San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin today filed an unfair business practices action against food delivery service outfit DoorDash — which has persistently classified its workers as independent contractors and not employees, in the face of California law. 

“I assure you this is just the first step among many to fight for worker safety and equal enforcement of the law,” said Boudin at today’s virtual press conference. This action will be led by Assistant District Attorney Scott Stillman’s Economic Crimes Against Workers Unit — “and I did not bring ADA Stillman into the office to file one lawsuit,” Boudin continued.

Messages for DoorDash were not returned as of press time. 

Today’s action was filed under section 17200 of the state Business and Professions Code, which applies to “any unlawful, unfair or fraudulent business act.” Either a DA or a City Attorney can take action under this code — and, in fact, City Attorney Dennis Herrera in May joined colleagues in Los Angeles and San Diego in filing a suit against Uber and Lyft for allegedly miscategorizing their workers.  

Under the California Supreme Court’s “Dynamex” decision from April 2018, a three-point test was established to determine whether workers should be classified as employees or independent contractors. 

No reasonable interpretation of that ruling could lead to determining Doordash workers — or, for that matter, Uber and Lyft drivers, or many others — as anything but employees. 

News broke in April 2019 that DoorDash was applying tips given to its workers to apply to their base wages instead of serving as a gratuity — leading to a complaint being filed against the company with the city’s Office of Labor Standards and Enforcement.  

In September 2019, the “Dynamex” decision was essentially codified as law under AB5, authored by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego). 

“When you think about theft, you don’t often think about wage theft,” said Gonzalez, who attended today’s virtual presser. “If an employee stole from their boss, they’d go to jail. But employers steal from workers, in large amounts, every day.” 

By misclassifying workers as independent contractors instead of employees, companies can shirk on paying minimum wage, providing mandated breaks, and providing healthcare or sick days. Workers in such conditions are subsidized by the social safety net — which is, in turn, subsidized by taxpayers and law-abiding companies. 

“DoorDash has long been an exploitative employer,” UC Hastings labor law professor Veena Dubal told Mission Local. “Like Uber, the company’s business model is based on the fiction that their workers are independent contractors. This means that the people whose labor has created the company’s sky-high valuation do not have access to a wage floor, to workers’ compensation if they are injured, or to unemployment insurance if they are laid off through no fault of their own.”  

During the ongoing pandemic, Dubal continued, these workers have been further deemed “essential,” and have been “risking their lives to get food from restaurants to families in lockdown.”

“DoorDash has been vigorously fighting claims of employment by their delivery drivers,” said Dubal. “This lawsuit today — brought by the district attorney of San Francisco — puts the weight of the state behind these claims.”

DoorDash Complaint by Joe Eskenazi on Scribd

Update, 2:20 p.m.: A statement from Max Rettig, DoorDash Global Head of Public Policy:

Now more than ever, Californians from all walks of life look to DoorDash for flexible earnings opportunities, working on average a few hours per week. Throughout the pandemic, DoorDash has supported Dashers on and off the road with free safety equipment, telemedicine, earnings replacement, and more. Today’s action seeks to disrupt the essential services Dashers provide, stripping hundreds of thousands of students, teachers, parents, retirees and other Californians of valuable work opportunities, depriving local restaurants of desperately needed revenue, and making it more difficult for consumers to receive prepared food, groceries, and other essentials safely and reliably. We will fight to continue providing Dashers the flexible earning opportunities they say they want in these challenging times.

If you want to keep us employed — and have not already done so — please support us now.

The post San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin sues DoorDash for ‘unlawful misclassification’ of staff as impartial contractors appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

A little over a year ago, voters ousted Chesa Boudin as San Francisco’s District Attorney, ending the 2½-year reign of a prosecutor who had eliminated cash bail and vowed to hold police accountable. 

Boudin—a pioneer of the so-called progressive prosecutor movement—was seen by many as a lightning rod for growing discontent in the city over rising property crime and disorder on the streets. 

Former San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, second from left, discusses prison reform and progressive politics during a post-screening Q&A of “Beyond Bars: It’s a Movement, Not a Moment” at the San Francisco Public Library’s Koret Auditorium on Wednesday. | Source: Christina Campodonico/The Standard

The former DA dipped back into San Francisco politics on Wednesday with the debut of a new documentary about his life. Beyond Bars: It’s Movement, Not a Moment chronicles Boudin’s 2019 campaign for San Francisco DA on a progressive platform, how his life was shaped by the incarceration of his parents—two famed members of the radical militant group the Weather Underground—and how these stories intersect with systemic issues facing families across the criminal justice system.   

The premiere at the San Francisco Public Library’s Koret Auditorium also doubled as a rally of sorts to energize progressive voters for the city’s November 2024 election, and the ousted DA did not mince words on how he sees the current state of city governance, which he called a “dictatorship.” 

“It is horrible to watch what is happening in this city,” Boudin said during a panel discussion following the screening. 

It wasn’t clear whether this barb was directed at District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, the prosecutor who replaced him, or at Mayor London Breed—who’s pushing the city’s recent crackdown on crime as a cornerstone of her reelection bid in 2024. Boudin did not respond to The Standard’s request for clarification of the comment.

READ MORE: The Rise and Fall of Chesa Boudin: Why a Progressive DA Lost in Deep-Blue San Francisco

Whoever was his intended target, Boudin insisted that “this campaign and this movement was never about me or my career.”

He added that he chose not to seek reelection in 2024 to avoid repeating “the same mistakes that my parents made of putting politics before family. 

“I had to think about how could I continue to do work that was so profoundly important to me, to my community, the city that I loved,” Boudin told the audience. 

In interviews for the documentary “Beyond Bars” conducted before her 2022 death, activist, educator and academic Kathy Boudin reflects on raising her son, former District Attorney Chesa Boudin, from behind prison walls. | Source: Courtesy Brave New Films

Since leaving office, Boudin has taken on a new job heading UC Berkeley Law’s new Criminal Law & Justice Center, a research and advocacy hub focusing on criminal justice reform. 

The U.S. criminal justice system has shaped Boudin’s life from the start. As chronicled in the film, Boudin was just 14 months old when his parents—then Weather Underground members—left him with a babysitter to take part in a botched heist of a Brink’s armored truck in 1981 that ultimately left two police officers and a security guard dead. 

A film still from the documentary “Beyond Bars” shows a family photo of a young Chesa Boudin with his father, David Gilbert. | Source: Courtesy Brave New Films

Boudin’s mother, Kathy Boudin, who died last year after a long battle with cancer, was released on parole in 2003 after serving more than 20 years in prison and became an advocate for criminal justice reform, people with HIV/AIDS and children’s literacy. Boudin’s father, David Gilbert, was imprisoned for 40 years before his sentence was commuted by former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2021. Gilbert was in attendance at Wednesday’s screening. 

READ MORE: Who Is Chesa Boudin? Meet the San Francisco DA at the Center of a Media Storm

The pain of the separation between Boudin and his parents is documented with heartfelt excerpts from letters between Boudin and his imprisoned father, as well as collect calls and candid interviews with Gilbert and Kathy Boudin before her death. Throughout the film, Boudin’s parents express remorse for participating in the Brink’s heist and leaving behind their infant son. 

The documentary also illustrates the emotional toll Boudin experienced as a child moving between the stable Chicago home of his adoptive parents, another Weather Underground couple named Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, and visiting his real parents behind bars. Dohrn recounts in the film how Boudin as a toddler would fall into two-day temper tantrums, and Ayers recalls how the clang of prison doors haunted the adolescent Boudin. The film also stresses how even short family visits like the ones Boudin was able to have with his family as a teenager can offer short stints of normalcy for families separated by incarceration. 

Brave New Films’ documentary on the life of Chesa Boudin includes vintage family photos from his childhood. | Source: Courtesy Brave New Films

Social media footage from Boudin’s 2019 campaign for district attorney, as well as policy accomplishments from his tenure, such as abolishing cash bail and filing unprecedented homicide charges against a former SFPD officer, also illustrate the optimism and momentum of the progressive prosecutor movement at the time.      

READ MORE: The Recall of Chesa Boudin: How the Pandemic Fed a National Attack on Progressive Prosectors

Director Robert Greenwald, who is also the president of Brave New Films, the social justice-oriented not-for-profit film company that produced the documentary, said he was drawn to Boudin’s story because it illustrates the universal pain of family separation.  

“The idea of four parents—two locked up, two not—it’s extraordinary,” Greenwald said. 

The filmmakers hope that Boudin’s story—intertwined with those of formerly incarcerated people, prison reform activists and children with parents in prison—will mobilize reforms. The documentary will be screened in several U.S. cities this winter before being released on the Brave New Films website in mid-January. 

