LOS ANGELES (CN) — Organizers of the Los Angeles district attorney debate left one podium empty for George Gascon, the progressive incumbent who, despite his absence, was very much a presence on Wednesday night.
Hardly a minute went by without one of the nine challengers denouncing Gascon. They called him a "dictator," a "wannabe king," and someone who “prioritizes criminals before everyone else."
Among the candidates trying to unseat Gascon are four deputy district attorneys — prosecutors who currently serve under him: Maria Ramirez, John McKinney, Jon Hatami and Eric Siddall, who also served as vice president of the prosecutors' union. Two federal prosecutors are running: Jeff Chemerinsky and Nathan Hochman. Two LA Superior Court Judges are running: Debra Archuleta and Craig Mitchell, who also made a name for himself by founding the "Skid Row Running Club." Another retired judge, David Milton, is also running.
Gascon's three years in office have been controversial. Elected in 2020, with LA still roiling from the protests following the killing of George Floyd, he pledged to reduce prison sentences and prosecute more police officers for misconduct. Once in office, he moved to do just that, ordering his staff to no longer seek sentencing enhancements, the death penalty or prosecute juveniles as adults. These reforms sparked a revolt from his rank-and-file prosecutors, who said he was doing too much too soon, and also a popular backlash, especially in 2021, when crime rose throughout Los Angeles. Fox News called him the "woke DA"; even many Democrats were reluctant to have their picture taken with him, lest they be associated with his policies.
A drive to recall Gascon last year failed, but only just, the campaign coming 46,000 signatures shy of the threshold to make the ballot. Nevertheless, it did manage to gather 520,000 signatures, a sign of the DA's vulnerability. A poll taken by UCLA in April found that just 27% of LA County residents viewed Gascon favorably, and 40% viewed him unfavorably.
On Wednesday night, most of the candidates took a hard line, promising to roll back the clock and undo Gascon's reforms. McKinney said he would "repeal and replace" the nine directives Gascon handed down on his first day in office.
"Blanket policies should all be revoked," said Hatami, who added: "We need a district attorney, not a public defender."
Chemerinsky, the son of the noted legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky who served on Gascon's transition team, stood out as the most progressive candidate on stage. "I'm a strong believer in criminal justice reform," he said, adding later that jails in Los Angeles are "seriously overcrowded." He called homelessness "the great humanitarian crisis of our era," and warned that it was not a problem that could be criminalized out of existence. He did say that the public had lost confidence in Gascon, and criticized his policies as having gone too far.
Others criticized Gascon for being a poor manager, with Hochman saying he'd fostered a "toxic culture" in his office.
"We have a significant staffing problem and a significant morale problem," said Ramirez.
"We’re hemorrhaging lawyers because they don’t want to work for George Gascon," said McKinney.
Many of the candidates said that the county had become less safe under Gascon's watch. Violent crime in Los Angeles is down 7% compared to last year, though it is still above the city's pre-pandemic levels. But petty thefts are up. Perhaps more importantly, high profile smash-and-grab robberies, in which groups of robbers — often a dozen or more — target a store, have made headlines, leading to the perception that crime is getting worse.
"People have to feel safe," said Siddall, who said that too many offenders were being released without bail. "Right now all we’re doing is throwing them back on the streets."
"I ask, do you feel more safe today than you did ten years ago," said Hochman, who ran for state attorney general in 2022 as a Republican (he recently changed his voter registration to "declines to state"). "To a person, no one is saying they feel more safe today."
Some of the candidates blamed Proposition 47, a 2014 ballot measure co-authored by then-San Francisco Attorney General Gascon, which bumped certain nonviolent offenses such as shoplifting down to misdemeanors, so long as the stolen property is worth less than $950.
"Under Prop 47, there are no consequences for those who are addicted to meth and fentanyl," said Mitchell, who has lead a running club on skid row three days a week for the last 12 years. "Too many lives being lost in Los Angeles due to drug addiction." Most of the candidates said they would work to repeal Prop 47, which would take another ballot initiative.
LA voters will have their say on the next district attorney in March 2024, when California holds its primary. Should no candidate win outright by garnering 50% of the vote, the top two vote-getters will face each other in a runoff in November.
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