US Politics

I’m a Black gun owner. I have mixed feelings about gun controlAkin OllaI don’t have much faith that the state will protect me from violence – and I know that gun control laws have historically been used to target Black people, socialists and people who challenge the status quo The mass murder of elementary school students in Uvalde, Texas, and a white supremacist attack on Black residents of Buffalo, New York, have reignited the American gun control debate. Both atrocities have left me feeling more broken than I thought possible. As a Black, leftwing gun owner, however, I’m also struck by a feeling of unease.I believe in many forms of gun control, but the conversation about guns on the left often lacks complexity as we scramble for a simple answer to an extremely complicated problem. I don’t have much faith that the government will protect me or other minority Americans from the kind of violence that the police ostensibly exist to combat, and I know that gun control laws have historically been used to target Black people, particularly Black socialists like myself.I’m also not convinced that most current gun control proposals will even solve the problem. Consider the country’s deadliest school shooting, the Virginia Tech murders of 2007. The perpetrator passed his background check and used weapons that most gun control bans wouldn’t affect. A waiting period might have delayed his attack but his level of premeditation implies it was nearly inevitable. I feel sorrow for what happened. Yet I feel that as a society we tend to fight over specific gun control policies – some effective, some not – while ignoring the violent nature of the country we live in and the culture that drives almost exclusively men to commit mass murder.I never thought I’d be a gun owner. I’m not particularly fond of guns. If anything, they terrify me. I’ve generally hoped my charming personality and acumen at fisticuffs would be enough to deter would-be aggressors; it wasn’t until the terror that I experienced during the George Floyd uprising that I, like many Black Americans, was moved to become a first-time gun owner.I’d participated in protests and witnessed the sheer brutality of the Philadelphia police as they attacked my partner, threatened an elderly woman, and enveloped the entirety of my neighborhood in teargas. I watched Black parents flee their homes, gagging, eyes red, small children in tow. When I and others working as medical volunteers tried to evacuate the injured and elderly, we were met with pepper spray, rubber bullets, and batons. On the other side of the city, police officers let white vigilantes with baseball bats patrol the streets. None of this buttressed my belief that the police existed to protect me from violence.Around this time I, like other socialist organizers, received written threats. After a series of them, as well as a direct, in-person threat to my life made in front of my home, I buckled and decided I needed a weapon, and soon. Even without the specific threats, I was wrestling with a sense that society was on the brink. It may sound paranoid now, but to be Black in the midst of the George Floyd uprising and the tail end of the Trump presidency was a time to be paranoid. Guns and ammunition were sold out across the country. More than 5 million new gun owners purchased weapons in 2020, a more than 100% increase from the previous year. After a background check and a few days for the order to be processed, I picked up a gun from a store located in a man’s home in a dreamlike suburban cul-de-sac.America is steeped in violence. And the roots of that violence go deep | Moustafa BayoumiRead moreDespite owning a gun, I do think gun control is overdue and necessary. But I also can’t ignore the history of American gun control. Much of the modern debate around gun control began in the 1960s, after the state of California – with support, ironically enough, from the NRA – pushed through legislation in response to the Black Panther party and other armed militant groups. We must ensure that any new gun control laws do not disproportionately limit minority communities’ ability to own arms for reasons of legitimate self-defense, which may be impossible given that most laws in a country as steeped in racism as ours will inevitably be exploited to oppress the already oppressed.There are moments in US history when the right to own weapons made the difference between life and death for communities of color, such as the armed resistance against the Ku Klux Klan by the Lumbee Tribe in 1958. And despite the common perception of the civil rights movement, many activists kept guns in their homes or were protected by those who did. There was a time when Dr Martin Luther King Jr was described as having an arsenal in his home.To honestly address mass shootings, we must be willing to have difficult conversations about the complexity of all of this, and also accept that some solutions will involve restructuring our society. We have to accept that gun control may mean some people that reasonably fear for their lives will be left at the whim of fascists and police. We have to accept that mass shootings will absolutely still occur. We have to accept and analyze the reality that one of the most common denominators among shooters is their hate for women – as the Texas shooter, who shot his grandmother before carrying out his school massacre, sadly reminded us.And we have to realize the racist nature of this country and its violent roots. The founder of Uvalde, Texas, was shot and killed in 1867, probably not too far from where the elementary school shooting occurred. His alleged offense was opposing southern secession and supporting the presidency of Abraham Lincoln. His blood stains that town just as the blood of millions of Indigenous people and enslaved Africans stains the entirety of the United States.Gun control may be a good start to saving lives, but this country must be made new, and the lives of women, little children, and Black families made valuable. Until then, I sit uneasy.
