Chesa Boudin

In several recent polls, residents overwhelmingly supported recalling Boudin. We'll have to see if that holds up when the votes are counted.

San Francisco voters decide Tuesday whether or not District Attorney Chesa Boudin keeps his job or is ousted in a Recall Election. Things aren't looking.

Over 83,000 San Franciscans signed the petition to recall Chesa — that’s nearly 1 in 6 registered voters, the recall campaign reported. - San Francisco mother “Valeria,” was kidnapped and attacked while on a jog in Potrero Hill and managed to get away. The accused attacker, 24-year-old Eric Ramos-Hernandez, spent seven months in jail and was then “diverted” – meaning instead of being prosecuted for the crime, he returned home and is getting mental health treatment. In their own words, the grieving parents believe Chesa thought she was “just another Tenderloin druggie and not a person.” Chesa Boudin is failing too many families. The previous District Attorney was ready to prosecute his killers, but when Chesa Boudin took office, he fired the prosecutor assigned to the case. “I had to make difficult staffing decisions [Friday] in order to put in place a management team that will help me accomplish the work I committed to do for San Francisco,” Boudin said in a statement.

A recall success could bolster those trying to push out progressive prosecutors across the country.

“What this recall is, is a lashing out of people who’ve lost in 2019 and people who’ve been losing races against progressive prosecutors across the country,” says Julie Edwards, a spokesperson for the anti-recall effort. Though crime hasn’t exactly skyrocketed in San Francisco, that’s essentially the question Boudin faces now, and that Gascón may face later this year. In Illinois, a Republican state representative has recently introduced legislation that would enable voters to recall state’s attorney Kim Foxx due to concerns he has about her handling of charges related to gang violence. “Chesa effectively functions as a public defender with the title of district attorney,” Brooke Jenkins says. “One of the questions about the progressive prosecutors movement from the outset is what happens when crime goes back up, will they be defeated politically,” David Alan Sklansky, a law professor at Stanford University, recently told Governing. The city has also seen a slight increase in the homicide rate, though the rate is still lower than other places of comparable size. Criminal justice and political experts note that high-profile coverage of specific crimes, such as “smash-and-grab” robberies and violent anti-Asian attacks, may have also worsened people’s perceptions of the crime rate. This year, over 50 percent of voters would need to vote in favor of a recall to pass it. “People’s perception of that is more real to them than statistics.” San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, a progressive prosecutor, faces blowback as the city — much like others across the country — grapples with increases in certain types of crime, including car break-ins and homicides. Those opposing the recall, meanwhile, say it’s part of a broader campaign against progressive prosecutors, buoyed by Republicans and conservative donors. He won 36 percent of the first-choice vote in San Francisco’s ranked choice election.

Mounting frustration over crime and lots of outside money are driving the effort to recall Boudin, a progressive prosecutor elected in 2019.

Things have been dishonestly foisted onto my office and onto me." Some significant percentage of people who are arrested in any jurisdiction in this country are going to be released and go on to commit very serious crimes." California holds its elections primarily by mail, so the race may not be called for a few days.

Defeat after two years in office would be a blow to progressive prosecutors movement. In Los Angeles, voters consider race for mayor.

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Proposition H calls for San Francisco voters to decide if District Attorney Chesa Boudin stays or goes in today's election. Boudin was elected as San ...

Boudin was elected as San Francisco's district attorney in 2019 as a “progressive prosecutor.” Today he faces a highly-visible and well-funded recall effort by local Democrats and wealthy donors. Boudin’s supporters say he kept his campaign promise to reform the criminal justice system by reducing sentences and incarcerations over all as well as eliminating cash bail. Proposition H calls for San Francisco voters to decide if District Attorney Chesa Boudin stays or goes in today's election.

Mr. Boudin, who had eliminated cash bail and sought to reduce the prison population, was removed in a vote that is set to reverberate through Democratic ...

