Rising crime galvanizes San Francisco voters to attempt recall of their district attorney

Amna Nawaz:

Well, it's primary Election Day tomorrow in seven states, and rising crime is an issue top of mind for many voters. That is especially true in a recall race for a progressive district attorney in San Francisco.

Lisa Desjardins has more.

Lisa Desjardins:

His supporters hoped Chesa Boudin would usher in a reimagining of public safety and criminal justice reform. He promised to stop prosecuting some nonviolent crimes and instead send defendants to classes and job training.

But, three years later, the city's top prosecutor has been tested by a pandemic and a spike in some crimes. Many voters are not happy, and, tomorrow, they will get to judge him and whether to recall him.

To understand this better, I'm joined by politics editor Scott Shafer with KQED in San Francisco.

Scott, there are a lot of layers to what's happening here. But can you help us just understand, how did Mr. Boudin get here, facing possible recall?

Scott Shafer, KQED:

Well, he has a nontraditional background. He was a public defender, which is unusual for someone who wants to be the top prosecutor in a county. But he won.

His parents were actually members of the Weather Underground. And from the time he was very young, they were incarcerated for participating in a robbery that went bad and ended up with two police officers being shot and killed. And so he got into office without much support, if any, from law enforcement here in San Francisco.

And on top of that, he takes office right before the pandemic in January of 2020. With the pandemic, we saw crime beginning to go up across the country, more violence. Add to that anti-Asian hate crimes. And so what you have is this public defender who is now facing a recall. A number of folks collected signatures to put that on the ballot with a lot of help from some big Republican donors, as well as others.

And so, tomorrow, voters will decide whether they want to him to keep his job or not.

Lisa Desjardins:

I know millions of dollars have been spent on just this recall election.

But I want to ask you, in the broader sense, what did Chesa Boudin promise to do when he ran for this office of district attorney? And what has he actually done?

Scott Shafer:

Well, he promised to rebalance the scales of justice, I would say.

The premise of his candidacy was that the criminal justice system is skewed against Black and brown men in particular. And just for example, if you look at the way the criminal justice system has dealt with crack cocaine vs. powder cocaine, a lot of people, not just Democrats, but a lot of Republicans agreed that that needed to change.

And so he came in promising not to go after low-level nonviolent offenders, especially for drug possession. He promised to end cash bail, which he said left people who were unable to pay the bail in prison, while wealthier people got out. And he also promised — and this is very important — to hold police officers accountable when they were accused of excessive use of force.

And he has done — he's done all those things. And, at the same time, we have seen the crime rate go up with these viral videos sometimes of smash-and-grab shoplifting and that sort of thing, a lot of auto break-ins.

And so it's created some headwinds for Chesa Boudin as he goes into this recall election.

Lisa Desjardins:

We have seen a lot of those headlines about San Francisco all around the country. Lawmakers here in Washington have talked about it.

Can you help us. But what is the reality of crime in San Francisco right now are the problems there, and how much has to do with Chesa Boudin?

Scott Shafer:

Well, I think San Francisco mirrors the rest of California and the rest of the nation, really.

I mean, if you look at the murder rate in California, some of the counties that are the most conservative, like Kern County, where Kevin McCarthy comes from, the minority leader in the House, had the highest increase, the biggest increase in murder. Obviously, that's not because of a liberal district attorney.

So I don't think you can blame these trends on the district attorney here or anywhere else. They're really bigger than any one person. And he's also been in office less than two-and-a-half years. And so, while these things have happened, while he's been DA, I don't think you can say they have happened because he is DA.

That said, I think he has not maybe helped himself. He sometimes comes across as abrasive. And in some ways, I think this recall is about him as a person and a little bit about his policies, but really more so about how he has handled the job, what kind of manager he's been. There's been a lot of people, deputy DAs, who've left and criticized his management.

And so I think all of those things are going to be on the ballot tomorrow.

Lisa Desjardins:

Just in the last 30 seconds or so we have left, Scott, what do you think we will learn from this recall election, however it turns out? What does it say about sort of these trends nationwide, if anything?

Scott Shafer:

Well, there will certainly be attempts to spin this, if he loses his job, as, look, even in liberal San Francisco, they're retreating from these progressive criminal justice reforms.

I think we need to be careful about that. San Francisco is still a very liberal city. We have a very liberal attorney general, who is going to be on the ballot tomorrow as well. I'm sure he's going to do very well in San Francisco. And a lot of the policies that Chesa Boudin and these other progressive prosecutors have embraced are supported by large percentages of people in California.

So I think we need to be careful about over-reading the results, assuming that he is recalled. And even if he keeps his job, this is really one election about one person at a time where law enforcement agencies across the country are grappling with some very big problems.

Lisa Desjardins:

It's still an interesting election, nonetheless.

Scott Shafer of KQED, thank you very much.

Scott Shafer:

Thank you, Lisa.