A film still from the new documentary about Chesa Boudin’s life, “Beyond Bars,” captures a moment from the former DA’s 2019 campaign victory night. | Source: Eddy Hernandez/Courtesy Brave New Films

Boudin told the Standard the film was “a story about mass incarceration and racial injustice in this country, and one person’s struggle to fight for a better, safer world.” 

Despite the recall that forced him from office prematurely, Boudin believes that “the movement of progressive prosecution and criminal justice reform is growing. It has momentum. And I have tremendous confidence that the policies and practices championed by this movement will continue to advance safety and be popular amongst voters.”

Boudin told Wednesday’s audience that he was excited to see who would step up to run against Jenkins to become the city’s next DA. He added, “I’m so excited to see who’s going to step up and beat London Breed.”

The post Chesa Boudin Calls San Francisco Authorities a ‘Dictatorship’ appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

News

From Jorge Fitz Gibbon

May 31, 2023 | 10:35 p.m

Warning: Graphic content

Former San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, a controversial progressive prosecutor who was fired by voters last year for his soft-crime policies, is taking over as head of a new criminal justice center at the UC Berkeley School of Law.

Boudin, 42, has been named executive director of the school’s Criminal Law & Justice Center, he announced Wednesday in an editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle.

“In my new role, just as I did as District Attorney, I will continue to draw on networks of attorneys, activists, judges and legal practitioners to support reform and advance safety in a way that is rigorous, principled and responsive to the lived experiences of the communities directly affected,” he wrote.

“The center will systematically evaluate the results of specific policies and communicate to the public what policy changes are essential to improving public safety and equity,” Boudin said.

“Electoral politics will only advance the criminal justice reform movement so far. Winning a few major elections alone is not enough to bring about lasting change. I learned a lot during my tenure, including that people’s feelings are often more important than data and facts.”

Boudin, who faced criticism in the City of Gold as a criminal prosecutor, was voted out in a recall election in June – and announced in August he would not seek to retake the post.

Chase Boudin, 42, the progressive San Francisco prosecutor who was ousted from office by voters in June, said he is now the founding director of Berkeley Law School’s new Criminal Justice Center. AP

Critics said the left-wing prosecutors’ policies contributed to a rise in crime in the city, as drug dealers publicly sold their wares and shoplifting and robberies were rampant.

About 60% of San Francisco voters voted in favor of recall.

But in his editorial, Boudin stuck to his progressive stance, claiming that it’s Republicans and the “sensational media” that are making public safety an issue – calling it an “artificial frenzy.”

“In New York state, officials have rolled back pre-trial release reforms for poor people who cannot afford bail,” Boudin said.

Boudin has been named executive director of the school’s Criminal Law & Justice Center, he announced Wednesday in an editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle.MediaNews Group via Getty Images

“Meanwhile, despite widespread claims of funding cuts, police budgets across the country have skyrocketed without demand for accountability.

“Even in liberal San Francisco, the mayor’s office shut down a regulated drug consumption facility while tightening surveillance of drug users, with results that were both predictable and tragic: the city is experiencing by far its deadliest year from drug overdoses on record.”

At Berkeley, Boudin will conduct research and advocate for criminal justice reform, the school’s dean said in a press release announcing the move.

“Since joining Berkeley Law, I have wanted to create a criminal justice and justice center to further advance the important work our amazing faculty and clinics do in this area,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of Berkely Law School, in a statement.

“I am very excited to open the center and that Chesa Boudin will be its first managing director,” said Chemerinsky.

“Chesa was selected after a nationwide search and has extensive experience across the criminal justice system. He has thought deeply about the system and I can think of no one better able to establish and lead this important center.”

Boudin is the son of Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, who were members of the far-left terrorist organization Weather Underground.

Both were convicted of murder and serving decades of prison time in the deadly 1981 ambush of a Brink armored truck in Rockland County, New York.

The 14-month-old future prosecutor grew up in Chicago with adoptive parents.

“Both of my birth parents were arrested when I was a baby and together served 62 years in prison,” Boudin wrote in his editorial.

“A lifetime of visiting her behind bars, coupled with the years I spent as public defender and then as elected attorney general, have shown me the disastrous failure of California and the country’s current approach to justice.”

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Am 24. Oktober 2021 veröffentlichte der San Francisco Chronicle ein Interview, das die politische Landschaft der Stadt im Alleingang verändern würde. Das Thema war Brooke Jenkins, die das Büro der fortschrittlichen Staatsanwältin der Stadt, Chesa Boudin, verließ und ihm Inkompetenz, ideologische Starrheit und eklatantes Missmanagement vorwarf.

Brooke Jenkins spricht während eines Interviews im Mai über die bevorstehende Rückrufwahl der damaligen Bezirksstaatsanwältin von San Francisco, Chesa Boudin. (Hafen Daley/AP)

„Das Büro der Staatsanwaltschaft ist jetzt ein sinkendes Schiff. Es ist wie die Titanic, und es geht mit der öffentlichen Sicherheit einher“, sagte Jenkins dem Chronicle. Sie kündigte auch an, dass sie sich einer Kampagne für die Wahlmaßnahme anschließen würde, die, wenn sie von den Wählern ratifiziert würde, Boudin entfernen und es Bürgermeister London Breed ermöglichen würde, einen Ersatz zu benennen.

Jenkins, eine schwarze und lateinamerikanische Frau, die in der Bay Area beheimatet ist, wurde zum öffentlichen Gesicht der Boudin-Rückrufbemühungen, die als Referendum über eine fortschreitende Reform der Strafjustiz landesweite Aufmerksamkeit erlangten.

Der Versuch der Recall-Gegner, die Opposition gegen Boudin als Putsch der Republikaner darzustellen, konnte die Wähler in dieser überwältigend liberalen Stadt nicht überzeugen. Im Juni verdrängten San Franciscans Boudin mit großem Vorsprung. Einige Wochen später ernannte Breed Jenkins zu seinem Nachfolger. Und erst vor wenigen Tagen gab Jenkins bekannt, dass sie beabsichtigt, 2022 für eine volle Amtszeit zu kandidieren, wenn Boudin eine Wiederwahl angestrebt hätte.

San Francisco, eine Stadt, in der Afroamerikaner weniger als 6 % der Bevölkerung ausmachen, hat jetzt drei schwarze Anführer: Breed, Jenkins und Polizeichef William Scott. Aber die Stadt, die sie beaufsichtigen, ist mit Herausforderungen konfrontiert, von leeren Bürotürmen bis hin zu Straßen in der Innenstadt, die mit Injektionsnadeln übersät sind. Nicht zuletzt war Boudin mit seinem privilegierten Hintergrund und seinem ungeschickten politischen Stil ein einfacher Sündenbock.

Seine Verleumder haben endlich all die Macht, die sie ihm zwei Jahre lang abgerungen haben. Was werden sie damit machen? Jenkins hat geschworen, enger mit der Polizei zusammenzuarbeiten, Verstöße gegen die Lebensqualität zu verfolgen, Wiederholungstäter zu verfolgen und die Geißel der harten Drogen einzudämmen. Das sind enorm ehrgeizige Ziele, für die Jenkins nicht viel Zeit hat: Jenkins muss im November kandidieren, um ihren Job einfach für den Rest von Boudins erster Amtszeit zu behalten, und dann noch einmal im November 2023, wenn sie eine volle Amtszeit will ihrer eigenen.

Die Geschichte geht weiter

Chesa Boudin und seine Frau Valerie Block am Wahlabend in San Francisco im Juni. (Noah Berger/AP)

„Wir hoffen, Änderungen sofort auf der Straße zu sehen“, sagte Jenkins kürzlich in einem Telefongespräch mit Yahoo News. Sie sagt, dass sich die Menschen bereits „beginnend sicherer fühlen“, nachdem Boudin gegangen ist und seine ablehnende Haltung gegenüber der Polizei vermutlich nicht mehr vorhanden ist. „Zweieinhalb Jahre lang wurden sie völlig ignoriert“, sagt sie über die einfachen San Franciscaner, die vor der Vertreibung Boudins aus dem Amt einen Hinweis darauf gaben, wie tief ihre politische Frustration geworden war, indem sie drei Schulvorstandsmitglieder in Erinnerung riefen, die sich auf ideologische Weise eingelassen hatten eigene Kreuzzüge. „Sie wollen nur gehört werden.“

Yahoo News traf sich zum ersten Mal im Februar mit Jenkins, mitten in der Rückrufaktion von Boudin. Beim Mittagessen in Chinatown drückte sie ihre ungeschminkte Bestürzung darüber aus, was aus San Francisco wurde, eine Pointe von Fox News über den Amoklauf des Liberalismus.

„Ich denke, seine allgemeinen Ziele sind edel“, sagte sie damals über Boudin. „Die Art und Weise, wie er sie erreicht, ist rücksichtslos. Und es ist gefährlich.“

Jenkins sprach im Juli ein zweites Mal mit Yahoo News, nachdem sie mehrere Wochen im Amt war. „Ich bin in ein Büro gegangen, von dem ich wusste, dass es viele Probleme hatte“, begründete sie frühe Personalentscheidungen, die aus ihrer Sicht zwar notwendig waren, aber nicht wenig Kontroversen ausgelöst haben.

Einer der ersten Schritte von Boudin im Jahr 2020 war die Entlassung von sieben Staatsanwälten, was einige befürchtete, eine ideologische Säuberung, die das Büro behindern würde. Jenkins tat bei ihrer Übernahme das Gleiche und entließ 15 von Boudins Top-Mitarbeitern. Viele von ihnen beschwerten sich bei progressiven Medien, die Boudin wohlgesonnen waren.

„Ich kam ins Büro von DA Boudin, um für eine Reform der Strafjustiz zu kämpfen; Dieser Kampf war noch nie so dringend“, sagte Rachel Marshall, ehemalige Sprecherin von Boudin, die von Jenkins gefeuert wurde, gegenüber Intercept. „Es steht außer Frage, dass sich der Ansatz von DA Jenkins dramatisch von meinen Werten unterscheidet.“

Freiwillige auf der 19th Avenue in San Francisco im Mai fordern Autofahrer auf, Boudin zurückzurufen. (Hafen Daley/AP)

Boudin hat ihre Beschwerden eifrig verstärkt und kürzlich ein Flammen-Emoji verwendet, das häufig verwendet wird, um ein feuriges Argument anzuzeigen, das der Zustimmung wert ist, um Marshall zu retweeten. „DA Jenkins verwendet progressive Rhetorik, um einen regressiven Ansatz der Strafjustiz zu maskieren“, lautete Marshalls Nachricht. „Es ist nicht ‚fortschrittlich‘, strengere ‚Konsequenzen‘ (sprich: Inhaftierung) für Eigentumsdelikte oder mehr ‚Rechenschaftspflicht‘ (sprich: Inhaftierung) für Drogen zu fordern.“

„Ich schenke Twitter keine Beachtung“, sagt Jenkins, die aus ihrer Abneigung gegen Boudin keinen Hehl macht. „Er hat das Recht, die Gefühle zu haben, die er hat. Ich bin nur hier, um die Arbeit zu erledigen. Zeitraum.” (Boudin antwortete nicht auf mehrere Anfragen nach Kommentaren von Yahoo News.)

Ähnlich wie Eric Adams, der frühere New Yorker Polizeibeamte, der Anfang dieses Jahres Bürgermeister der Stadt wurde, tat Jenkins den Twitter-Diskurs als Domäne von Eliten ab, die von alltäglichen Sorgen entfernt sind. „Ich bin eine schwarze und lateinamerikanische Frau, die in der Bay Area aufgewachsen ist. Ich kenne – nicht aus einem Buch gelesen oder es in einem College-Klassenzimmer gehört – die Notlage der Farbigen in diesem Land“, sagte Jenkins gegenüber Yahoo News.

„Polizeibrutalität war für mich schon immer real. Ganz ehrlich, ich bin nicht mit Vertrauen in die Polizei aufgewachsen“, fügt sie hinzu. „Ich habe als Kind miterlebt, wie mein Onkel rassistisch profiliert wurde.“

Boudins Beziehung zu Scott, dem Polizeichef, verschlechterte sich zu einer Reihe von Vorwürfen, wie viele befürchteten. Boudin beschuldigte die Abteilung, zu wenige Verhaftungen vorgenommen zu haben; Die Abteilung – und insbesondere die kämpferische Polizeigewerkschaft – beschuldigte Boudin, Fälle nicht strafrechtlich verfolgt zu haben. Anfang Februar kündigte Scott eine Kooperationsvereinbarung mit der Staatsanwaltschaft, ein Zeichen dafür, dass seine Verzweiflung über Boudin (von der Breed bekanntlich geteilt hat) ihren Höhepunkt erreicht hatte.

„Es ist unsere Pflicht, unsere Verpflichtung, mit anderen Strafverfolgungsbehörden zusammenzuarbeiten“, sagt Jenkins. Aber sie lehnt auch die Vorstellung ab, dass sie in eine Zeit zurückkehren will, in der Polizei und Staatsanwaltschaft zusammengearbeitet haben, ohne Rücksicht auf bürgerliche Freiheiten. „Ich möchte, dass meine Anwälte wissen, dass sie, wenn sie etwas in einem Polizeibericht lesen, das nicht richtig sitzt, zum Management gehen und darüber sprechen können.“

Der Polizeichef von San Francisco, William Scott, bei einer Pressekonferenz im Januar. (Gabrielle Lurie/San Francisco Chronicle über Getty Images)

Vorwürfe, sie werde die Überpolizeiung von Minderheitenvierteln fördern und auf eine belastende Verurteilung drängen, seien „ungenau und unfair“, sagt Jenkins, die erste schwarze Frau, die das Amt des Bezirksstaatsanwalts von San Francisco innehatte, seit Vizepräsidentin Kamala Harris dies zwischen 2004 und 2011 tat. Jenkins sagte, ihr Hauptziel sei es, die Ordnung in einem Büro wiederherzustellen, das im Tagesgeschäft so schlecht geführt worden sei, dass ein Richter Boudin einmal von der Bank aus denunziert habe.

„Menschen wollen Kompetenz.“ sagte Jenkins. „Sie wollen Menschen, die sich kümmern. Es gibt eine Menge, die wir hätten tun können, was einfach nicht getan wurde.“

Und sie argumentiert, dass die Welle der vorzeitigen Entlassungen notwendig gewesen sei, um das Vertrauen in das Amt wiederherzustellen. „Der größte Teil des Managements bestand aus Leuten, die keine Erfahrung mit der Staatsanwaltschaft hatten“, sagt sie über Boudins oberste Stellvertreter, von denen die meisten seine ideologischen Ansichten teilten, aber wie der Bezirksstaatsanwalt selbst keine Erfahrung in der Strafverfolgung zu haben schienen.

„Ja, sie waren kompetente und fähige und respektable öffentliche Verteidiger“, fügte Jenkins hinzu. „Aber das Problem war, dass sie keine erfahrenen Staatsanwälte waren.“

Jenkins, Absolvent der University of California, Berkeley, und der juristischen Fakultät der University of Chicago, trat 2014 in die Staatsanwaltschaft von San Francisco ein, um für George Gascón zu arbeiten. Gascón, der weithin als fortschrittlich angesehen wird, ging 2019 nach Los Angeles und bereitete die Wahl vor, die Boudin in diesem Jahr knapp gewann.

„Ich werde nicht wegwerfen, was ich von Gascón gelernt habe“, sagte Jenkins über den Bezirksstaatsanwalt von LA. „Ich habe es genossen, für George zu arbeiten.“ (Gascón, der sich seit seinem Ausscheiden aus San Francisco in Fragen der Strafjustiz deutlich nach links bewegt hat, sieht sich nun einer eigenen Rückrufinitiative gegenüber.)

„Die Strafreform hat nicht mit Chesa begonnen und wird nicht enden“, sagt Jenkins und beschreibt Boudin als „weißen Mann, der in Reichtum aufgewachsen ist“.

Bezirksstaatsanwalt George Gascón am Montag auf einer Pressekonferenz in Los Angeles. (Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times über Getty Images)

Nachdem seine Eltern, Mitglieder des Weather Underground, 1981 wegen eines misslungenen Raubüberfalls, der zu drei Todesfällen führte, ins Gefängnis kamen, wurde Boudin von den wohlhabenden Radikalen Bill Ayers und Bernardine Dohrn aus Chicago großgezogen. Er besuchte die Yale University und reiste durch Südamerika, wo er seine Erfahrungen in einem Buch zusammenfasste, das eine bekanntermaßen vernichtende Rezension von der New York Times erhielt.

Jenkins hingegen stammt aus dem hartgesottenen Vorort Union City in der Bay Area. „Ich weiß, wie es ist, von einer alleinerziehenden Mutter aufgezogen zu werden“, sagte sie gegenüber Yahoo News und beschrieb, wie es war, zu Lebensmittelvorräten und Secondhand-Läden geschleppt zu werden. „Ich bekomme diesen Kampf und ich arbeite dagegen, eine Statistik zu sein. Das beeinflusst die Art und Weise, wie ich diese Arbeit mache.“

Im Jahr 2020 wurde der Cousin ihres Mannes, Jerome Mallory, bei einer Schießerei im Bayview-Viertel von San Francisco getötet, das seit langem unter kommunaler Vernachlässigung leidet. Sie und andere haben argumentiert, dass fortschrittliche Reformen der Strafjustiz wenig für schwarze und braune Gemeinschaften tun, die von Kriminalität geplagt werden.

