How Californians came to embrace a tough-on-crime initiative

Four years ago, amid a national reckoning on race and policing, a prosecutor-backed effort to strengthen criminal penalties in California went before voters. That proposal, known as Proposition 20, failed by a wide margin.

Things could hardly look more different for a similar initiative on California’s ballot this fall. Public polling puts support for Prop 36 as high as 73 percent, and prominent politicians from both parties have endorsed it.