San Francisco voters ousted District Attorney Chesa Boudin on Tuesday, favoring a withdrawal effort arguing that its progressive reforms were too lenient and made the city less secure.
Boudin was 24 percentage points behind, according to the first batch of election results released at 8:45 p.m. Tuesday.
Boudin will be removed from office 10 days after the Board of Supervisors formally accepts the election results. The city’s most moderate mayor, London Breed, would choose his immediate replacement and voters would elect a new district attorney in November. With a failed revocation vote, Boudin would run for re-election in November 2023.
The result comes as no surprise to residents after numerous polls, almost all of which predicted a decisive defeat for Boudin.
The results culminated in a heated debate over crime and criminal justice in San Francisco, with both sides fighting for Boudin’s approach to imprisonment and rehabilitation and his leadership. While his supporters praised his efforts to find alternatives to prisons and prisons, which he said had failed the public for decades, his detractors criticized him as too permissive.
Christina Harsanyi, a Russian Hill resident who left her ballot in Chinatown during the lunch break, said she supported the withdrawal and wanted a more aggressive prosecutor. “I don’t feel particularly safe in my neighborhood because of the rise in crime,” he said, citing needles, street fires and burglaries in his home.
But Andrew Wu, an Outer Sunset voter, said he believed city police officers had at times refused to intervene in the crime and solve cases, making it difficult for Boudin as a district attorney to do so. “It is the responsibility of both groups to enforce the law,” said Wu, who voted no to the withdrawal.
Some voters on Tuesday expressed their displeasure at the withdrawal. Mike Rosene, an Outer Sunset resident, voted no and said the withdrawals are a waste of taxpayer money. “You have to give them a chance to end their term,” he said, “and if you’re not happy, you can vote for your husband in the next election.”
When the ballot boxes closed at 8 pm, several dozen followers of the memorial passed to the Del Mar tiki bar and nightclub on Lombard Street. Jade Tu, a native of Sunset Outside and a “proud Democrat,” stacked posters inspired by the board game Monopoly that read, “Get Out of Free Prison: This Card Can Be Preserved Until Chesa Boudin Retires.”
You had been awake since 3:55 am knocking on the door and texting and texting.
“People are being killed by bad policies. I want to feel safe in my community.… I care about my community and they are suffering because of policies. I need to go there.”
Elections were closely watched across the country. While San Francisco has chosen a number of left-wing district prosecutors in recent decades, Boudin was part of a wave of progressive prosecutors who took power in American cities to channel the energy of the Black movement. Lives Matter.
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Boudin removed the bail, which favors the wealthiest defendants; helped divert more defendants to treatment rather than trials; and initiated criminal proceedings against nine police officers.
Boudin blamed the withdrawal on Conservative forces, pointing to fundraising against him, but only 7% of voters register as Republicans in San Francisco. Rather, he divided Democrats into a city where many residents are frustrated with chronic problems, including high rates of theft and drug overdoses.
Some of the most vocal advocates on the withdrawal team were Democrats, who said they believed in Boudin’s overall goals, but said his leadership had created a messy office and a system that let criminals out without consequences. significant.
A spark for the withdrawal was a tragic car accident on December 31, 2020, which occurred when police said a gunman and drunk threw a stolen car at two pedestrians, Hanako Abe and Elizabeth Platt, in the southern area of Market, and killed both. . The alleged driver, Troy McAlister, 45, had been detained several times in the months leading up to the crash, but his parole was never revoked and the district attorney’s office did not file any new charges.
Boudin, a former public defender, was elected by a very narrow margin in 2019, following a classified election contest that pitted him against Suzy Loftus, who had been appointed interim district attorney by Mayor Breed, and a couple of more conservative candidates.
Among other changes, he stopped charging against minors and refused to take advantage of the “three strikes” law, which was designed to drastically increase punishments for repeat offenders. He said the reduction in incarceration made the city safer, because rehabilitating criminals was more effective.
Boudin ignited strong feelings from the start, and he and his supporters soon warned of what they described as a move from a right-wing “playbook”: increasing fear of crime and blaming its reforms. However, reported crimes have declined during Boudin’s tenure, according to police figures.
In the middle of last year, two groups were firing to remove him from office. The former, led by former San Francisco Republican mayoral candidate Richie Greenberg, failed to collect the 51,325 signatures to run in a special revocation election. The second effort, led by Democrats, immediately generated more contributions and widespread support, with 83,000 signatures submitted in October to the Department of Elections.
Meanwhile, the reform movement that propelled Boudin’s victory in 2019 began to wane during the pandemic, when a rising national homicide and widespread fear of rising crime often overshadowed calls for release. Mayor Breed, while announcing a long-standing state of emergency in the Tenderloin neighborhood in December, pledged to strengthen police and be less “tolerant of all bulls, who have destroyed our city.”
In June, groups seeking to remember Boudin together raised $ 7.2 million to evict him, while district prosecutor’s sponsors raised about $ 3.3 million.
Chronicle staff writers Danielle Echeverria, Roland Li, and Mallory Moench contributed to this report.
Megan Cassidy is a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: megan.cassidy@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @meganrcassidy