California Gov. Jerry Brown has put a Fresno County sheriff on blast. And if the scolding shows anything, it is perhaps proof that the campaign against Proposition 57 is intensifying.

In a voicemail obtained by the Sacramento Bee, Brown chewed out Sheriff Margaret Mims over a campaign mailer persuading people to oppose a ballot measure that would make some nonviolent felons in jail eligible for parole and early release. Brown disagreed so much that he even went on to call the mailer "malicious."

Hey Margaret, I got that mailing on Prop. 57 that you signed with the sheriff of Orange County [Sandra Hutchens] and [Merced County District Attorney] Larry Morse, and [Ventura County District Attorney] Greg Totten. You enclosed a card of a guy that you said would be released under my proposition. I just want you to know that’s completely false, and that makes that mailer extremely false, and I would even say malicious.

Other top political opponents to Prop. 57, or the Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act, include San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer and Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey. San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, on the other hand, supports Proposition 57.

In his voicemail, Brown specifically references a card in a mailer titled “Meet your new neighbor" that features Andrew Stuart Luster, a man convicted in 2003 to 124 years in state prison for drugging and raping his unconscious victims. Prop. 57 opponents say, under the proposition, Luster would be eligible for release due to his nonviolent crime conviction. Brown said that was not true, so he threw in some shade.

This guy was sentenced to 100 years, and he’s a registered sex offender, and on both accounts would not be getting out. So that's the kind of scare tactics that I think are unbecoming of a public official, and certainly will not build the kind of mutual respect and trust that we all need to do our jobs. So, that’s all I can say. Maybe I’ll see you up at the sheriffs’ meeting. Thanks.

Brown's administration has clarified before that felons like Luster who have to register as sex offenders would be disqualified from parole eligibility under Prop. 57, according to a Sacramento Bee report.

A verbal chewing via voicemail

Proposition 57 is the state's latest effort to reduce prison population. Earlier this year, Faulconer announced his opposition to the measure saying it "public safety and innocent citizens at risk."

"Finding ways to reduce our prison population and encourage convicts to become productive members of society is something that we all believe is important, but it has to be done in a way that does not make us less safe as a society," he said in a news conference in July.

California's prison population has ballooned over the last few decades and with it an estimated $10 billion in spending every year. Prison conditions were so deplorable that, in 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court told the state to cut down its prison population. Politically, there is no consensus on how that should be done.

A long list of members of the law enforcement community in the state oppose Proposition 57 while the endorsements for Proposition 57 include Brown, Dumanis, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and organizations such as the California State Law Enforcement Association and the Chief Probation Officers of California.