Next Up: Pamela Price, Alameda County
A week or so ago, a tweet caught my attention and it’s been haunting me ever since: “Chesa Boudin was the first San Francisco district attorney to ever bring criminal charges against a police officer. Police unions then spent $700,000 to recall Chesa because they believe cops should be able to kill with impunity. Police have already killed 558 people in 2023.”
And that was in San Francisco. And under the new "tough on crime" District Attorney, Brooke Jenkins, overdose deaths have hit a new record, murders are up 20% and drug sales in SF have doubled. Anyone hear from David Sacks, vulture capitalist and another one of the PayPal scumbags— who shoveled thousands into the recall effort over "public safety concerns?”
And now the same bullshit is going on across the Bay in Alameda County (Oakland)— cop-funded union on the attack against an elected D.A. unwilling to bend to their will. They’re using corporate-owned media to smear and recall D.A. Pamela Price, a reformer. A month ago, Akela Lacy reported a pattern happening everywhere that people elect progressive DAs: “first, character assassination and right-wing attacks, and then a recall.”
This undemocratic recall was created by a southern California law firm (Reed & Davidson LLP), not people from Alameda County. Price ran a grassroots campaign and won handedly without taking a dime from special interests groups like police, big tech and big corporations, special interests/sore losers that are now trying to circumvent the will of the voters.
Price, a civil rights attorney, was elected in 2022 on a reform platform that focused on rehabilitation and addressing police misconduct and corruption within the office. She promised to end use of the death penalty, stop charging kids under 18 as adults, establish a conviction integrity unit, and expand services for victims of gun violence.
In a story that has become familiar to prosecutors across the country who campaigned on reforming the criminal justice system, Price’s opponents began to attack her proposed policies before she took office in January. An online petition for her recall started circulating in February.
…Voters in Alameda County watched Boudin’s recall play out. More than a year later, they saw that the recall didn’t make San Francisco a cleaner or safer place, [Smart Justice founder Anne] Irwin said. Unlike San Francisco, Alameda County has less money and more people directly impacted by mass incarceration. Those factors could make a recall effort in Alameda County more of an uphill battle.
“The entire Bay Area, including Alameda County, is realizing that the recall of Chesa Boudin was a false promise,” she said. “That will impact how Alameda County voters approach a recall effort against DA Price. There will be a lot more skepticism about a recall of the district attorney being the panacea.”
Price’s 2022 election was in part response to a push among Oakland residents for reforms to the criminal justice system they said were long overdue. Price beat a more moderate candidate and became the first Black prosecutor with support among communities most impacted by crime. She declined corporate PAC money and raised more than $1 million for her campaign.
Price’s predecessor and 2018 opponent, Nancy O’Malley, had been accused of misconduct and worked against some criminal justice reform efforts. Police unions heavily backed O’Malley’s 2018 reelection campaign against Price. She retired in 2021.
As Price implemented the reforms she ran on, pushback was swift. One prosecutor resigned over Price’s reluctance to enhance sentencing in the stray bullet case and said Price’s office had mistreated victims in Asian American Pacific Islander communities. Another said she had neglected victims of violent crime.
…[Fringe right] Washington Examiner blared: “Soros-backed prosecutor continues to go easy on murderers.”
Justin Phillips from the San Francisco Chronicle (July 28): “Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, who stood in front of the audience for three hours fielding tough questions. Despite only being in office six months, she is already being blamed for problems that she alone could never have solved… The district attorney is not solely responsible for crime trends in a city. Crime is a complex issue influenced by a range of factors, including socioeconomic conditions, systemic inequalities, police effectiveness and broader societal dynamics.
Yesterday Politico took on the case: California keeps electing progressive DAs— then pushing to recall them. Across the country, police accountability is at the heart of it and Republicans are salivating at the chance to paint themselves as the law-and-order party again, a joke, but not an ineffective attack. “Reformers,” wrote Jeremy White, “see entrenched law enforcement interests defending a broken system.”
“They were going to try to recall her no matter what,” said Boudin, whom voters ousted in a 2022 recall that was widely interpreted as a gauge of a sweeping movement against reformers, in an interview. “They want anybody who has a vision for trying to change the system to learn the lesson that you don’t try to change the system.”
Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón dodged a recall campaign last year, shortly after Boudin’s ejection, but he faces a fierce 2024 re-election fight. Now it may be Price’s turn.