„Das sind die Menschen, die leiden. Es sind nicht die Menschen hoch oben auf dem Hügel, die über Rassenunterschiede predigen können, die sie nie erlebt haben“, sagt Jenkins über die berühmte Topographie von San Francisco. Auf Hügeln gelegene Viertel wie Pacific Heights überragen den Rest der Stadt. Für die Reichen in viktorianischen Villen und gläsernen Wohntürmen kann die Notlage der Armen und Vernachlässigten nur allzu leicht vergessen werden.

Jenkins hatte nie den Luxus. „Sie sollten nicht so leben müssen“, sagt sie. Sie verspricht auch, es der einflussreichen chinesisch-amerikanischen Gemeinde der Stadt besser zu machen, die sich oft von Boudin beleidigt fühlte. Chinesischsprachige Wähler erwiesen sich sowohl für die Rückrufe von Boudin als auch für die Schulbehörde als entscheidend und werden sicherlich für Jenkins’ eigene Aussichten von zentraler Bedeutung sein.

„Es wird eine klare Verantwortlichkeit geben“, sagt Jenkins. „Sie werden gehört.“

Am Sonntag veranstaltete eine Gruppe von Aktivisten eine Kundgebung nach zwei Angriffen auf asiatische Senioren, von denen einer ein ehemaliger Stadtkommissar gewesen war. Unterdessen strömt Fentanyl weiterhin in die Bay Area. Jenkins hat versprochen, gegenüber Drogendealern viel härter vorzugehen als Boudin, der die Polizisten frustrierte, indem er verlangte, dass sie ihm „Kilos, keine Krümel“ bringen. Aber in jeder Hinsicht wird sie von der Zeit gelähmt sein, ganz zu schweigen von der berühmt freizügigen Kultur der Stadt.

„Ja, wir sind eine Stadt des Mitgefühls. Ja, wir sind eine Stadt der zweiten Chance“, sagte sie. Aber sie weigert sich, San Francisco zur Stadt eines dystopischen, konservativen Albtraums werden zu lassen. „Das sind wir nicht.“

The post San Francisco District Legal professional Brooke Jenkins, who changed Chesa Boudin, nonetheless has a lot to show appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) – San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin has been recalled, the Associated Press is projecting.

59.9% of San Francisco voters opted to oust the district attorney by voting Yes on Proposition H, compared to 40.0% who voted to keep him in office, according to the last preliminary election returns Tuesday at 10:40 pm

Boudin’s recall has national implications, a sign that voters are increasingly concerned about public safety, and illustrating a cleavage in priorities between progressive activists and rank-and-file Democratic voters even in deep-blue San Francisco.

Mary Jung, the former chair of the city’s Democratic Party who became chair of the recall campaign, stated that “San Francisco voters sent a clear message that they want a District Attorney who prioritizes public safety for every community. San Francisco voters are engaged and well-informed. They know that we can have important criminal justice reforms and public safety for all, but that neither was being achieved with Chesa in office.”

Jung stated that “San Franciscans want leadership that holds serious, violent, and repeat offenders accountable while never forgetting the rights of victims and their families.”

“This election does not mean that San Francisco has drifted to the far right on our approach to criminal justice,” Jung continued. “In fact, San Francisco has been a national beacon for progressive criminal justice reform for decades and will continue to do so with new leadership. By recalling Boudin from office, San Francisco can now move forward in charting a better and safer path for our city.”

California primary election 2022 results

In a speech at The Ramp on the waterfront, Boudin interpreted the results as the result of frustration with the city’s intractable problems, such as City Hall corruption, and societal changes, such as the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.

“People are right to be frustrated. There’s so much room for improvement. People should hold all of us to a higher standard,” Boudin said.

Nonetheless, Boudin continued to blame the recall on the right-wing.

“Let me make it very clear about what happened tonight,” Boudin said. “The right-wing billionaires outspent us three-to-one and exploited an environment in which people are appropriately upset.”

Boudin was first elected as San Francisco’s district attorney in 2019, before many of the tumultuous events that have rocked American society in recent years — the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns, the nationwide increase in violence, the 2020 election and both impeachments of former President Donald Trump, and the mass protests after the police killing of George Floyd.

Boudin had been a deputy public defender and promised one of the most far-reaching experiments in criminal justice reform that a major American city had seen. He promised to go after rogue police and large corporations and reduce mass incarceration and racial disparities within the system.

For Boudin, the fight was personal ⁠—his parents, David Gilbert and Kathy Boudin, spent much of Chesa Boudin’s life in prison due to their role in a 1981 robbery while they were part of the violent leftist group the Weather Underground.

Boudin was also a leading face in a national movement of progressive prosecutors, a movement that included his predecessor as San Francisco’s top prosecutor, George Gascon.

Boudin’s 2019 run had been the first open race for district attorney in about a century, until Gascon abruptly resigned prior to his run for Los Angeles District Attorney, leading Mayor London Breed to appoint her favored candidate, Democratic regular Suzy Loftus, as the interim district attorney.

Loftus lost the position in the final round of ranked choice voting by a margin of 1.6%, and just months after Boudin took the reins of the office it seemed like the winds were in his favor as tens of millions of Americans expressed outrage over the very injustices Boudin promised to fight.

SF DA Chesa Boudin addresses recall, crime live in primetime on KRON4

But the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown brought with it a nationwide increase in homicides and violent crime. While San Francisco’s homicide rate has been about the same for most of the last decade, burglaries have risen 45% since 2019, and in 2021 alone the city saw a rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders of 567%.

The alleged December 31, 2020 killing of two women in a south of Market intersection by Troy McAlister was a crucial turning point. McAlister had trouble with the law for most of his adult life, and between June and December 2020 was arrested by the San Francisco Police Department five times. In each of the cases, however, the DA’s office declined to file charges.

A petition asking Boudin to resign garnered almost 15,000 signatures and its author, former Republican mayoral candidate Richie Greenberg, spearheaded the first recall petition, which came up short.

In a statement to KRON4 on Tuesday, Greenberg stated that the recall was “a bittersweet effort.”

“We shouldn’t be popping champagne bottles,” he stated. “People have died under Chesa Boudin’s watch. Lives have been ruined, families broken, businesses shuttered.

“Let this recall send a clear message to the rest of City Hall officials that we are unhappy with their governance,” he continued. “Polls recently show dismally low approval ratings for the Board of Supervisors, who need to take a hard look in the mirror and consider actual changes they each need to make in addressing our city’s myriad issues.”

And, however, an effort spearheaded by former San Francisco Democratic Party chair Mary Jung and bolstered by the support of former Assistant District Attorney Brooke Jenkins gained more and more momentum through 2021, qualifying for the ballot.

The signs were coming, though: Boudin’s chief of staff David Campos lost an assembly bid in April in a nearly 2-1 loss.

The recall succeeded despite only two supervisors endorsing it, and with the opposition of a majority of the city’s supervisors, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Francisco Democratic Party, though Breed’s silence was conspicuous.

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“This was never about one vote count, it was never about one election night party, it was never about specifically which person gets to be in the office of the district attorney,” he added. “This is a movement, not a moment, in history.”

Brooke Jenkins, a former assistant district attorney in Boudin’s office, and a lead organizer in the campaign to remove him, voiced gratitude at an election night party at the Del Mar lounge in the Marina District.

“I feel relieved. I feel hopeful for San Francisco,” she told KQED. “We knew all along this was not a Republican billionaire effort, that this was not a pushback against reform, that we were trying to protect reform. That we knew a DA can balance implementing reform with prioritizing public safety.”

The recall was largely driven by San Francisco’s more conservative neighborhoods — including the Sunset District, Marina District, Park Merced, and St. Francis Wood — where overall turnout was higher than in progressive-leaning districts that generally stood by Boudin.

While Boudin’s loss is decisive, he won’t be required to leave office until 10 days after the election is declared official by the Board of Supervisors, which may take place at its June 25 meeting. Mayor London Breed is expected to announce Boudin’s replacement soon thereafter.

A number of names have been floated to replace Boudin, including Jenkins, prosecutor Nancy Tung (who said she would run in a future election), and San Francisco Supervisor Catherine Stefani (one of the few elected officials to endorse the recall).

Breed on Wednesday insisted the city is not backing away from progressive criminal justice reforms, and pledged to meet with community groups and police officials before appointing the next DA.

“This does not mean that criminal justice reform in San Francisco is going anywhere. It does not mean that there will be, all of a sudden, a significant setback,” she said. “We want justice. But we also want to make sure that people have a second chance.”

A group of recall supporters — including Brooke Jenkins, center — take a selfie during an election night party at Del Mar in San Francisco on June 7, 2022. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)

And, Boudin may also choose to run in a future district attorney’s race. But newly appointed Supervisor Matt Dorsey, a former San Francisco police spokesperson who became one of the few elected officials to endorse Boudin’s recall, said he doesn’t think another election would bode well for Boudin, based on Tuesday’s vote.

“It could happen, yeah. But I think the numbers say something,” Dorsey said.

In the meantime, Dorsey noted, the debate over Boudin’s record has fractured the community, pitting neighbor against neighbor.

“The most important thing is, we’ve got to put the hurt feelings behind us and move the city forward,” he said.

The historic recall garnered national attention, bitterly dividing Democrats in the city on issues of crime, policing and public safety reform. The effort was fueled by a tsunami of contributions — more than $7 million, according to filings at the San Francisco Ethics Commission — from well-heeled donors, including real estate interests and Republican billionaire William Oberndorf, who individually gave north of $650,000.

San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin addresses a crowd at The Ramp restaurant after the effort to recall him succeeded. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)

In contrast, recall opponents raised less than half as much — about $3 million — with the largest donations from the American Civil Liberties Union, a criminal justice reform PAC and tech billionaire Chris Larsen.

For months, the Yes on H campaign has saturated San Francisco media with online, television and radio ads, while also investing heavily in a field operation and a texting campaign.

The post San Francisco Voters Oust District Legal professional Chesa Boudin in Unprecedented Recall appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Former San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin said he would not run for reelection this year, saying he would instead take time with his family after “more than three years of nearly non-stop campaigning.”

Boudin previously said he had not ruled out running for his former job, following his recall from office in June.

In a 14-tweet thread Thursday morning, Boudin said over the past few weeks he had taken stock of the burden that campaigning has had on his family, adding that while he was “committed to criminal justice reform, I’m also committed to my family.

“My son is on the verge of taking his first step and speaking his first word. My wife’s research on Multiple Sclerosis at UCSF deserves the same support she has offered my work. My elderly father just came home from prison after more than 40 years,” Boudin said. “My mother died in May and I have not had time to clean out her apartment or plan her memorial or even mourn her death.”

Boudin went on to list his proudest accomplishments his team achieved during his two and a half years in office, including an expansion of victim services, resentencing work, a worker protection unit and their “historic strides in police accountability.”

Boudin could go after the DA post again in the next regular election, in November 2023. He has already filed paperwork with the city if he chooses to do run next year. Boudin’s tweets made no mention of whether he would run again in 2023.

The successful recall of Boudin touched off the creation of a November special election to determine who will serve the remainder of his initial term. District Attorney Brooke Jenkins was appointed by Mayor London Breed to fill the role.

Boudin and Jenkins both declined to be interviewed Thursday.

Megan Cassidy is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: megan.cassidy@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @meganrcassidy

The post Chesa Boudin says he gained’t run for San Francisco DA this yr appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Crime, homelessness and Democratic divisions over the issues took center stage Tuesday as a liberal prosecutor in San Francisco was recalled and seven states held primaries that helped mold each party’s image heading into November’s fight for control of Congress, statehouses and major cities across the country.

The recall of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin (D) — whom critics called too lenient — came as angst over liberal leaders’ approach to public safety also loomed large in a contest for Los Angeles mayor, where Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif .) and billionaire businessman Rick Caruso are projected to advance to a runoff in November. Caruso, a former Republican, has pitched himself as a different kind of Democrat who will fix long-simmering crises in the nation’s second-largest city.

Soaring inflation, gun violence and abortion rights were on voters’ minds Tuesday as they headed to the polls in California, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota. Republicans are seizing on rising costs and crime to try to retake the House and narrowly divided Senate this fall. They have sought to pin those problems on the Biden administration and liberal policies, arguments that resonated with some voters Tuesday.

Turning in their ballots for Caruso together, a group of neighbors wished for “a better future” before taking a selfie. One woman said crime was her biggest concern — her husband’s brother had been robbed at gunpoint the day before in Burbank.

Democrats are bracing for an uphill battle this fall amid low approval ratings for President Biden and political head winds that the president’s party has historically faced in first midterms. To counter those trends, Democrats are seeking to cast GOP candidates as extremists beholden to Trump.

“I’d like to get a functional country again,” said Iowa voter Mehgin Lawrence, who was torn between several Democratic candidates vying to challenge Republican Charles E. Grassley, 88, the country’s longest-serving Republican senator. “There is a lot of dysfunction in general on both sides of the aisle.”

Grassley won renomination, the AP projected, and he is favored to keep the seat. In the Democratic race to replace him, retired Navy Vice Adm. Mike Franken defeated former congresswoman Abby Finkenauer, who was also seen as a strong contender. Franken has sought to appeal to Iowa’s swing voters. “It is that middle segment who want logical, pragmatic, smart, dedicated national servants to work for them, leader servants,” he said in a recent debate. “I believe I’m that person.”

The night’s first results from the East Coast and the Deep South, meanwhile, highlighted conflicts within the GOP, offering the latest tests of former president Donald Trump’s influence and more moderate candidates’ efforts to beat back challengers from their right.

In Mississippi, Rep. Michael Guest (R) was counted in a close race with challenger Michael Cassidy with a majority of the vote. Cassidy targeted Guest’s vote last year for a commission to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection by a pro-Trump mob at the US Capitol. Rep. Steven M. Palazzo (R-Miss.) was forced into a runoff, the Associated Press projected, amid scrutiny of an ethics body’s finding there is significant evidence he misspent campaign money.

“Look at where we are today,” said Pamela Turner, a retired nurse and “staunch Republican” in Mississippi who blamed Democrats for the state of the country, even as she voted to oust Palazzo. “Look at the price of gas.”

Sam Welford, 45, cast his vote for one of the opponents, Clay Wagner, and said Palazzo has “run his course.” Welford said he does not align with any party but said rising prices under Biden played a key role in his choice to vote Republican Tuesday.

In New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District — one of many the GOP hopes to flip this year — Tom Kean Jr. was projected to defeat challengers who attacked him as not conservative enough. And Sen. John Thune (RS.D.), who has clashed with Trump, won renomination, the AP projected.

Republicans call Kean a top recruit and say the former state senator is well-positioned to flip the seat in November. The son of a former governor and grandson of a former Congressman, Kean finished just over a percentage point behind incumbent Rep. Tom Malinowski (D) in 2020 and will face Malinowski again this fall under more favorable conditions for Republicans nationwide.

At a polling site in Bridgewater Township on Tuesday, Bob Hummer said that while he voted in the Democratic primary, he is leaning toward voting for Kean in the general election — he said thinks Republicans are better on economic issues.

In California, Democrats offered voters different tacks and tones on public safety — underscoring how the issue has ranked voters even in liberal strongholds.

In 2019, voters embraced Boudin’s pitch for a less punitive justice system that looks to rehabilitate offenders. Drawing on his public defender experience and personal story — his parents went to prison when he was a child — Boudin triumphed over an interim district attorney backed by the Democratic establishment. The district attorney’s supporters say he has become an easy scapegoat for a systemic and nationwide problem: Crime rose in many large cities during the coronavirus pandemic.

“There is a very long tradition from the right of using these issues as a wedge, using these issues as a weapon, with no actual interest in the solutions that have been proven to reduce crime,” said Julie Edwards, a spokesperson for the anti -recall effort, in an interview.

But recently, leaders like Boudin have been on the defensive, as Republicans highlight some activists’ push to “defund the police” and as Democrats including Biden try to recalibrate their party’s image.

With about half the vote tallied by early Wednesday morning, roughly 60 percent were in favor of recalling Boudin, the AP said. San Francisco Mayor London Breed (D), who has called for a crackdown on “criminals who are destroying our city,” will appoint Boudin’s replacement.

Caruso, the wealthy developer in Los Angeles, has been framing himself as the change candidate in the mayoral race, vowing a tougher response to homelessness and crime. He has poured his own fortune into the campaign, spending tens of millions of dollars.

Bass, a veteran lawmaker and finalist to become Biden’s running mate in 2020, has also promised to tackle a “humanitarian emergency” of homelessness and made public safety a key issue. But she emphasizes social services to prevent crime and says not all neighborhoods want police to be more visible.

Early Wednesday morning, with most votes yet to be counted, Bass and Caruso were in a tight race. Because neither candidate won a majority of the vote in a crowded field, they will face off again November, when strategists say they expect Caruso would face tougher odds.

To some voters, the choice was anyone but Caruso.

“I think he’s a little too polished for my taste,” said Daniel Sackler, 57, even as he agreed with some of Caruso’s proposals on crime. “Billionaires are not to be trusted for the most part.”

Jennifer Dustin, 46, said she has considered moving her family from Los Angeles because of concerns about crime — but still, she voted for Bass.

“They are all going to say the same stuff,” Jake Kuczeruk, 33, said. “If it translates to action is the real question.”

A liberal DA finds voters’ moods have changed even in San Francisco

Also in California, Rep. Young Kim (R), who flipped her seat in 2020, was facing not only Democrat Asif Mahmood but also GOP rivals including Greg Raths, a city council member and retired fighter pilot. A super PAC aligned with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has funded ads against Raths as Young tries to ensure she advances in California’s unusual primary system. The two candidates with the most votes proceed to the general election regardless of party.

California Rep. David G. Valadao (R) was seeking reelection as his opponent, Chris Mathys, attacked his vote last year to impeach Trump for his conduct leading up to the storming of the Capitol last year. Trump hasn’t endorsed a challenger, despite pouring massive political capital into other critics’ races — underscoring many Republicans’ belief that Valadao is their best bet at retaining a blue-leaning district.

Other US House races also grabbed the attention of party strategists. In Iowa, state Sen. Zach Nunn won the Republican race to challenge Rep. Cindy Axne, the conservative-leaning state’s only Democratic legislator in Congress. The seat is expected to be highly competitive in this case.

In Montana, one of Trump’s Cabinet members — former interior secretary Ryan Zinke, who resigned during an ethics investigation — was in a tight race for the Republican nomination in a new congressional district expected to boost the GOP’s influence in the House. Montana got a second house seat after the 2020 Census.

Zinke, who secured Trump’s endorsement, has four opponents in the GOP primary. Critics have noted he splits his time between Montana and California and have also highlighted the government watchdog report released this year that found that he broke federal rules as interior secretary and also lied to an ethics official.

Former local TV weatherman Mark Ronchetti won in a crowded GOP field to take on New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D), according to the Associated Press, as Republicans see room for gains even in a state controlled by Democrats. Ronchetti ran for Senate in the state in 2020 and lost to Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D).

Democrats said they believe that Ronchetti’s views are not in line with New Mexico voters, pointing to comments he’s made questioning climate change as the state has faced massive wildfires. “No individual fire or storm is the result of climate change,” Ronchetti told the Albuquerque Journal. “That isn’t the case.”

Annie Linskey and Scott Clement in Washington; Brian Wellner of Iowa; Ashley Cusick in Mississippi; Miranda Green in Los Angeles; and Jack Wright in New Jersey contributed to this report.

The post San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin recalled as June 7 primaries spotlight Democratic divisions appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin is fighting for his job, with a recall election on Tuesday’s ballot. 

Mr. Boudin is part of a recently elected wave of similarly minded progressive prosecutors in Seattle, Kansas City, Chicago, Philadelphia, and elsewhere. Their movement seeks to prevent certain offenders from repeatedly churning through the system by, for example, diverting them to mental health, drug misuse, or education programs. They seek accountability of rogue police officers and greater post-conviction justice. They support better victims’ services and treating juvenile suspects as juveniles – not as adults.

Why We Wrote This

A recall vote facing San Francisco’s district attorney may indicate an underlying doubt that criminal justice reforms across the country can handle the challenges posed by rising crime rates.

But crime rates across the United States went up during the pandemic. And in a midterm year when crime and violence have edged up to rank third among the list of Americans’ top concerns – behind inflation and the economy – Mr. Boudin and other reformist prosecutors are under attack.

“Voters fundamentally understand that the reason they elect DAs is to put the bad guys behind bars,” says veteran Democratic strategist Garry South, in Los Angeles. If Mr. Boudin is recalled – and several polls point to that likelihood – “it sends a message to Democrats that even in a very liberal bastion like San Francisco, prosecutors have to do their job, and they have to be perceived as doing their job. If they just come off as reformers of the criminal justice system, that’s not what they’re hired to do.”

San Francisco

It’s been a mixed day for Chesa Boudin, San Francisco’s embattled district attorney. One of the nation’s most progressive prosecutors, he’s fighting an unprecedented recall election – a test of criminal justice reform in America’s most liberal city, and, Mr. Boudin argues, an unfair test. 

On one of his recent “merchant walks” in the ethnically diverse Excelsior neighborhood, many shopkeepers happily take a campaign sign for their window. They appreciate his personal attention, fluent Spanish, and efforts to speak Chinese, Russian, and even Farsi. Pedestrians stop him for a photo or to offer encouragement. A passing driver shouts support.

But he also hears from critics. More than one business on his sidewalk tour of taquerias, auto shops, and small retailers has been burgled – a hardware store just the day before. People have witnessed unchecked retail theft at two nearby Walgreens. One of them closed last year. Mr. Boudin backtracks to talk with a man who is hosing down a bright blue Yamaha motorcycle in the driveway at Pro Image Auto Collision on Mission Street. “I understand you support the recall. What’s your concern?” he asks.

Why We Wrote This

A recall vote facing San Francisco’s district attorney may indicate an underlying doubt that criminal justice reforms across the country can handle the challenges posed by rising crime rates.

The worker says the district attorney has had “all these years” to change the city – and Mr. Boudin interrupts, talking over him. “How many years have I had?” he quizzes. The shop worker keeps speaking, driving to the point that people who commit crimes need to be held accountable. “I agree,” says Mr. Boudin, pointing out that he’s been in office less than 2 1/2 years, and was almost immediately shut down by the pandemic. Despite that, he tells the man he has been able to increase the rates that charges have been brought in cases of homicides, sexual assaults, and drug sales, compared with his predecessor.

The employee continues hosing down the bike, unconvinced. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”  

This “seeing is believing” is Mr. Boudin’s challenge, and to some extent, a challenge for Democrats in a midterm year when crime and violence have edged up to rank third among the list of Americans’ top concerns – behind inflation and the economy, according to a March survey by Gallup. Political and criminal justice experts warn not to extrapolate a national trend from a single locale. And yet, Mr. Boudin is not the only progressive prosecutor under attack, with George Gascon in Los Angeles and Alvin Bragg in Manhattan having to backpedal on some reforms. Mr. Gascon is also being hounded by a second attempt at a recall. Even when reformist prosecutors have voter support, some state legislatures are trying to clip their wings. That’s the case in Pennsylvania, after Philadelphia’s Larry Krasner won reelection last year.  

“Voters fundamentally understand that the reason they elect DAs is to put the bad guys behind bars,” says veteran Democratic strategist Garry South, in Los Angeles. If Mr. Boudin is recalled – and several polls point to that likelihood – “it sends a message to Democrats that even in a very liberal bastion like San Francisco, prosecutors have to do their job, and they have to be perceived as doing their job. If they just come off as reformers of the criminal justice system, that’s not what they’re hired to do.”

Francine Kiefer/The Christian Science Monitor

San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin talks with business owners and residents in San Francisco on May 17, 2022. Mr. Boudin is one of a number of progressive prosecutors across the U.S. who are under fire for their attempts at criminal justice reform.

A reformer whose parents were incarcerated

When Mr. Boudin ran for district attorney in 2019, he emphasized his upbringing as a child of incarcerated parents. David Gilbert and Kathy Boudin were members of the militant, leftist Weather Underground. After a 1981 botched armored truck heist, they were convicted of felony murder for their supporting roles. His mother was released in 2003. She died in May. His father was released late last year.

The toddler was raised by adoptive parents in Chicago, who had also been members of the radical group. He grew up to graduate from Yale Law School and eventually became a public defender in San Francisco – driven by his personal experiences with the criminal justice system. But he switched roles to pursue the top prosecutor job, running on a reform platform to end racist, mass incarceration. 

Mr. Boudin is part of a wave of similarly minded district attorneys in Seattle, Kansas City, Chicago, Philadelphia, and elsewhere who were elected over the past five years or so. Their movement seeks to prevent certain offenders from repeatedly churning through the system by, for example, diverting them to mental health, drug misuse, or education programs. They seek accountability of rogue police officers and greater post-conviction justice. They support better victims’ services and treating juvenile suspects as juveniles – not as adults. 

A lightning rod for the city’s ills

In a city with a history of progressive prosecutors, Mr. Boudin barely won his race, besting his opponent by 1.6 percentage points.

Now it’s not his background, but his performance that’s up for discussion. The debate boils down to a charge that he’s too lenient with criminals, but the reality is more complex. In a city where two-thirds of voters recently polled say they feel less safe than in 2019, and 57% want to recall Mr. Boudin, the DA has become a lightning rod for everything that ails San Francisco, from homelessness and rampant open-air drug use and overdoses, to auto burglaries, hate crimes, and spectacular smash-and-grab retail theft. 

Homicides in the city were up during the pandemic, from a half-century low. In the first five months of 2022, they’re slightly down, while assaults and rape are up, and larceny and theft up substantially.

“There are so many moving parts” behind crime trends and the recall, says Magnus Lofstrom, policy director of criminal justice at the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. The pandemic interrupted lives and included a period of “wild fluctuations” in crime that affected people’s feelings about public safety, he says. 

Nationally in 2020, residential burglaries plunged by more than half but homicides rose by nearly 30%, and hate crimes against Asians surged by 76%, according to the FBI. Gun sales flourished and so did gun deaths. To control contagion, homeless shelters reduced their populations and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention encouraged encampments; jails and prisons released certain inmates early, and courts operated at far below capacity.  

Given the many factors influencing crime, Mr. Loftstrom says that “there’s a limitation [to the effect] a district attorney can have on crime rates.”

“We cannot do it alone”

When Mr. Boudin is campaigning, he works the personal angle – if a shopkeeper is Taiwanese, he mentions a glorious trip surfing on the Taiwanese coast. He expresses empathy for a difficult last two years, and hands out his business card for people to email him directly. But many people want to know what he’s doing about crime, about cleaning up the city. That’s when he delves into the workings of government: He’s not the sanitation department, the mayor, the board of supervisors, or the police. That he can only prosecute the cases that police send him.

“We cannot do it alone,” he told the Monitor about lessons learned in his brief tenure. “We have to work with other agencies.” When asked what he’s most proud of, he says, “I’m most proud of how we handled the pandemic.”

Since taking office in 2020, he as well as his supporters say, the DA ended cash bail, reduced the jail population, added Chinese speakers to victims services, charged police officers for abuse of force, went after ghost guns, and set up an Innocence Commission to review wrongful convictions. Joaquin Ciria – in prison for 32 years for a murder he did not commit – was the first person exonerated after a review by the commission. He was released in April.  

Mr. Boudin and his campaign point to misinformation and fearmongering from the recall side, which they describe as an aggressive drive by Republicans and the police union. They are pushing “a false narrative of rising crime and an ineffectual DA. That’s not true,” says John Avalos, former representative for the Excelsior neighborhood on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors – which overwhelmingly supports Mr. Boudin. “We know he’s done what he’s promised.” 

The initial recall effort was started by Richie Greenburg, who ran as a Republican for mayor in 2019. It’s since been taken on by some high-profile Democrats, including a former San Francisco Democratic Party chair, Mary Jung. Republicans are contributing to the recall, but its organizers say 83% of donors are Democrats or people not identified with a party.  

Francine Kiefer/The Christian Science Monitor

Brooke Jenkins, a former assistant district attorney for San Francisco, speaks at a literature drop-off rally in the city’s Portola neighborhood, May 21, 2022. She quit her job last year to help lead the recall effort against her former boss, District Attorney Chesa Boudin.

“Balance. That’s my word.”

Democratic leaders who support the recall say they still advocate criminal justice reform. Just not Boudin-style.

“One of the main issues is that Chesa has taken a one-size-fits-all approach,” says Brooke Jenkins, a former homicide prosecutor who quit last year to join the recall campaign. She says she is among 40 colleagues who have left the office under Mr. Boudin. “Balance. That’s my word.”

In an interview before setting off with volunteers for a literature drop, she says Mr. Boudin started off with several blanket policies: never charge juveniles as adults, never use gang charges, never use prior serious and violent felonies as a punishment enhancement, never use cash bail. While she supports “the spirit” of such changes, the problem is that “you never leave yourself the room for exceptional circumstances.”

Ms. Jenkins mentions a homicide case in which there was video evidence, but the exact identity of the shooters was indiscernible. Prosecutors could have persisted with gang conspiracy charges used specifically for these kinds of cases, but didn’t because of the policy, she says. Over the next 11 months, two of them shot people. “Chesa’s alternative [to incarceration] is release, release, release.”

If Mr. Boudin is recalled, Ms. Jenkins and others hope the mayor will appoint someone with experience as a prosecutor. Mr. Boudin still has his public defender’s hat on, she says.  

Mr. South, the Democratic strategist, reaches back in history, to the failed campaign of President George H.W. Bush in 1992. A recession had not yet officially started, but people felt economic pain. “People felt it, but he kept saying, ‘Look at the statistics.’” Whether it’s a district attorney like Mr. Boudin or LA’s Mr. Gascon, if the perception is that crime is out of control, homelessness is taking over the sidewalks, and people are stealing catalytic converters, “it doesn’t matter what the statistics are.”

The post Chesa Boudin: Legal justice reform on trial in San Francisco appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Boudin derangement syndrome: Since taking office in 2020, the DA has become the locus of a corporate backlash. (Courtesy of the Recall Chesa Boudin campaign)

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After just two years in office, Chesa Boudin, the district attorney of San Francisco, gets blamed for every crime in the book—even offenses committed before he took office and beyond the city limits. For his efforts to tackle wage theft, end cash bail, expand the program that diverts nonviolent offenders from prison, and prosecute abusive cops, Boudin has been rewarded with a recall campaign scapegoating him for all of this city’s woes. The vote takes place on June 7, and recent polls suggest it will be an uphill battle for Boudin and progressives.

Loaded with cash from local billionaires, Big Tech, and other corporate interests, Neighbors for a Better San Francisco and an allied group called San Franciscans for Public Safety have poured a whopping $5.1 million into the campaign to recall Boudin. Real estate interests have also kicked in, including more than $600,000 from Shorenstein Realty Services, a major local developer. As the Democratic strategist Cooper Teboe told Forbes, Boudin is “the unfortunate recipient of all of the anger from the investor class and the billionaire class.” The recall’s top funder is the Republican billionaire William Oberndorf, who donated $3.7 million to federal candidates in 2020—mostly to Republicans, including Senators Mitch McConnell and Tom Cotton.

While Boudin is the primary target, this centrist uprising first came to public attention in February when it spearheaded the recall of three school board members (a campaign that was financed heavily by Oberndorf and the billionaire investor Arthur Rock). Next came electoral threats to progressive supervisors who didn’t support the school board recall, revealing a larger political agenda. Then, in late April, corporate interests mounted a gerrymandering effort that could put some supervisor districts in the centrist camp. And now, the furious push to recall Boudin.

“There is a big money effort to roll back progressive politics in San Francisco,” says Tim Redmond, founder and editor of the progressive news site 48 Hills, who has covered politics here since 1986.

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Propelling this movement is a well-financed narrative that has insinuated itself into local media and politics—and a sizable portion of the electorate. This narrative blames San Francisco progressives for complex crises whose causes reach back decades and far beyond the city line. The writer Michael Shellenberger, who’s making an improbable run for the California governor’s office, bizarrely blames the left for the city’s ills in his book San Fransicko, with its bombastic subtitle: Why Progressives Ruin Cities.

At the heart of this reactionary movement is a misdiagnosis of genuine problems. Burgeoning homelessness and drug addiction here are preventable tragedies. Housing costs are among the highest in the nation, with the median single-family home priced at $2 million, far out of reach for most people. The city also hosts the world’s greatest concentration of billionaires, and the Bay Area is home to California’s most glaring inequality, with the top 10 percent of earners raking in 12.2 times what folks in the bottom 10 percent make.

While progressives have often held a majority in the city’s legislature, they haven’t had a mayoral ally since Art Agnos lost to conservative Frank Jordan in 1991; the city’s “strong mayor” charter also adds to centrists’ power when they control the executive branch. Rising homelessness, addiction, and crime are the result of national and regional crises, including woefully insufficient spending on supportive housing for homeless people. Redmond says the current scapegoating is “a total distraction from the fundamental inequalities in the US and in San Francisco.” If anything, progressive policies like the city’s living wage ordinance, universal health care access, rent control, tenants’ rights laws, and taxes on extreme wealth have blunted these crises.

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Chasing Chesa, Fomenting Fear

When he was elected in November 2019, Boudin was hailed as a bright new star in a wave of reforming district attorneys that included Larry Krasner in Philadelphia, Rachael Rollins in the Boston area, and Kim Foxx in Cook County, Ill. All have faced criticism, but the backlash in San Francisco has been particularly virulent, prompting pundits to label it “Chesa Boudin Derangement Syndrome.” As the San Francisco Examiner writer Gil Duran described it, “Every crime trend—even those pre-dating his tenure—can somehow be blamed on him. Car burglarized? Blame Boudin. Walgreens and CVS closing hundreds of stores nationwide? Boudin’s fault. National fentanyl epidemic? Thanks, Boudin. Police not making enough arrests? Boudin hurt their morale.” One recent recall campaign ad featured a man who closed his store because of drug dealing—but a reporter revealed that the business had been shuttered before Boudin was elected.