But he was also critical of Mr. Boudin, whom he described as “a warrior for the downtrodden.” On the precipice of a generational changing of the guard in San Francisco — two iconic San Franciscans, Nancy Pelosi, the house speaker, and Senator Dianne Feinstein, are in the twilight of their careers — voters are sending a message of frustration and hankering for change, Mr. Lee said. In the third round, under the city’s ranked choice system, he ultimately inched ahead of his main rival for the job, Suzy Loftus, by a few thousand votes. “I wasn’t going to be closed-minded about this new experiment,” Shirin Oloumi, a lawyer who specialized in prosecuting car break-ins before leaving the district attorney’s office in August, said. The vote was seen by many as an accumulation of frustration by city residents over squalid street conditions, including the illicit drug sales, homeless encampments and untreated mental illness. But criticism of Mr. Boudin also came from those who worked with him. In February, the Democratic County Central Committee voted 20-2 to oppose the recall of Mr. Boudin, with the two contrary votes coming from candidates who had run against him for the job. The city has been facing persistent property crimes, especially car break-ins and burglaries, but data from the police department showed that many other types of crime, including homicides, have been stable or declined during the pandemic. “There is anger at the failure of government, the failure of city hall, to address pressing problems,” Mr. Lee said. During the campaign, Mr. Boudin himself acknowledged that he did not report his own car being broken into three years before he took office. He said public safety was his first priority but that along the way he would work to make the system more equitable and reverse the legacy of mass incarceration. A former public defender, Mr. Boudin aggressively expanded diversion programs as an alternative to prison.

San Francisco voters tossed District Attorney Chesa Boudin from office on Tuesday, favoring a recall effort that argued his progressive reforms were too lenient and made the city less safe. Boudin was trailing by 24 percentage points, according to the ...

“You have to give them a chance to finish the term,” he said, “and if you’re unhappy, you can vote your guy in at the next election.” Meanewhile, the reformist movement that fueled Boudin’s 2019 victory began to wane during the pandemic, when a national surge in homicides and widespread fear of rising crime often overshadowed calls for decarceration. The first, led by former San Francisco Republican mayoral candidate Richie Greenberg, fell short of collecting the 51,325 signatures to qualify for a special recall election. The alleged driver, Troy McAlister, 45, had been arrested several times in the months leading up to the wreck, but his state parole was never revoked and the District Attorney’s Office did not file any new charges. By the middle of last year, two groups were gunning to recall him from office. “I don’t feel particularly safe in my neighborhood due to an increase in crime,” she said, citing needles, fires set on the street and break-ins around her home. But Andrew Wu, an Outer Sunset voter, said he believed city police officers had at times declined to intervene in crime and solve cases, hindering what Boudin as district attorney could do. The results capped off a furious debate over crime and criminal justice in San Francisco, with the two sides fighting over Boudin’s approach to incarceration and rehabilitation and his leadership. “My goal was to help this campaign and I’m content,” Jenkins said. The city’s more moderate mayor, London Breed, will choose his immediate replacement, and voters will elect a new district attorney in November. Brooke Jenkins, a former prosecutor who reigned from Boudin’s office and became a campaign spokesperson demurred when asked whether she would put her name forward or run. People embraced and said they were going to cry, overcome with emotion.

Removal comes amid movement to elect progressive prosecutors dedicated to tackling police brutality and mass incarceration.

We have shown San Francisco and the world that we do not need to rely on fearmongering or exploitation of tragedy to build safety.” Recall efforts, often backed by conservatives, have become increasingly common in California where voters can petition to remove a politician for any reason. In a speech to his supporters on Tuesday night, Boudin struck an optimistic tone, noting progressive candidates were winning or leading in their races in other parts of California and the US: “The movement that got us elected in 2019 is alive and well. Caruso, who has an estimated net worth of $4bn, poured more than $38m of his own fortune into his campaign, with a pledge to “clean up” Los Angeles. In an interview before the election, Boudin said the recall was “dangerous for democracy”, noting that voters were opting to remove him without knowing who would replace him. That election was marked by record spending and a focus on crime and homelessness.

The first batch of results from San Francisco show "yes" on the recall leading "no" 61% to 39%. This batch contains all mail ballots received before Election ...

Another batch of such results will be released at 10:45 p.m. Because such a large proportion of the total vote comes in that first dump, the final results have been at most 2 to 3 percentage points different from results following the first batch. In all of those elections — the November 2020 general election, the Gavin Newsom recall in 2021, and two special elections in February and April 2022 — that first batch of results has contained about 70% of the number of total votes cast.