The burgeoning recall effort against her is following a familiar script. A candidate opposed by law enforcement wins a DA race in a deep-blue county. They change sentencing policy to lessen time in prison and investigate peace officers who have killed or used force on suspects. Then comes the pushback: Old-guard deputy prosecutors who quit or are pushed out describe a dysfunctional office that favors defendants over victims; shocking crimes spur outrage and fear; social media blazes with criticism; and recall whispers turn to petitions.
Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce President Carl Chan, one of the recall proponents, said in an interview that Price was emboldening criminals by signaling a lack of consequences.
“Six months in, you’re already pretty much destroying the legal system,” said Chan, who was assaulted last year— before Price took office— as a wave of attacks rattled the Asian-American community. “Justice reform doesn’t mean we have to go the wrong direction. We cannot use justice reform to allow people to commit crimes against innocent people.”
Price said in an interview Monday that she was honoring voters’ mandate to dismantle an abusive and discriminatory system built on “racial and gender and economic disparities.” She pointed to disproportionate rates of incarceration and punishment among Black people— often driven by excessive penalties— to argue they had for decades been “stiffed by the justice system.”
Price argued that the recall push was “consistent with the history of fighting against racial oppression in this country. Racism is real, and it does not evaporate just because we won the election.”
Price’s supporters say the longtime civil rights litigator has done precisely what she campaigned on. She has sharply curtailed the use of sentencing enhancements that add time for factors like gang membership, sought to avoid condemning people to life without parole, revived probes of police shootings and jail deaths, reviewed old convictions and expanded oversight of a troubled county jail.
“Some of the criticism of her started before she even took office,” said civil rights activist and attorney Walter Riley. “It has nothing to do with the quality of her work.”
The resistance escalated swiftly. In April, Price was rallying at the county courthouse with supporters against what she called a “backlash” to those who “stand up for justice and freedom.” By July, a recall committee had Price drawing comparisons to Jan. 6, 2021, saying foes were “trying to seize control from local voters because they refuse to accept the results of a legitimate, democratic election.”
Oakland, a city of over 400,000 people, has increasingly attracted tech workers from nearby San Francisco and seen housing prices skyrocket as its historic Black population shrinks. Violent and property-related offenses have risen markedly in recent years despite being below historical highs, with homicides up 80 percent and car break-ins soaring by 90 percent compared to 2019. Brazen daytime crimes in wealthier neighborhoods have amplified demands for a crackdown in a city long divided between poorer flatlands that backed Price and affluent uphill districts where she drew less support.
Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, a progressive in her first term, has asked Gov. Gavin Newsom to deploy more California Highway Patrol officers to her city. The Oakland NAACP turned heads— and won Fox News coverage— with a July letter that deplored an “intolerable public safety crisis” and castigated Price.
“There’s too many citizens coming forward that are just fed up with all the crime,” said Oakland NAACP member Darren White, who has long worked with the city’s youth. “I’ve heard it from young people on the street that we can do A, B, or C because we’re not going to get charged.”
Price’s supporters say it is absurd to hold her chiefly responsible for crimes, arguing she cannot arrest suspects or fund the kinds of violence-preventing community services that collapsed during the pandemic. They note that crime did not abate in San Francisco after voters replaced Boudin with a more hardline district attorney.
“It is not the job of the DA to go out and prevent crimes,” said Emeryville City Council Member Kalimah Priforce, who spoke in Price’s defense at the July town hall. “It’s as if we’re treating her like she’s crime nanny, that she’s supposed to go and solve all of our public safety woes.”
…“The lesson learned from the recall of DA Boudin is that opponents can’t wait to see if it qualifies to launch an aggressive anti-recall effort,” Max Szabo, a Democratic strategist who worked for Los Angeles DA Gascón, said in a text message. “Recalls aren’t popularity contests, they’re an up or down vote, and this job is so steeped in controversy that the advantage tips dramatically in favor of proponents if it gets on the ballot.”
Jamarah Hayner, who led the campaign against the Gascón recall push, said embattled district attorneys must demonstrate they are receptive to public safety qualms. Gascón himself said last year that Boudin erred in failing to realize “you cannot use data to deal with feelings.”
“People want to know you’re hearing them and you’re on their side,” Hayner said.
At the same time, Hayner said attempts to oust prosecutors were becoming all but inevitable as “the cottage industry that has become recalls in California” exploited anxiety about crime— a common sentiment among reformers.
“The recall in San Francisco did not result in a reduction of crime, so that seems to be a failed pathway forward,” said Ludovic Blain, a Price supporter who heads the liberal fundraising organization California Donor Table. But, he added, “Instead of the focus being: ‘Why is that after a reformer is recalled crime goes up?’ It’s: ‘Okay, she’s the next reformer, let’s go after her.’”
