“That's definitely a signal that times have shifted,” Nicole D. Porter, senior director of advocacy for the Sentencing Project, says about the ballot measure, which passed with 70 percent of the vote. “The atmosphere for reform is much more limited in 2024 than it was in previous years.”
Both Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao and Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price were recalled by voters on Tuesday by nearly 2-to-1 margins. Both were targets of well-funded campaigns that criticized them for letting crime get out of hand, although each could point to some statistical improvements within their overlapping jurisdictions.
District Attorney George Gascón, generally considered one of the most progressive prosecutors in the nation, was ousted in a regular election in Los Angeles. His opponent, former federal prosecutor Nathan Hochman, vowed to take a tougher approach toward crime and beat Gascón by more than 20 percentage points.
In San Francisco, District Attorney Brooke Jenkins easily won re-election against a more progressive challenger. Jenkins assumed the role two years ago, after voters recalled Chesa Boudin, another high-profile member of the progressive prosecutor movement.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed trailed in the first round of voting against Daniel Lurie, an heir to the Levi’s fortune. Lurie blamed Breed for crime and the city’s high rate of homelessness. San Francisco uses ranked-choice voting, so the final result will not be known for days.
Across the country in Florida, Andrew Warren failed to win back his job as prosecutor in Hillsborough County. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis removed Warren from the job two years ago, claiming he wasn’t enforcing all the laws. DeSantis’ replacement pick, Suzy Lopez, won with a tough-on-crime message.
However, Monique Worrell did succeed in her comeback attempt. She’d been removed from office as prosecutor in Orange and Osceola counties by DeSantis last year “for neglecting her duty to faithfully prosecute crime in her jurisdiction.”
This year, supporters of criminal justice reform have been pointing to the district attorney’s race in Harris County, which includes Houston, as a bright spot. In March, Sean Teare unseated Kim Ogg in the Democratic primary, running on a progressive platform. On Tuesday, however, Teare beat Republican Dan Simons by less than 1 percent of the vote. “That tells us that our message did not resonate as much as we all believed it would and we've got to figure out how to communicate our message more clearly,” Teare said Tuesday night.
