Editorial: What L.A. County voters need to hear from D.A. George Gascón before November
To put the best face on Dist. Atty. George Gascón’s poor showing in Tuesday’s election, he’s where he wanted and expected to be. Ballots are still being counted, but first-day returns show him with just over 20% of the vote and headed into a November showdown with former federal prosecutor Nathan Hochman.
Hochman was soundly defeated for state attorney general two years ago when he challenged incumbent Rob Bonta. In that partisan race, Hochman ran as a Republican. He’s now independent, but even ex-Republican candidates in nonpartisan races have an uphill battle in liberal Los Angeles County. In November, many of the younger, more progressive voters who didn’t turn out this week are, history suggests, more likely to show up.
L.A. Dist. Atty. George Gascón is making the criminal justice reforms voters elected him to carry out. Ignore the law enforcement establishment’s resistance and keep him on the job.
But Gascón should also know that reelection will be no easy walk, even if he is a Democrat, as his campaign materials note.
The primary results illustrate that Los Angeles voters are deeply worried about crime, even though violent crime is down sharply after the nationwide spike during the pandemic. Property crime gets a lot of attention, but in fact it has mostly held steady over the last few years — with the troubling exception of shoplifting and thefts of personal property from publicly accessible places, such as packages from front porches.
From the day Gascón took office, he has been battered by a relentless campaign against his progressive reforms, leading to two unsuccessful but distracting recall drives and numerous lawsuits against him by the union that represents prosecutors.
Gascón should heed the obvious parallels to Sheriff Alex Villanueva’s loss in 2022. Villanueva came in first in his primary, but with only 30% of the vote — a very poor showing for an incumbent. He was crushed by Robert Luna in the runoff. Gascón also came in first, but with an even smaller percentage.
Two attempts by criminal justice reform opponents to recall Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón have failed. Don’t let there be a third. Voters should consider his record after he completes a four-year term.
To avoid following in Villanueva’s footsteps, Gascón has to do a better job articulating his progress in making his office more reflective of what Los Angeles voters wanted when they first elected him — a more just and equitable criminal justice system. He needs to better communicate what he has done to ensure criminal sentences and other policies protect public safety and reduce recidivism. He must explain to voters that evidence supports more enlightened pretrial policies such as eliminating money bail, not charging juveniles as adults and focusing office resources on the most serious crimes.
His campaign has to debunk the many falsehoods spread by law enforcement and media commentators about how one policy or another supposedly led to particular crimes. It has to compare statistics in Los Angeles with similar or often worse numbers in cities around the country represented by more traditional prosecutors.
Tuesday’s election produced some victories for California’s criminal justice reform movement despite Chesa Boudin’s recall
And he has to stand firm against his critics in the deputy district attorneys union, which has challenged most of his reforms.
Four current and three former members of the union ran against him in Tuesday’s race. If any of them expected to actually defeat him, they failed miserably by splitting the vote among them, helping Hochman secure second place.
If instead all they wanted was to drum up enough anti-Gascón sentiment to keep the incumbent from winning outright, they were a smashing success.
Just as it was wrong for judicial powers to be reallocated to prosecutors in the “tough on crime” era, it is wrong for judges to usurp powers properly in the prosecutor’s ambit – what crimes to charge, and what punishments to seek.
And in Hochman, the union will have a representative of sorts in November. Hochman is a member of the union’s legal team in its suit to block Gascón’s directive against seeking long sentences under the three strikes law. The union prevailed in the Court of Appeal. Arguments are expected to take place in the state Supreme Court later this year.
But Gascón is better positioned against him than he would have been against Jeffrey Chemerinsky, a former federal prosecutor who won support from Democratic clubs and officials, including L.A. City Attorney Hydee Feldstein-Soto. He presented himself as a more moderate reformer, but he appears to be finishing far back in the pack.
Supporting one group, particularly a group that has been marginalized, does not mean standing against another group.
The end of the progressive prosecutor movement has been wrongly predicted many times, for example with the 2022 recall of San Francisco Dist. Atty. Chesa Boudin. But it continues its advance, despite moves by more conservative state legislatures and governors to interfere with voters’ choices.
In Texas, for example, José Garza, the incumbent district attorney of Travis County, where Austin is located, handily defeated a challenge Tuesday. In Harris County, dominated by Houston, voters defeated D.A. Kim Ogg, who disappointed former backers by retreating on progressive policies.
Opponents of progressive prosecutors are abusing governmental oversight powers to undermine voter decisions. But the innovative new breed of D.A.s is holding firm.
But it’s only March. Garza is likely to have an easy race against the Republican nominee in November, but Sean Teare, who defeated Ogg in the Democratic primary, will have his hands full in the general election against the Republican candidate.
Gascón likewise will have to work hard if he is to fend off Hochman. He can take both comfort and caution in the recent example of Villanueva, one of his sharpest critics. The ex-sheriff appears to have been defeated yet again, this time in his challenge to county Supervisor Janice Hahn. Gascón should point out that he is, in policy and temperament, the anti-Villanueva, not the next Villanueva.
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