LOS ANGELES – Last week Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon sent an email to supporters announcing that his reelection campaign has hired a political consulting firm called Makers Strategies. The firm brands itself as a “full service social change consultancy,” and its clients are a who’s who of L.A. Democratic Socialists.
They have worked with disgraced CD 11 Councilman Mike Bonin and failed CD 11 candidate Erin Darling, as well as Hugo Soto-Martinez, Eunisses Hernandez, and Nithya Raman. They have also worked with Katy Yarovslavsky and Lindsay Horvath. While the firm lists some more mainstream clients, the bulk of their work appears to lean heavily toward radical DSA and DSA-endorsed candidates and causes, such as La Defensa, a police and judiciary abolitionist organization that Ms. Hernandez co-founded.
Unlike Ms. Raman, who two weeks ago appeared to soften her previously dogged anti-law enforcement stance, early indications suggest Mr. Gascon is all in. Supporters likely will be galvanized by his commitment. Unfortunately for the incumbent, the number of those supporters has been dwindling since he took office. Spikes in crime across the Southland – both reported and, significantly, unreported – as well as the recent spate of highly visible and often violent “flash mob” style smash-and-grab robberies, have caused many Angelenos to rethink their support of policies that appear to be soft on criminals.
To be sure, it already has been a rough six months for Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon. The chief prosecutor’s no good, very bad half year started in March, when he lost the first of some two dozen retaliation cases that current and former deputy D.A.’s (“DDA’s”) have filed in civil court. A jury awarded DDA Shawn Randolph, former head of the office’s juvenile division, $1.5 million in what the Los Angeles Times called a “grim omen” for Gascon (notably, the Times had endorsed him over incumbent Jackie Lacey les than two years earlier). Ms. Randolph claimed he demoted her to the parole division after she pushed back against some of his policies, particularly his blanket prohibition on charging minors who committed violent felonies as adults.
In April, a poll conducted by the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs showed that he had the lowest approval rating among elected county officials, with just 27% of Angelenos viewing him favorably, compared to 40% who viewed him unfavorably.
In May, a blistering story in the New York Post reported that his “authoritarian” and “toxic” management style had driven some 200 prosecutors to quit, leave for another office, or take early retirement, resulting in a backlog of more than 10,000 cases (the D.A.’s office disputed that number, claiming only 139 open positions, still a significant number in the country’s largest prosecutor’s office). Former D.A. Steve Cooley told the Post, “I’m stunned from the historical sense, but knowing what a toxic manager and boss George Gascón is, I’m not surprised because some of the people he’s brought in are just odious people. Who would want to come and work here under such conditions?”
Things did not improve going into the summer. In July a Superior Court judge ordered the County Clerk’s office to review more than 98,000 signatures from a recall campaign it previously had rejected. That same month a rash of often violent “flash mob” style smash-and-grab robberies began plaguing L.A. County. Gascon failed to prosecute many of the alleged offenders. The situation became sufficiently dire that in August L.A. Mayor Karen Bass announced a multi-agency task force to tackle the situation. She conspicuously left out Mr. Gascon.
Finally, just one week later, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced his office had filed criminal charges against members of an organized retail theft ring that committed over $750,000 in thefts earlier that month. Mr. Bonta’s decision, which sources inside the D.A.’s office described as “extraordinary,” have been interpreted by some as tantamount to a vote of no confidence in Mr. Gascon.
All of which either helps explain or calls into question the D.A.’s near silence when it comes to his reelection campaign. His campaign website has not been updated since August 2021. He has yet to make any public statement regarding his intentions save for an interview in August 2022 with KCRW radio. According to County records his campaign only raised $49,663 in the first six months of this year. In contrast, his two most serious challengers, John McKinney and John Hatami, both of whom are DDAs, each raised in excess of $200,000.
Mr. McKinney and Mr. Hatami are both promising to reverse many of Mr. Gascon’s policies, as are most of the other five candidates running against him. The race, therefore, appears to be shaping up as a referendum on those policies – and Mr. Gascon himself.
Source : Westside Current
