With Date Set on Recall Election of SF DA Chesa Boudin, Campaigns Kick Into High Gear

Elections officials announced Tuesday that a recall election against San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin will appear on the ballot in June, giving residents a chance to keep or oust the former public defender who has been a prosecutor for less than two years.

Critics say Boudin, 41, has failed to prosecute repeat offenders, allowing them to commit more crimes that have contributed to the deterioration of the city’s quality of life. His supporters say his progressive policies of ending mass incarceration and promoting restorative justice are what San Francisco wants and that he’s being blamed unfairly for problems that have vexed the city for years.

The recall effort was widely expected to make the ballot after backers submitted about 80,000 signatures in October, more than the 51,325 required. The June 7 election will be consolidated with the California statewide primary election.

“We have tremendous momentum on our side that is growing daily in every corner of San Francisco,” said recall campaign chair Mary Jung in a statement, also pledging to “help ensure San Francisco has a DA that makes public safety their No. 1 priority.”

The recall campaign also makes the case that Boudin has failed to properly prosecute serial offenders. Julie Edwards, a spokesperson for the anti-recall campaign, however, argues that Boudin’s prosecution rate is about the same as his predecessors.

According to data released by the DA’s office, Boudin filed charges in more than 52% of the roughly 2,600 arrests made in the city in 2020. The filing rate was similar under Boudin’s predecessor, George Gascón, during his first four years in office, but it gradually increased, reaching 67% by 2019, when he stepped down. So far this year, however, Boudin’s filing rate is notably higher than it was last year — currently exceeding 67%.

Edwards also argues that the recall effort is a “Republican power grab,” a claim that recall advocates rejected in a statement shared with KQED.

“Boudin was elected to reform our criminal justice system to make our city safer and expand services to victims,” Edwards said. “That’s what he has been doing. That’s what he’ll continue to do.”

Boudin was elected district attorney in 2019 as part of a national wave of progressive prosecutors determined to reform the criminal justice system. He was a baby when his parents as Weathermen radicals were sentenced to long prison terms for their roles in a 1981 robbery that left two police officers and a security guard dead.

Kathy Boudin was paroled in 2003. David Gilbert was granted parole last month.

In January, Boudin came under fire after a parolee allegedly ran a red light in a stolen car and killed two women on New Year’s Eve. The police union said Boudin’s office missed several chances to prosecute Troy McAlister and hold him in jail, including days earlier when he was arrested for alleged car theft.

Boudin at the time said charging McAlister with a nonviolent crime would not necessarily have put him behind bars and off the streets.

San Francisco voters will also get the chance in February to recall three members of the scandal-plagued San Francisco Board of Education. The board drew national attention last year when it moved ahead with a plan to rename nearly four dozen schools as part of a racial reckoning while classrooms stayed shuttered, even as other districts opened to in-class instruction. The renaming plan was scrapped.

Mayor London Breed, a Democrat who did not support Boudin in the DA’s race, has not expressed an opinion on his recall. She would name his replacement should the recall succeed.

Breed, however, said Tuesday in a statement that she supports the recall of all three school board members, saying the board’s priorities were misplaced. She would also get to name their replacements should they lose.

In September, Californians widely rejected a recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom.

This post includes reporting from KQED’s Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman.