2004 California Proposition 66

Though polls indicated that the measure would be overwhelmingly approved by California voters, public opinion shifted dramatically in the last days of the campaign.

Opponents argued that its wording was so ambiguous that it threatened to shorten sentences for far more convicts than proponents estimated, and that it would have categorized some serious felonies—assault with intent to rape an elderly or disabled person, for example—as nonviolent crimes.

[2] Days away from the election, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was joined by Henry Nicholas, co-founder and former co-chairman, president and chief executive officer of Broadcom Corporation and a victims’ rights advocate whose sister was murdered in 1983, as well as former Governors Jerry Brown, Pete Wilson, Gray Davis and George Deukmejian in launching an intensive radio and television advertising campaign against the ballot initiative.

[5][failed verification] Over the next several days, an ad blitz including spots from Shuck and Silvera blanketed radio stations across the state.

Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll, called the come-from-behind campaign to defeat Prop 66 “unprecedented” in California electoral politics.