Live San Francisco election results for the recall of District Attorney Chesa Boudin, including vote breakdown by district.

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Progressive San Francisco Dist. Atty. Chesa Boudin is locked in a bruising recall election amid rising fears over crime and homelessness.

“Crime is a part of life,” said Wald, whose home was burglarized last year. He has significantly reduced the use of sentencing enhancements. “Safe is not a word I’d use to describe San Francisco,” said Raj Marwari, 40, who lives in the Marina District and works in finance. He said he voted to recall Boudin because “obviously, things have gotten worse in every way,” including homelessness. The recall campaign has painted Boudin as a soft-on-crime prosecutor who doesn’t care about public safety. Property and violent crimes fell by double-digit percentages during Boudin’s first two years in office.

San Francisco voters fired their headline-grabbing reformist district attorney Tuesday, NBC News Projects, after rising crime rates proved intolerable even ...

Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski will face a re-match against Tom Kean Jr., the former GOP leader in the state Senate, who won his party's nomination, NBC News projects. Franken ran for Senate in 2020 and positioned himself to Finkenauer’s left by supporting issues like Medicare for All while foregrounding his national security experience. In New Mexico, NBC News projects former TV weatherman Mark Ronchetti won a hard-fought Republican primary to take on Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who is seen as vulnerable in the fall. Elsewhere in New Jersey, Republicans are eyeing a number of Democratic incumbents seen as vulnerable in the fall. He will face longtime Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley in November, who will be difficult to beat a state that has trended Republican. In Iowa, retired Admiral Michael Franken won the Democratic Senate nomination, NBC News projects, defeating former Rep. Abby Finkenauer, who had been seen as the favorite.

San Francisco residents voted on Tuesday to recall District Attorney Chesa Boudin, Edison Research projected, in a nationally watched election viewed as a ...

Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Mayor London Breed, a Democrat, will choose Boudin's replacement in the liberal California city. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com

The historic recall effort, fueled by a tsunami of contributions, garnered national attention as a referendum on criminal justice reform efforts amid rising ...

And public condemnation came despite ongoing reports of a lackadaisical police response to burglaries and thefts, with arrests made in only a tiny percentage of car break-ins — significantly limiting the DA's ability to file charges. Mayor London Breed — who backed Boudin’s opponent in 2019, and now will appoint his successor — had criticized the DA and his policies, furthering the perception that he was to blame for the city’s crime woes. Boudin, 41 — the son of two Weather Underground leftist radicals who spent decades in prison for a botched 1981 robbery — narrowly won office as a first-time political candidate in 2019, promising to reform the city's criminal justice system. The historic recall garnered national attention, bitterly dividing Democrats in the city on issues of crime, policing and public safety reform. I trust the mayor, based on things she's said, to choose someone who will balance necessary reforms and public safety." "This is a movement, not a moment, in history."

San Francisco on Tuesday has voted to recall progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin in a heated campaign that bitterly divided Democrats over crime, ...

After a bitter, monthslong campaign, District Attorney Chesa Boudin has been recalled by San Francisco voters.

California jurisdictions with tough-on-crime prosecutors have some of the highest crime rates in the state, so a move toward incarcerating more individuals is not likely to be a cure-all for problems voters are most concerned about. Cristine Soto DeBerry, a former chief of staff to Boudin and the executive director of the progressive Prosecutors' Alliance of California, believes that Boudin’s replacement will likely maintain at least some reformist policies. All three have expressed interest in the job and present themselves as more tough on crime than Boudin. Other candidates will also emerge during the process as Breed speaks to members of the community and legal experts, the official said. “At the front end, the police department has the biggest impact on reducing crime. “The sad news is if the DA is recalled, San Franciscans will not see a change in their experience,” DeBerry said. “Recalling the DA will not change the homeless crisis. One major provision of Prop. C would have prevented anyone appointed by the mayor to replace a recalled official from running for the position in the next election. And Jenkins, who has characterized herself as a progressive prosecutor, could signal that Breed isn’t completely abandoning criminal justice reform — although criminal justice reform advocates dispute Jenkins’ record on the issue. Breed’s choice to replace Boudin is harder to predict, largely because of Proposition C, a ballot measure seeking to change the recall process itself. It's a margin very similar to the Boudin recall. Boudin must vacate the office no later than 10 days after the Board of Supervisors certifies the election results, likely sometime in late June or early July. At that point, a successor chosen by Mayor London Breed will assume office. The results, though disappointing for supporters, were hardly a surprise to those who have been following the race carefully.