Akin Olla is a contributing opinion writer at the Guardian
TopicsUS gun controlOpinionUS politicsGun crimeUS constitution and civil libertiesLaw (US)Texas school shootingBuffalo shootingcommentReuse this content More

LA sheriff Alex Villanueva appears headed for runoff election amid series of scandalsLaw enforcement officer, derided by critics as the ‘Donald Trump of LA’, did not win enough votes for re-election, early results show Alex Villanueva, the Los Angeles county sheriff embroiled in multiple scandals, appears headed for a runoff election in November as early results suggest he failed to win enough votes to secure re-election.Villanueva, who has been derided by critics as the “Donald Trump of LA”, is likely to face off with Robert Luna, the former police chief of Long Beach. Luna was endorsed by the LA Times and LA Daily News editorial boards, which argued that the embattled agency needed an outsider to take over, though Luna’s police department also faced controversies.As of late Tuesday night, Villanueva held a slight lead, with 32% of the vote to Luna’s 26% and 35% of votes counted.Despite national scrutiny of Villanueva surrounding a series of misconduct, abuse and obstruction cases, his critics did not unite behind one candidate.Villanueva has become a favorite law enforcement figure among some far-right pundits, and is known for aggressively opposing efforts to bring accountability to the department. In recent years, he has publicly lashed out at critics and the media and launched criminal investigations into the officials who have sought to reform his agency, earning him comparisons to the former president.San Francisco recalls DA Chesa Boudin in blow to criminal justice reformRead moreThe sheriff was a little-known lieutenant when he was elected in 2018 and became the first candidate to beat an incumbent for LA sheriff in more than 100 years. He was backed by Democrats and progressive groups during his campaign after pledging to reform an agency with a long history of scandal. But over the last four years, he has lost the support of Democratic groups, civil rights activists and a wide range of LA county leaders, who say he broke his promises and allows officers to engage in violence and misconduct without consequence.The Los Angeles sheriff’s department (LASD) is the largest county sheriff’s office in the US, with thousands of officers who patrol nearly 200 southern California towns and cities. The sheriff also oversees one of the world’s largest jail systems. A former head of the department was sent to prison in 2020 after he was convicted of obstructing a federal investigation into systemic abuse of incarcerated people in the county jail system.LASD has faced growing outrage over reports of “deputy gangs” within the department – cliques of officers with names like the Banditos and Executioners, who allegedly have matching tattoos and promote brutality and racist policing. Despite increasing testimony from whistleblowers and LA county officials about the presence and threats posed by these internal groups, Villanueva has repeatedly denied their existence.The county inspector general, the top watchdog for LASD, has identified more than 40 such groups within the department, but Villanueva has defined subpoenas by the IG and demanded the county’s board of supervisors cease using the phrase “deputy gangs”. Villanueva has aggressively attacked the IG, accusing him, without any evidence, of being a “Holocaust denier”, a claim the IG said was “deeply offensive” and false. Villanueva also has a “civil rights and public integrity” unit, reportedly known internally as his “secret police”, that has launched investigations into his political opponents.In a separate controversy, a whistleblower recently claimed that Villanueva personally directed a cover-up of an incident, captured on film, in which jail guards knelt on the head of a handcuffed man for three minutes. Several high-profile killings by his deputies have also sparked national headlines in recent years, and families of victims have accused his department of harassing them.Villanueva campaigned on a platform of hiring more police, cracking down on homelessness and opposing “woke” reform efforts. In a recent interview with the Guardian, he dismissed the whistleblower and other claims against him and his department, saying they were “driven by trial attorneys and opportunistic politicians” and a “cabal of people” creating a “false narrative”.Luna campaigned on a platform of restoring trust in the department and “reforming and modernizing” the LA jails, though as Long Beach chief, a position he held from 2014 through 2021, he also battled scandals; there have been claims of racism in the department and concerns about excessive force and killings by officers. Luna grew up in East LA, in an area heavily patrolled by the sheriff’s department, and he has talked about witnessing bad policing tactics in the neighborhood.Long Beach is the second-largest city in LA county, and if he wins, Luna would be the second police chief from the city to take over the sheriff’s office.TopicsLos AngelesUS policingUS politicsUS midterm elections 2022CalifornianewsReuse this content More

