The right-wing campaign to recall District Attorney Chesa Boudin is a long way from qualifying for the ballot, but a coalition of community leaders and activists is already organizing to oppose it.
They argue that this campaign is part of an emerging trend to attack progressives and their positions in the city at a time when the left has had tremendous electoral successes.
“It’s a shot across the bow, and we’ve seen it before,” said former Assemblymember Tom Ammiano. The power structure doesn’t like our success, but I think they underestimate the people power out there.”
The list of Boudin supporters is already long and growing, and you can see it here. In a press release today, former state Senator Mark Leno noted that:
Recently, elections were held and the voters’ voices were heard. Now, just 16 months later, a minority of deep pocketed special interests want those voices silenced and their decision overturned. We see this happening throughout California. Endless recalls will keep us all in a constant state of campaigns preventing our elected officials from doing their jobs. I support Chesa Boudin and the important work that he’s doing. We should all oppose this recall for the unnecessary and disruptive impact it will have on our treasured democratic process.
There’s also an open letter from community activists noting that overall crime is down, the DA’s Office is prosecuting thousands of cases, and that the DA can’t prosecute when the cops don’t make an arrest.
The recall of Gavin Newsom appears to be going nowhere. But on a local level, there’s an attack on Boudin and on several progressives on the School Board.
Supporters of a Boudin recall will need to gather more than 50,000 valid signatures – and that’s a stretch (particularly during COVID). But they have plenty of money.
The recall organization has raised $76,000 as of March 15, according to Ethics Commission records. By my analysis, more than half of the donors – and two-thirds of the money – comes from either Big Tech, Real Estate, or Big Finance.
The single biggest donor is David Sacks, who put up $25,000. Sacks is a former PayPal exec who once wrote a book with Peter Theil that, according to Wikipedia,
Argues racism is largely imaginary, that date rape is “belated regret,” that the real victims of the movement to end sexual assault are men, and compared the actions taken against future PayPal executive Keith Rabois for shouting homophobic slurs in a 1992 incident to the Salem witch trials.
Both men have since apologized for their comments about rape. But he remains a major right-wing figure who on Twitter calls for locking more people up and cites the Marina Times, which has a history of putting out false information about Boudin.
In fact, it’s the right wing of Big Tech that is pushing this recall – often in astonishing ways. Mother Jones has a stunning story on the issue that quotes tech investor Ellie Cachette as saying “VC lives matter. We’re the ones employing people, bringing business, buying properties, you know, paying property taxes.”
This is who wants to get rid of Chesa Boudin.
Right wing? VC? NO… citizens who are sick of laws not being enforced by him! Chesa has to go.
As a long time outter Richmond resident, we currently have been living in fear of the raise in crime in our beloved neighborhoods, we are afraid that if the police make an arrest on these burglars that are praying on all of us out here, chesa Boudin will simply let the criminals go or give them a tiny light charge, he will bring down a felony to an infraction. Clearly chesa is in favor for leniency on criminals, And when the county is lenient on criminals all it does is invite more criminals to come to the county to victimize the residents and visitors of the county, chesa Boudin is a defense attorney and will always be a defense attorney he has no place “cosplaying” a district attorney! Recall this defense attorney and let’s put a real district attorney in power. For all those that believe in what Chesa is doing and support his efforts, until you or your family members become the victim of a crime you will not understand, because all you are is a blind follower that live in a dream land, the only reason crime appears to be down is because car break-ins were down during the Covid year, Covid is what lowered crime not Chesa, but property crimes to people and homes have risen at an alarming rate and chesa will fail to do his job as a supposed district attorney when it is time to set a precedence, an example to all the criminal low lives out there praying on the good hard-working law-abiding residents and visitors of the city and County of San Francisco. Shame on all of you that support chesa boudin, shame on you for supporting criminals and criminal activity in our beloved city and county.
If the neanderthals have their panties hopelessly bunched then Boudin is doing something right.
sfrobink: we spend $3/4b on the persistently racist SFPD to “keep us safe,” yet the right wing ignores cops laziness and incompetence and instead blame throws to the DA. And it is not just Boudin, right wingers and the racist POA have been whining about susccessive DAs irrespective of who’s in office since I moved here and they complained about Arlo Smith.
When a cohort of conservatives who are freaked out by having no control at all during a pandemic, no control over schools, no control over where they can go, no control over anything in their lives, they tend to hunker down in a bunker mentality where everyone is out to get them and there are unfacable risks surrounding them.
Burroughs answered the question “is control controlled by its need to control” with a resounding “YES.”
Not to worry, Boudin has David Campos at his side, LOL, who will be either his life preserver or, most likely, an anvil who will be rewarded for his “service” of political euthanizing of Boudin by the elites he’s made a career out of manipulating.
The right wing is organized, mobilized and active now in a way they’ve not been since the last time a Democrat won the White House and SF politics lurched three notches to the right.
Corruption is swirling around City Hall, meeting with shrugs from the political class, that trudges along like nothing’s happening. Meanwhile, progressives are marking time until the next budget funding cycle.
There is no organized politics capable of contesting corruption or responding to the mobilized right wing advance.
If you think that progressive politics is a pathetic money laundering operation now that is greased by identity politics based guilt trips for self-promoting operators seeking city funding, just wait until the ratcheting of SF politics another few notches rightward.
I am a middle class living in the Tenderloin. I am it a right wing. I donated $10 to the Recall and signed it. Every time I hear that some criminal kill someone because he was out on the streets instead of jail because of Chesa, i take an issue with that. 48Hills is part of the progressive movement in SF so I am not expecting an unbiased article anyways.
Something doesn’t compute here – every time we hear Chesa speak at a monthly town hall meeting, he says according to the police dashboard, crime has gone down. Well, we out here do not live by the police dashboard. We are living an experience of crimes being constantly committed against people here. We are experiencing a huge crime increase, whether it be the constantly visible shoplifting, breaking into cars, reports of breaking into garages and homes, breaking into stores and businesses such that owners need to invest in alarms often for the first time ever, plus reports of assaults on pedestrians, the red light runners, etc. So it makes us feel like Chesa is out of touch. I am not affiliated with high-tech, I am not right wing – I am a progressive person and I am unhappy with him not understanding how unhappy people are out here with the constant crime reports that people are experiencing and posting on a daily basis in the NextDoor neighborhood chat for discussion. We feel that there are no consequences for people committing crimes. There are no arrests, there is no holding them, there is just release of people to continue committing their crimes. For example, why was the guy who was breaking into cars at the Mollie Stones parking lot at Calif/Fillmore arrested and then let out to be seen doing the same car break-ins two weeks later? Those who commit crimes can even escalate to murder, as we saw happen to Hanako Abe, Elizabeth Platt and Sheria Musyoka. Red-light runners Troy McAllister and Jerry Lyons, with their extensive crime record,, should not have been allowed to be out, and they should have been put back in prison when they violated parole and community supervision, which they were violating. Chesa was not watching and he is responsible for the deaths of these three. Who else is he going to allow to be killed? We need someone in the DA’s position who is going to be much more watchful re if people are violating the terms of their release and to remove them from the public if they are.
Are you guys serious? This DA is a total disaster. A day doesn’t go by when I don’t see smashed car windows. Walgreens are closing stores because thieves brazenly steal with impunity; so you either hire an off duty cop or close the store. Security guards can’t stop these people and they shouldn’t be expected to try since the thieves will be out on the street before you can say “God bless the USA!”
The billionaire Libertarian/Republicans can’t buy the legislature to suppress the voters in California, so they just buy the recall process to grab control. Very clever, very toxic and just like Georgia. Vote suppression / voter suppression is their goal. Same scum same outcome.
Sparky,
Even 48H knows not to try and stand up for Collins, who is currently doing more harm to the progressive cause nationally than Boudin.
Meanwhile, both the community and community leaders line up to support the recall (or, hopefully, merciful resignation) of the most toxic member of the Board of Education, Allison Collins.
Community leaders vs the community. Nobody cares about money in this election.