The recall of District Attorney Chesa Boudin should mark a turning point for San Francisco. Not from progressive to carceral public-safety strategies, ...

The solution is to elect the board at-large—with vote-aggregation rules designed to represent local factions in proportion to their support in the electorate. We need our political leaders to work together on behalf of a citywide vision. Local candidates could have one of these endorsements printed by their name on the ballot, much as candidates for statewide office designate a party preference. As for the Board of Supervisors, it couldn’t even agree on a plan to make a citywide plan to shelter the homeless. In this environment, Boudin’s vision—his “ rejection[ion] of the notion that to be free, we must cage others”—didn’t have a chance. If local, competing Democratic factions could make ballot-printed endorsements in their own name, we’d be on our way to a better politics. The city charter should authorize the mayor, our most publicly visible local official, to appoint and remove the DA and the school board, just like she selects the police chief. Knowing that a candidate is a teacher may trigger vaguely positive associations, but it doesn’t help voters figure out whether the candidate will, for example, line up in land-use fights with “YIMBY” Mayor Breed or “NIMBY” supervisors like Dean Preston. Instead, the ballot provides a three-word, nearly useless description of each candidate’s occupation. But ours—in the middle of pandemic!—obsessed over symbols instead. The disarray peaked with our school board, which should have been laser-focused on preparing youngsters for peaceful participation in civic and economic life. Mayor Breed didn’t want to be held responsible for the chaos and immiseration on our streets, so she took potshots at Boudin. Boudin blamed the police; the police reciprocated.

COMPLETE SAN FRANCISCO RESULTS, ANALYSIS, MAPS AND GRAPHICS San Francisco is a mid-sized North American city. It has almost exactly the same population as.

On the same night San Francisco recalled its progressive DA, a progressive prosecutor took the lead in Alameda County — where violent crime well and truly is a problem both statistically as well as anecdotally. But, when it comes to less clear-cut and closer-to-home issues like criminal justice reform, San Francisco voters indicate they like the concept of them — but, it seems, only so long as they remain conceptual. For generations, the success of a DA was essentially gauged in how effectively he or she could do this. If you were to look at the professed interests of voters in Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s district on this handy dandy feature, you’ll find that police reform is a low priority. San Francisco Mayor London Breed, who is African American, never really defunded the police — but now she doesn’t even have to bother with any budgeting sleight-of-hand to even pretend we’re doing so. Symposiums could be taught regarding how to convince voters that the district attorney is the problem in a city where the police arrest rate is historically low and has been for years. And if the pro-recall forces end up spending $8 million to $10 million to win a majority of votes in an election where only 140,000 or so people bother to return their ballots, the cost-per-vote will be prohibitive. There is no indication this ever occurred: Boudin in 2019 won with a plurality of first-place votes in a razor-thin ranked-choice contest in a low-turnout election aided in no small part by the mayor’s heavy handed appointment of his main rival to the vacant DA post. Is San Francisco a template for other cities or states with vulnerable prosecutors? Things happen everywhere, but in San Francisco — Things Matter. “San Francisco” is a metonym. You don’t hear about “Columbus values” or a “Winnipeg liberal,” but “San Francisco” does serve as a modifier.

The Democrat-led Campaign to Recall San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin announced success in "Holding Boudin Accountable" last evening. This is.

It will be interesting to watch changes to the office in San Francisco.” She noted that under Gascón as San Francisco DA, “the filing rate of cases presented by the police for prosecution dropped. Los Angeles Assistant District Attorney in Los Angeles Michele Hanisee said Boudin, in flipping from Public Defender to District Attorney is taking over from the inside.