar margins, 53-47, which would have sped up the appeals process for the death penalty.