Los Angeles just elected a liberal DA. He's already facing a recall effort

LOS ANGELES – From inside the walls of Folsom State Prison, the two inmates, one a convicted murderer, clinked their cups of prison moonshine in a toast to the new district attorney of Los Angeles, George Gascón.

A video of the celebration was released earlier this year by Gascón's opponents — and there are many — who used it to attack what is perhaps the most far-reaching plank of his progressive agenda: the review of nearly 20,000 old prison sentences, many for violent crimes like murder, for possible early releases.

Gascón, a Democrat, has brushed off the video as nothing more than a Willie Horton-style attack by get-tough-on-crime proponents that "plays well on Fox News." But he doesn't shy from his belief that even those convicted of violent crimes deserve a chance at redemption.

"There's no way we can get to meaningful prison reduction in this country without looking at more serious crimes," said Gascón, who also supports ending cash bail and eliminating the prosecution of juveniles as adults, in an interview. "The public stories you hear are the really scary stuff. You're talking about the violent sexual predator. You're talking about some sadistic murderer. The reality is those are really a small number of the prison population and violent crime."

But the prospect of convicted murderers getting out early, or getting lighter sentences than they would have received in a previous era, has fueled an effort to force a recall election next year and remove Gascón from office. More than 1,000 volunteers, as well as dozens of paid workers, are collecting signatures for the recall at gun stores, bail bonds offices, and even outside his home.

And inside courtrooms, some prosecutors who believe Gascón's policies will harm public safety are openly working against him by attempting to sabotage his directives to pursue lesser sentences and not seek cash bail.

Gascón, 67, who was propelled into office by activists in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd, is one of the nation's most progressive prosecutors in one of America's most liberal cities, and yet he is facing an intense backlash in enacting the sorts of policies demanded by protesters last year and aimed at reducing the vast racial disparities in arrests and prosecutions.

The pushback is a sign of the many challenges liberal district attorneys in big cities are facing, at a time when Republicans are increasingly trying to portray Democrats as soft on crime, amid a rise in gun violence and homicides across the nation that began during the pandemic and has continued into 2021. In Los Angeles, for instance, murders increased 36% last year.

The recall campaign is supported by high-profile figures like Sheriff Alex Villanueva and Steve Cooley, a former Los Angeles district attorney, as well as some crime victims, including Desiree Andrade, whose son was killed in 2018 when he was beaten and thrown from a cliff after a drug deal. Some of the men charged in her son's killing now face lesser sentences under Gascón's policies — but still face decades in prison — and Andrade described Gascón as pushing a, "radical, pro-criminal agenda."

The recall push, which is funded in part by Geoff Palmer, a real estate developer and GOP megadonor who raised millions for former President Donald Trump, is still a long shot. Supporters need to collect nearly 600,000 signatures by late October to force a new election, and recalls are easy to start in California, but rarely lead to an officeholder's ouster.

Gascón said the efforts against him reflect the polarization of U.S. politics, and underscores that California, while deeply blue, is not monolithic. "We have some counties that you could pluck them up and put them in the middle of Texas or Arizona and you wouldn't see the difference."

A Cuban émigré who moved to Los Angeles as a boy, Gascón started as a beat cop in South Los Angeles in the turbulent 1980s, a time of gang warfare and a crack epidemic. He became San Francisco police chief before being appointed district attorney there in 2011 to replace Kamala Harris, who had become California's attorney general. He was elected to the job twice and reduced the number of people San Francisco sent to state prison.

Los Angeles, under Gascón's predecessor, Jackie Lacey, maintained a more punitive approach to crime, and in recent years sent people to state prison at four times the rate of San Francisco.

Gascón, who won the office from Lacey by a wide margin in November, speaks often about how, as an officer, he found himself locking up multiple generations of Black men from the same family. Over time, his views on crime and punishment changed, and he said he sees it as his job as district attorney to undo the damage of that time, especially for Black and Latino communities in Los Angeles.

"Those days continue to haunt me," he said in his inauguration speech.

Gascón points to data that shows lengthy sentences increase recidivism and thus make the public less safe — a direct rebuttal to those supporting the recall in the name of public safety. He believes that most people, even some who have been convicted of violent crimes and especially those who committed their crimes when they were young, deserve second chances. He has also promised to do more to hold the police accountable for on-duty shootings.

Gascón said that his office will carefully weigh whether a person is suitable for release, either because of advanced age or because they are model inmates, and that people still believed to be dangerous will not be let out early. And judges and parole boards would have the final say.

Already, in Gascón's first three months in office, prosecutors have sought roughly 8,000 fewer years in prison compared to the same period a year ago through eliminating many so-called enhancements — special circumstances such as the use of a gun in a crime, or gang affiliations or prior felonies under the "three strikes law," a pillar of an earlier era's war on crime.

For activists who helped elect Gascón, this is only the beginning of what they hope is a sustained push to transform criminal justice in Los Angeles. They say he is doing everything he said he would, and are rallying around him. Ivette Alé, an organizer with Dignity and Power Now who advised Gascón, said the elimination of gang enhancements was something she had long pushed for, because they have led to severe racial disparities in sentencing.

"That is huge," she said. "That policy would do so much for racial and economic justice."

On Friday, Gascón's allies, including union leaders, faith leaders, Black Lives Matter activists and former inmates, rallied in downtown Los Angeles. Robert Carson pointed to himself as an example of someone who changed in prison, and said he hopes others will get the same chance. "I did everything necessary to rehabilitate myself," said Carson, 56, who left prison in February after serving 23 years for murder.

If Gascón survives the recall and is able to push through his agenda, his long-term goal is ambitious: that California can eventually close two or three state prisons by dramatically reducing sentences, especially for those who were young when they committed crimes.