Californians Voted Against Outlawing Slavery. Why Did Proposition 6 Fail?

On Christmas Eve in 2012, Amika Mota and the firefighters of Madera County Station Five responded to a house fire call.

When she realized the homeowners had children, Mota and her crew began pulling out gifts and family heirlooms to save the kids’ Christmas.

Mota, who was a lead engineer in the fire department, later learned that the house belonged to a correctional officer at the Central California Women’s Prison she knew. Firefighting was just one of the jobs Mota performed during her seven years in prison, putting her life on the line for 34 cents an hour.

Mota told KQED the work constituted forced labor.

“We cannot choose to not do this work without potentially being punished in prison,” Mota said.

Voters in 15 states, including Utah, Nebraska and Alabama, have ended forced labor in prisons, closing legal loopholes that allow states to permit legal slavery as a punishment for crime. Why didn’t a similar measure — Proposition 6 — easily pass in California, a state hoping to establish itself as a legal bulwark against the second Trump administration?

California voters rejected a measure that would have banned the use of forced prison labor as punishment for crimes, with 53.8% voting against Proposition 6 according to the Associated Press.

There was no opposition listed to Proposition 6 in the state’s voter guide. Many, including Mota, who now organizes around criminal justice issues, were stunned when initial results on Tuesday revealed Californians were voting against the measure.

“It’s just really, really devastating that California didn’t have the information they needed to pass this proposition,” said Mota, the executive director of the Sister Warrior Freedom Coalition, a nonprofit that fights for policy change to improve the lives of incarcerated women and trans people.

Proposition 6 would have changed the state constitution to ban involuntary servitude in any form. It came out of recommendations by the state task force that studied reparations for Black Californians amid a push to eradicate the vestiges of slavery from state constitutions. While still too early to call, about 55% of voters opposed the measure as of Thursday.

Next door, in Nevada, 60% of voters passed a similar measure, removing language from the state’s constitution allowing slavery and indentured servitude as a form of punishment.

The legislative pendulum appears to be shifting to the right in California, moving away from progressive candidates and ideology. Across the state, progressive legislators faced recalls, lost elections and a tough-on-crime measure — Proposition 36 — passed overwhelmingly. Proposition 36 made shoplifting a felony for repeat offenders and increased penalties on some drug offenses, including fentanyl.

“Proposition 6, unfortunately, is just naturally tied in many ways to Proposition 36. The overcriminalization of our people is going to result in forced labor of our incarcerated population,” Mota said. “It’s hard to separate the issues.”

The result marks another blow to the movement to provide reparations to Black Californians. The language of Proposition 6 reflected a recommendation from the state’s reparations task force and members of the California Legislative Black Caucus. It won support from colleagues in the state Legislature.

Proposition 6 aimed to follow in the footsteps of states such as Alabama and Colorado, where voters recently took similar steps to remove a remnant of enslavement from their state constitutions. California’s founding document currently allows involuntary servitude “as punishment to a crime.” In practice, this provision allowed incarcerated people to lose family visits and telephone access for turning down a work assignment.

The task force, created in 2020 to study reparations for African Americans, found the clause to be especially harmful to Black Californians, who account for 28% of the state’s prison population despite making up just 5% of the state’s population.

However, the proposal faced initial resistance in Sacramento, including from officials in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Department of Finance, who argued that language change could open the door for incarcerated people to demand minimum wage. In 2022, the measure was voted down on the Senate floor.

This year, the measure was rewritten to clarify its specific intent to ban the disciplining of an incarcerated person for refusing a work assignment.

Proposition 6 was supported by the state Democratic Party and a coalition of criminal justice reform and civil rights groups, such as All of Us or None, who provided the bulk of funding to support the measure. While there was no fundraising against Proposition 6, the state Republican Party and anti-tax groups opposed the idea, arguing if more incarcerated people turned down work assignments, the work would have to be contracted out, adding state costs.

Michael Rushford, president and CEO of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, an organization that advocates for increased sentencing and favors work requirements for incarcerated people, said the timing didn’t help the measure’s chances.

“The folks that want stronger law enforcement showed up, and they saw this on there and said, ‘All right, well, we’re voting against that,” he said.

Sam Lewis, the executive director of the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, said the practice of punishing incarcerated people for missing or refusing work assignments is not uncommon. It happened to him while serving his time at the Correctional Training Facility, commonly referred to as Soledad State Prison.

While completing his college degree in prison, Lewis received permission from his supervisor to miss a shift to take an exam. When he returned to work in the laundry unit, he was written up and 30 days were added to his sentence. While Lewis was able to appeal that punishment, he has spoken with countless others whose rehabilitation “was sidetracked or derailed in some instances.”

“Do you want me to come home as a changed person that’s rehabilitated?” Lewis said. “Or do you want to just stick me in a prison system where I have to do work that does not help me become a better me? That’s an example of what Prop. 6 would have changed.”

The Anti-Recidivism Coalition’s phone number was listed on the state voter information guides to provide more context to voters. Lewis said he fielded many questions from confused voters about what Proposition 6 was.

The language of the official voter guide “used the term involuntary servitude,” Lewis said. “We should use the word slavery, which is very clear to people,” he added.

Polling on the initiative conducted in September and October by the Public Policy Institute of California showed it was headed for defeat. Respondents voiced lower interest in Proposition 6 compared to other measures. Only 41% of respondents indicated support for the measure.

When voters lack information, they’re more inclined to vote no, according to Mark Baldassare, PPIC’s survey director.

“Voters have to feel like they’re making policy,” Baldassare said. “They want to feel like they know what they’re doing and they’re not going to make mistakes. And sometimes, if they feel like it might be confusing, they’ll take a pass this time and wait till the next time.”

Rushford said some voters believe work requirements for incarcerated people are beneficial.

“I firmly believe that an inmate’s time spent incarcerated needs to be spent doing something productive to help the inmate prepare to be released from prison and become a productive member of society,” Rushford said. “It makes no sense to claim that that’s some kind of slavery.”

But Baldassare questioned the idea that both Propositions 6 and 36 are part of a sea change in criminal justice issues. He pointed out that, unlike other measures put on the ballot by legislators, like Proposition 4, a $10 billion bond to help the state prepare and adapt to climate change, voters understood clearly what that proposition was — and what problems it addressed.

In the case of Proposition 36, he said, citizens heard directly from local officials, including four mayors statewide.

“If there’s a lesson to be learned, it’s that when the Legislature puts something on the ballot, they need to explain to people why it is that it’s important to change the state constitution, particularly if the wording may be confusing to some people,” Baldassare said.

KQED’s Guy Marzorati contributed to this story.