Petition drive backed by private-equity company pays $3 a signature to overturn California’s new law ending cash bail

By Peter Whoriskey
October 29 at 10:47 AM

SAN DIEGO — Backed by a private-equity firm, a large bail-bond company here is financing a campaign to repeal California’s landmark criminal justice reform.

The new law would abolish the state’s bail-bond companies, and in response, a handful in the industry have raised more than $2.5 million to repeal the measure. The largest share of that, almost $800,000, comes from Triton, a bail company owned by Endeavour Capital, an Oregon-based private-equity firm that has managed billions in investments.

The donations are paying for an army of campaign workers who have descended on California’s shopping centers to beseech passersby for petition signatures. The campaign, which needs 365,880 names to put the measure before voters in 2020, pays the sidewalk solicitors a few dollars for each signature — the going rate around San Diego was $3.25. Arithmetically, the donations may be enough to delay the law’s implementation for at least a year.

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The impetus for the new law arose from critics who say the bail system leads to the incarceration of many defendants who pose no threat to society and languish in jail merely because they are poor. Under the new law, courts would decide who should be released, basing their decisions on defendants’ records, the nature of the accusations and other factors.

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