[Low turnout, a deeply warped media narrative, and right-wing
billionaire money framed a very conservative outcome. Thats the real
story.]
[[link removed]]

WHAT THE BOUDIN RECALL DOES—AND DOESN’T—MEAN FOR SF POLITICS  
[[link removed]]


 

Tim Redmond
June 7, 2022
48 Hills
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Low turnout, a deeply warped media narrative, and right-wing
billionaire money framed a very conservative outcome. That's the real
story. _

Boudin addresses the large crowd, Photo by Steve Rhodes

 

I have been covering San Francisco politics for more than 40 years,
and I have never seen a district attorney face anything close to the
media assault that came down on Chesa Boudin.

The first DA I covered, Arlo Smith, was marginally competent, but
never went after a rogue cop, never did anything about public
corruption, and had at best an unimpressive record on convictions.
Nobody cared.

His successor, Terence Hallinan, had management issues (and fired a
lot of staffers when he took office), and was a former defense lawyer.
There was a major domestic violence case that he failed to prosecute,
[[link removed]] and a woman
died. Only limited media attention, nothing like this.

Kamala Harris never prosecuted a cop for wrongdoing. Neither did
George Gascon. There were plenty of cases where that could or should
have happened, but the news media by and large didn’t care.

But I was here, and under both of them, bad crimes happened, some by
people who had been let out of jail. There was open-air drug dealing,
and people died of drug overdoses—and they both escaped any serious
media attacks.

Crime has not gotten worse under Boudin, the data shows
[[link removed]],
and he’s been dealing with a global pandemic that closed courtrooms
and shifted car break-ins from tourist areas to the neighborhoods. And
the cops have often refused to do their jobs.

Yet Boudin from day one has been under withering scrutiny, every
decision questioned as people who supported his opponents used a GOP
playbook to find any example of anything that has gone wrong with the
criminal justice system and blame it on him.

It’s as if every crime, every problem, everything that happened bad
in San Francisco was Chesa Boudin’s fault.

It’s astonishing. It’s unprecedented. It’s inaccurate. And
tonight it became clear that the strategy was entirely effective.

So now Boudin has lost a recall election funded by right-wing
billionaires, and the news media all over the country are going to say
that it’s a sign that San Francisco isn’t as progressive a city
anymore, that the movement toward electing progressive prosecutors is
over, and that Democrats need to start acting tougher on crime.

ACTUALLY, THE ELECTION SHOWED NONE OF THAT. The Chron’s Rachel Swan
called me a few days ago, working on the post-mortem that the paper
was going to run after the election, and asked me about the
progressive-city issue.

I told her: Nonsense. This is what happens when you combine $7 million
in GOP-linked money with a radically warped media narrative
[[link removed]].  She
didn’t quote me.
[[link removed]]

The turnout was low, even by off-year election standards; it’s a
little more than 25 percent, and much lower in some areas and in some
demographics. It was, as low-turnout elections often are, a very
conservative electorate: Even the Muni bond, Prop. A, which had that
strong support of the mayor and no opposition, as at 63 percent
Tuesday night and might not get to the two-thirds majority needed to
pass.

Many of these reporters in the mass media scrum will probably get the
story wrong, the same way they have for two years.

I don’t think there’s any kind of profound statement to be made
about the future of progressive politics in San Francisco here,
except: Turnout matters, and I am told that fewer than 15 percent of
voters under 40 bothered to cast a ballot. Media matters; if the
reporters are easily swayed by a false narrative, and want to make
names for themselves with sensational stories (even if they are not
accurate), it’s hard to respond.

And it’s clear that the progressives have to be prepared for more of
this: The rightwingers who are empowered and excited by the school
board and DA recalls are now going to use their money to go after the
Board of Supervisors.

On the other hand, Mayor London Breed now has to own the crime issue.
I don’t know who she’s going to appoint as DA, but that person
won’t be able to change the crime rate in the city in any meaningful
way on their own. I wonder if the TV stations and the Chron will apply
the same scrutiny to the new person. I seriously doubt it.

AT THE ELECTION-NIGHT PART AT THE RAMP, Boudin and his allies were
upbeat. They knew this was possible, and made it clear that the
movement for progressive change in the criminal-justice system
wasn’t about him, or any one person.

“We are not done tonight or ever, fighting our system of injustice
in the United States,” Sup. Hillary Ronen told a packed crowd.
“Not when we incarcerate more people than anywhere else in the
world, and we are not safer. Not when the vast majority of people
rotting behind bars are Black and Brown.”

She pointed out that Boudin kept his promises, and did everything he
said he would do during the campaign. “But our democracy has been
hijacked by billionaires.”

Boudin climbed on a beer keg to see the crowd of hundreds of
supporters. “This was never about an election, not about one
person,” he said. “This is a movement, not a moment. Our coalition
is deeply committed to justice.”

He added: “There are two sets of justice, one for the wealthy and
one for everyone else, and that’s what we are fighting to change.”

That doesn’t change.

One of the first things Breed’s appointee will have to do is decide
whether to abandon the prosecution of police officers charged with
wrongful killings. If that happens, we will have a sense of the
politics here: The Police Officers Association wanted desperately to
get rid of Boudin.

Then the new DA will no doubt fire many of the new prosecutors Boudin
brought on board—and will the media call that a “massacre
[[link removed]],”
as they did with Boudin?

Will there be any accountability for the mayor’s DA?

Or will all these investigative reporters move on, and find some other
progressive cause to attack?

I can’t wait to see.

_Tim Redmond has been a political and investigative reporter in San
Francisco for more than 30 years. He spent much of that time as
executive editor of the Bay Guardian. He is the founder of 48hills._

_Help us save local journalism!
[[link removed]]_

_Every tax-deductible donation helps us grow to cover the issues that
mean the most to our community. Become a 48 Hills Hero and support the
only daily progressive news source in the Bay Area.
[[link removed]]_

* criminal justice reform
[[link removed]]
* Mass Incarceration
[[link removed]]
* prosecutors
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]

Manage subscription
[[link removed]]

Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]