San Francisco has its share of urban problems. But analysis by the San Francisco Chronicle found that “reported crime data does not clearly show a trend toward worsening public safety.” Even as crimes like car break-ins have increased in the city (as they have statewide and beyond), violent crimes are way down. But that hasn’t stopped the fearmongers from fanning a political wildfire.

The typically center-right Chronicle surprised locals with a strong editorial against the recall, arguing, “Crime stats that mirror those of when Boudin took office do not justify a recall. Violent crime is low and has stayed low even as it has surged across the country…. Cities across the country—regardless of their criminal justice approach—have struggled after COVID lockdowns lifted.” The Examiner and the local Democratic Party also reject the recall, as have many former prosecutors and judges.

Blaming the victims: Municipal workers trash an encampment of unhoused people just a few blocks from San Francisco’s City Hall. (Christopher D. Cook)

Scapegoating Homeless People

On a recent afternoon, across the street from a shining new glass tower of condos for sale a few blocks from City Hall, city workers descended on tents arrayed neatly on the sidewalk’s edge. A burly public works employee snatched and tossed a silver tent onto a platform truck, atop other “junk” bound for the dump.

“The man that lives in there is a 65-year-old dude who’s out on a medical appointment,” a fellow tent dweller, an amply tattooed Marine veteran, told me. “It’s our constitutional right to live here, to have a home. You can’t take that away from us,” he urged the workers in an increasingly irate voice. When I asked who’s demanding the tent removals, city workers insisted, “The mayor, London Breed.”

Trashing an elderly homeless man’s shelter and belongings—a violation of city policy, advocates tell me—is brutally familiar in this city, where “there are more anti-homeless laws than in any other city in the state,” says Jennifer Friedenbach, the longtime director of the Coalition on Homelessness. “Homelessness in San Francisco is a popular wedge issue,” she continues. “And politicians—Shellenberger no exception—stoke fear of homeless people to get their name in the paper…. Homeless people, drug dealers, and criminals are all lumped together and scapegoated.”

A Twitter account named “BetterSOMA” (referencing the South of Market area) posts photographs of homeless people shooting up or crumpled on the sidewalk, a humiliating public exposure that could haunt these people’s futures. When I confronted the group about this practice, BetterSOMA and its acolytes came at me like piranhas. As one put it, “It should be humiliating. They should be shamed. If you coddle street addicts, MORE SHOW UP and are lured into depravity.” Another insisted, “They are drug addicts. Their dignity went out the window before the photos pal.”

The pandemic has only intensified the street crises, Friedenbach says. “People have been out there for two years—their [precarity] has gotten much worse, their drug use much worse.” Meanwhile, Friedenbach sees a growing “promotion of tried-and-failed strategies” such as criminalization and forcing homeless mentally ill people into institutions through conservatorship. The forces behind the recall campaign, she adds, “are complaining about homelessness and then fighting against the solutions,” citing Mayor Breed’s opposition to voter-approved measures to expand funding for homeless services and shelters.

As the writer Gray Brechin, founder of the Living New Deal, puts it, “The question isn’t asked enough: Why are people taking so many drugs? To dull the pain of living in this incredibly cruel society. At the root of it is poverty,” he says, and “a dystopic neoliberal environment that is guaranteed to drive people insane” while living on the streets.

Follow the Money

Fueling this city’s centrist octopus is an engine of big money—largely from Big Tech, real estate, and other corporate interests. And these efforts reach beyond the recalls: As 48 Hills documented, Oberndorf has given at least $300,000 to Neighbors for a Better San Francisco—money spent campaigning against progressive candidates and measures. In 2020, the group and its corporate allies—all aligned with Mayor Breed—spent big to oppose Proposition I, a real estate transfer tax on the wealthiest property owners to help fund emergency aid and affordable housing in the pandemic. (Voters approved the measure by a large margin and rejected several centrist candidates.)

The centrist constellation includes tech-funded groups like GrowSF, AdvanceSF (whose leadership is a who’s who from the Chamber of Commerce), and the YIMBY (“Yes in My Back Yard”) movements pushing a maximal growth agenda that includes “streamlining” environmental reviews to spur more building, principally of market-rate housing. This agenda is part of what the writer Rebecca Solnit calls the “free-market fundamentalism” that has become a local religion. “The constant narrative going on for decades is that if we just build enough buildings, housing will become affordable,” Solnit told me. “But we have more than 40,000 vacant units here,” she notes, citing a city report. “We have a distribution problem, not a supply problem.”

Observing this array of centrist and big money groups, Redmond concludes, “They’re all connected, and the money proves that. Politics takes money, and they’ve got the money.” He adds, “Well-financed efforts at framing the debate have had an effect.”

In April, after many epic late-night hearings, the city’s Redistricting Task Force finalized a new electoral map that could favor centrist district supervisors at the expense of progressive stalwarts like Connie Chan, another target of real estate interests. In an e-mail obtained by 48 Hills, the real estate developer Nick Podell, a board member of Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, crowed, “For the 1st time in the 40 years that I’ve lived in the City, there is a large coordinated centrist/moderate movement to take on Progressive power.” That effort, Podell wrote, is poised to “flip 3 districts with Progressive Supervisors to moderate majorities.” The local Republican leader Richie Greenberg cheered the centrist map, writing, “Connie Chan is TOAST.”

San Francisco is chronically conflicted. A nominally liberal town where Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly 10-fold, it is also a historical hub of finance capital, extreme wealth accumulation, and corporate profit, which all fuel (and fund) a moderate and sometimes conservative politics, particularly on economic issues. Since the Gold Rush, says Solnit (who has lived here since 1980), San Francisco “has always had a progressive wing and a corporate moderate wing. Because Republicans don’t have traction here, people think of us as this quasi-socialist utopia, but it’s not true…. Now we have millionaires buying elections through recalls.” As the Examiner columnist Lincoln Mitchell explains, the city’s rich and powerful “are not always conservative or right wing, but they have a vision that is distinctly not progressive.” Their “moderate-to-conservative vision,” Mitchell says, “is one where businesses and developers are empowered and given incentives to operate more or less how they like, where fear of crime is fetishized, and where homelessness is understood as a problem not of human suffering but as a quality-of-life issue for the housed.”

Crisis conditions: Two years into the pandemic, precarity, poverty, addiction, and inequality have only gotten worse. (Tayfun Coskun / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Big Tech’s Shadow

The writer and activist Roberto Lovato offers a scathing diagnosis of his native city’s neoliberal tilt, pointing to Silicon Valley’s ethos of “digital Darwinism.” The recalls, Lovato explains, show the cumulative effects of Big Tech’s power: “You’re looking at what Silicon Valley did over all these years, the near-totalitarian control of the body politic of San Francisco.” This “greed machine,” he argues, is manufacturing “a normalization of displacement…. One way to do it is to reengineer the political system.”

“There’s a fascistic cruelty beneath the shiny silicon surface of San Francisco,” Lovato says—one that displaces communities and cultures in the name of relentless growth and profit. “All my friends who grew up here have been displaced. The organic growth of the Mission [District] that created the largest concentration of murals in the world has been displaced by gentrification and tech workers buying $14 burritos…. They use our murals to push us out.”

“Tech has such a libertarian tendency,” Solnit says, “but a lot of it is economically regressive. We don’t have the language to express how many of these folks are Burning Man libertarians while being economic Republicans.” Tech’s predominance here, she adds, has cultural as well as political implications: “Everything is DoorDashed and smartphoned; it’s a much more mediated experience. The desire to avoid human contact has been such a part of the tech culture—the desire to live in one of the most densely urban centers in the country while being hostile to much of that life.”

Even amid this centrist uprising, San Francisco progressives have mustered some positive changes. A voter-approved tax on vacant storefronts took effect in January, and activists are preparing a ballot measure to tax up to 40,000 vacant residential units to pressure landlords to fill them (a similar effort worked well in Vancouver). In March, the city enacted a groundbreaking law enabling tenants to form union-like associations to bargain with landlords. It’s also worth remembering that in 2019, city voters elected Boudin on the platform of criminal justice reform that he’s now implementing. On June 7 and beyond, voters here have a chance to reject this corporate-funded reactionary movement. San Francisco, as always, remains intensely contested terrain.

The post Worry & Loathing in San Francisco: How Chesa Boudin Obtained Blamed appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.