With the resounding vote to recall San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin last Tuesday, and candidates with prosecution track records also winning support in Sacramento and elsewhere, it’s raising questions about the degree to which crime concerns will factor in the November elections.
While Boudin had sought to paint the recall as partisan, voters cast ballots regardless of political party in response to shared experience of not feeling safe in their neighborhoods, Rachel Michelin, president and CEO of the California Retailers Association (CRA), told the Northern California Record.
“I wasn’t shocked, we have been talking about this issue for over a year in San Francisco; we tried to work with the former district attorney on this,” Michelin said. “We told them that people didn't feel safe, our employees didn't feel safe, our customers didn’t feel safe. Retailers tried to lock up product; we hired off-duty police officers, but yet we weren't seeing any relief in terms of prosecution.”
Without prosecution, the crime numbers weren’t showing the whole picture, according to Michelin.
“One of the biggest challenges is this whole conversation about data,” Michelin said. “But It fundamentally comes down to shared experience – and when people are feeling like they're unsafe, when people are seeing these crimes happening – that’s what motivated people.”
The most recent results on Proposition H - Recall Measure Regarding Chesa Boudin were 55% in favor and 45% opposed.
Mayor London Breed will appoint an interim successor in the next few weeks, and San Francisco County voters will elect a new District Attorney in November.
Meanwhile in Sacramento County, Alana Mathews of the progressive Prosecutors Alliance of California was losing to Thien Ho, deputy district attorney under Anne Marie Schubert, who ran as a No Party Preference candidate in the race to unseat Attorney General Rob Bonta.
“There needs to be consequences for the behavior of committing crimes and for whatever reason the former district attorney didn't make that a priority, and I think the voters spoke in a resounding election where they said they wanted something different,” Michelin said. “If he was about criminal justice reform, I still stand by I think you can have both – there are ways that we can focus our criminal justice reform, and we can also provide consequences for the behavior to curtail, particularly in our case, retail theft, not just in San Francisco but across the state.”