The fentanyl crisis in California today is a never-ending tragedy that deserves immediate and aggressive action to address it. Unfortunately, California Democrats seemed to miss that memo. Gavin Newsom, Senate Democrats and Assembly Democrats buried their heads in the sand this week, bypassing huge opportunities to help fentanyl victims and hold fentanyl dealers accountable.

Yesterday, Assembly Democrats in the Public Safety Committee failed to pass multiple bills that would have increased penalties and prison time for drug dealers pushing the deadly pill that currently kills more than 100 Californians a week.

Following yesterday’s defeats, one parent who lost his teenage son to fentanyl poisoning in 2019 told KCRA, “It’s very frustrating to see this snail pace of progression that’s going on with trying to hold drug dealers and drug traffickers accountable.” 

While a few bills did pass out of the committee, those would not have been possible without Assembly Republicans loudly demanding that the bills be considered. The radical Democrat Chair of the committee had previously dictated that no more fentanyl bills would be heard until summer, crisis or not.

Thursday’s victory for fentanyl dealers in the Assembly came just two days after Senate Democrats delivered them a similar win. The Senate Public Safety Committee killed a bipartisan bill called Alexandra’s Law that would have required judges to alert convicted felon fentanyl dealers that if they deal again and someone dies, they could be charged with homicide.

The father of Alexandra Capelouto, for whom the law was named after she died from fentanyl poisoning in 2019, said of the news, “More people are going to die… I know it’s not the politically correct thing to say, but no doubt about it, these senators have blood on their hands.”

So where was California’s fearless leader, incompetent Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom, this week while the state’s fentanyl dealers seemingly got high-fives from legislative Democrats? He was out of state (AGAIN), silent on this issue and fundraising for soon-to-be one-term President Joe Biden. He ignored repeated calls from Republicans to back the fentanyl bills considered in the Assembly this week.

He may have thought he’d already done enough after announcing that he would bring in the National Guard to assist San Francisco with its devastating fentanyl crisis. But as KTVU notes, less than a week after Newsom’s decree, there are still “no signs of [the] California National Guard in San Francisco” to help.

“Radical California Democrats this week showed zero interest in providing true public safety and accountability regarding the devastating fentanyl crisis that’s running rampant throughout our communities and poisoning our loved ones. How many more lives must be lost before Gavin Newsom and California Democrats do their jobs and hold drug dealers accountable? This week may have been a victory for our state’s fentanyl dealers, but California Republicans will never stop seeking justice for the lives lost and fighting for the lives we can still save. Until real action is taken, Gavin Newsom and California Democrats will remain complicit in this ongoing fentanyl crisis.” – CAGOP Chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson