Last year, San Franciscans elected as District Attorney a man widely perceived as progressive and woke. Chesa Boudin had grown up in a radical household; his parents, members of the leftwing Weather Underground, both were convicted of murder. Boudin grew up with those revolutionary values.
When Boudin was elected D.A., he was the city’s Public Defender. As a candidate, he promised “radical reform” of the criminal justice system, including ending cash bail. He narrowly won over a field of three others; his victory likely was the result of an endorsement from Bernie Sanders. Boudin was the great hope of leftists in America; the New Yorker magazine proclaimed, “Of all the progressive prosecutors elected in American cities during the law-and-order Trump years, none embodied the hope for criminal-justice reform as perfectly as San Francisco’s Chesa Boudin.”
One of the new D.A.’s first acts was to let people out of prison—a lot of people, about 40% of the incarcerated population. At the same time, homeless encampments were rapidly spreading (obviously not Boudin’s fault), the fentanyl epidemic was killing San Franciscans in large numbers, and commercial property crime soared (as it did in other cities). That began a slow process of disillusionment by voters in Boudin; it was one thing to vote for an idealistic progressive, but it was another thing to be fearful for your property and safety.
And then Boudin did something no San Francisco D.A. had ever done: he brought charges against a cop. And then another. And another, as part of his promise to “hold police accountable.” Almost simultaneously, a Black man in the city stole a car and ran over two women, killing them and triggering outrage among San Franciscans, even those of a liberal persuasion. Boudin had previously let the man, a career criminal, go free; San Franciscans finally had enough. San Francisco Police Officers Association President Tony Montoya said in an interview, “Two people were killed on New Year’s Eve because Chesa Boudin refused to do his job, which is to hold criminals and victimizers accountable.” Even San Francisco’s liberal mayor, London Breed, seemed to turn against Boudin; in an interview, she said “there still has to be accountability [for the auto deaths]…had this person been held accountable for the numerous crimes that they committed, then this possibly would not have even happened.”
People demanded the D.A.’s recall, in not one but two drives. Yesterday, the news came out that those recall efforts had collectively raised nearly $1 million. For a recall campaign of a District Attorney to raise nearly $1 million is unprecedented; those numbers are more typical of a Supervisor’s race. The size of the donations can be interpreted only one way: San Franciscans want criminals to be held accountable for their actions, not to be coddled or released in the city’s notorious revolving-door justice system.
The recall petitioners have until Aug. 11 to gather 51,325 valid signatures. It’s doable: with $1 million in cash on hand, you can hire a lot of kids to stand in front of supermarkets and laundromats and get people to sign. If and when Boudin is recalled, that will send a serious political message across the country. Even in Blue San Francisco, citizens are sick and tired of crime, and of a criminal justice system that is not working to protect them.