Fact check: California Senate candidates spar at second debate. Here’s what was true and false

The four leading candidates running for a California U.S. Senate seat fought over taxes, crime, homelessness and more as the three Democrats and one Republican compete for two spots in the fast-approaching March 5 primary.

Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff of Los Angeles, Katie Porter of Orange County and Barbara Lee of Oakland on Monday faced off against each other and Republican retired baseball player Steve Garvey in this year’s second debate.

The four candidates are vying in two elections to succeed Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who died in September. Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed interim Democratic Sen. Laphonza Butler, 44, after Feinstein’s death, but she declined to run in either race.

One of this year’s Senate races is a special election to complete Feinstein’s term, which runs until January 2025. The other is a full six-year term, which starts after the other ends.

The two candidates who earn the most votes in the primary will advance to the November general election.

KTLA, Fox 40 and other Nexstar Media Group stations hosted the debate, which took place at the KRON4 News studio in San Francisco.

A late January poll conducted by researchers from USC, Long Beach State and Cal Poly Pomona showed Schiff, 63, leading the pack with support from 25% of likely voters. Porter, 50, and Garvey, 75, were tied for second with 15%, and Lee, 77, trailed with 7%. Other candidates were polling at 1% or less.

The poll surveyed 1,416 likely California voters and had a plus or minus 2.6 percentage point margin of error.

Here are some of the notable true, false and somewhat true statements from the night.

Billionaire tax breaks?

In response to a question about income inequality, Porter claimed, “we have a society in which billionaires get tax breaks from career politicians who take their corporate PAC checks.”

California’s tax burden is the ninth highest in the United States, according to WalletHub, a financial services firm. The tax burden refers to the property individual income, sales and excise tax as a share of personal income.

But California’s progressive tax system means wealthy residents also pay significantly more than lower-income people. California has the highest state income tax rate in the country for wealthier people, 13.3% for millionaires.

Federal homelessness spending

Garvey answered a question about addressing homelessness by saying, “$30 billion has been thrown at the homeless. It’s been wasted.”

That number is inaccurate, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

In 2021, for instance, President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Act Plan contained $50 billion in housing and homelessness assistance, including $27.4 billion for rental assistance and $5 billion to help homeless individuals.

Congressional bill introductions

The moderators kept asking the members of Congress about why they had not authored bills to deal with various California-related issues.

That’s not always a fair question. Major decisions in Congress are usually sandwiched into massive legislation. That legislation usually sets spending levels for several months or years.

Most lawmakers introduce measures that are then folded into those big bills, so it’s very difficult to pinpoint just whose bill was most influential in determining the outcome.

The large bills, often running hundreds of pages, have been used more frequently in recent years because Congress has become so polarized. By including controversial measures in a single bill, it’s harder for a member to oppose something when a plan they like is also included.

California crime rates

In response to a question about an assault weapons ban, Garvey started talking about crime, saying it’s “rampant” and there has “never been more crime in the streets of California.”

That is incorrect. The Public Policy Institute of California in October reported the state’s violent and property crime rates have fluctuated over decades, but they peaked in the 1980s and 1990s.

California saw more than 300,000 violent crimes per year throughout the 1990s, compared to more than 190,000 in 2022, according to the state Department of Justice’s Crime in California report.

Violent crime has risen in recent years, though. PPIC reported the state’s 2022 violent crime rate was up 13.5% from the pre-COVID era rate of 2019.

Retail theft solutions

The moderators asked Schiff whether “progressive reforms,” such as “reducing certain felonies to misdemeanors” have gone too far.

That question is referring to Proposition 47, a ballot measure California voters approved in 2014. It reclassified certain offenses as misdemeanors and created a separate crime of shoplifting for thefts of items worth $950 or less. Shoplifting is a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in county jail.

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that this is a result of the ballot measure,” Schiff said, referring to smash-and-grab robberies. “We should have a data-driven approach, and the data doesn’t support that conclusion.”

PPIC in September analyzed 2022 crime data and found shoplifting rates were lower that year than they were in in pre-COVID 2019. Commercial burglary and robbery rates increased during that time. However, robbery is a violent crime, while prosecutors have leeway in terms of whether to charge commercial burglary suspects with felonies or misdemeanors.

“These organized criminal rings, the smash-and-grabs that are making the news, the commercial robberies that we’re seeing, the commercial burglaries, none of those particular forms of retail theft have anything to do with Prop. 47, by definition,” Charis Kubrin, a professor of criminology, law and society at UC Irvine, told the Sacramento Bee in November.