Karen Bass and Rick Caruso head to runoff in Los Angeles mayoral raceCandidates head to November rematch after neither one secures enough votes to win outright in primary The congresswoman Karen Bass and the billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso will head to a November rematch in their bids to become the next mayor of Los Angeles, after neither candidate secured enough votes to win outright in Tuesday’s primary.An early tally of mail-in ballots showed Caruso with 41% and Bass with 38% of the vote, meaning both candidates failed to clear the 50% threshold needed to win outright. The Associated Press called the race as a runoff late on Tuesday evening.As the top two vote-getters, they will advance to the general election in a contest whose outcome is likely to have major consequences for Los Angeles’s approach to policing, crime and the growing humanitarian crisis of homelessness across southern California.San Francisco recalls DA Chesa Boudin in blow to criminal justice reformRead moreWhile the non-partisan mayoral primary began with a field of a dozen candidates, it quickly became a contest between the two frontrunners: Bass, a former progressive community activist in South Central Los Angeles who had risen to become the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, and Caruso, a luxury mall developer and former Republican who Forbes ranks No 261 on the list of the richest people in the US. The mayoral candidates and their outside backers and critics poured more than $50m into campaign spending during the primary race, a stunning figure in a campaign whose central issue has been what to do about the more than 41,000 unhoused people living in Los Angeles.Homelessness is a crisis along the entire west coast, but many voters and politicians in Los Angeles say it has reached a state of emergency. As of 2020, an estimated 40% of all unhoused people in California, and 20% of all unhoused people living outside in the US, lived in Los Angeles county. As rent and housing prices have continued to rise, the presence of people living in cars, RVs, and in tents on the street and in public parks has prompted fierce debates about the failures of city officials to resolve a growing humanitarian crisis.Caruso, who has an estimated net worth of $4bn, poured more than $38m of his own fortune into his campaign through early June, with a pledge to “clean up” Los Angeles. He was backed by celebrity endorsements from his neighbor, the actor Gwyneth Paltrow; Bill Bratton, the police chief who championed “broken windows” policing; the rapper Snoop Dog; and the entrepreneurs Kim Kardashian and Elon Musk.His omnipresent political advertising across Los Angeles won him enough votes to advance to the general election as the more conservative, pro-police alternative to Bass, a California Democrat who was considered as a potential vice-presidential pick for Joe Biden.At his election night party at the Grove, one of his shopping malls, Caruso said the voters supporting him were sending a clear message: “We are not helpless in the face of our problems. We will not allow the city to decline,” the Los Angeles Times reported.At Bass’s election party, with her grandson and other family members by her side, the congresswoman told supporters, “We are in a fight for the soul of our city, and we are going to win,” the Times reported.Caruso ran a campaign focused on crime and disorder, pledging to strengthen and expand the city’s police department by hiring 1,500 additional officers. He drew scrutiny on a number of fronts, including his suggestion to arrest unhoused people who refuse to move to a city-provided shelter bed, his record of political donations to Republican candidates who have opposed abortion rights, and the fact that he only registered as a Democrat shortly before entering the mayoral race (he was previously a political independent, and before that, a Republican).Bass, who first rose to prominence as an advocate for public health approaches to addiction and crime during the crack epidemic in the 80s and 90s, has said that she decided to run for mayor in part because of her concerns that voters’ frustrations over homelessness and high-profile property crimes might lead to the same kind of punitive, damaging policies that California politicians and voters endorsed during the 1990s.Street activist, congresswoman – mayor? Karen Bass reaches for LA’s top jobRead moreBass has highlighted the dangers of criminalizing poverty, even as she has pledged to put an end to unhoused people living in public spaces across the city. She has said she supports small increases to the city’s police force and a focus on devoting more police resources to solving the city’s homicides.As Caruso faces off with Bass in the general election, it’s unlikely that Bass will fully match his spending, but progressive Hollywood donors are expected to pour a substantial amount of money into her campaign, as well.“If Rick Caruso was willing to spend $30m in the primary, why wouldn’t he spend the same amount for the general?” the political scientist Fernando Guerra said.Bass “will not meet or beat what Rick Caruso spends”, but her campaign and her liberal Democratic allies will spend enough “that she will be competitive in terms of getting her message out”, Guerra added.To break national records for a self-financed mayoral campaign, Caruso would have to outspend the New York billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who spent $109m on his campaign to win a third term as New York City’s mayor in 2009. Bloomberg spent $74m in 2001 and $85m in 2005 on his earlier mayoral bids; he burned through a reported $1bn on a short-lived run for president in 2020.The mayor’s race took place alongside other closely watched political contests in California on Tuesday. In San Francisco, the city’s progressive district attorney, Chesa Boudin, was recalled by voters in a blow to criminal justice reform.TopicsLos AngelesUS politicsCaliforniaDemocratsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

Inaugural January 6 hearing to track activities of Proud Boys during Capitol attackThe House select committee investigating the insurrection will examine several crucial stages in the lead up to the first breach of the Capitol The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack is scheduled to hold its inaugural hearing on Thursday and according to the running order obtained by the Guardian, the panel will track the activities of the far-right Proud Boys group before and during the insurrection.At the start of the hearing, the panel’s chairman Bennie Thompson and vice-chair Liz Cheney will make a series of opening arguments before outlining a general roadmap of how each of the six Watergate-style hearings are expected to unfold.For the second hour, Thompson and Cheney will hand control of the hearing to Tim Heaphy, the chief investigative counsel for the select committee, who will lead the questioning of two witnesses and walk through the key moments of the Capitol attack.The select committee is expected to start the questioning with testimony from Nick Quested, a British documentary film-maker who was embedded with the far-right Proud Boys group in the days and weeks leading up to January 6 and caught their activities on camera.Can televised hearings bring the truth about January 6 to the US public?Read moreQuested, appearing pursuant to a subpoena, is likely to deliver his own opening remarks and testify about how the Proud Boys planned their January 6 operation in detail in the weeks before the Capitol attack, narrating and analysing the footage that he recorded.By examining several crucial stages in the lead up to the first breach of the Capitol by the pro-Trump mob – such as the march to the Capitol from the Ellipse and a short stop at the Statue of Peace at the foot of Capitol Hill – the panel will show how the attack came to pass.The select committee is then expected to focus on the moment that Joseph Biggs, a member of the Proud Boys charged with seditious conspiracy on Monday, had a brief exchange with a man in the crowd near the statue just before the march morphed into the Capitol attack.Biggs’ exchange with that man, Ryan Samsel, is widely seen as the tipping point that precipitated the riot. Samsel, who has been charged with attacking police, then walks up alone to the barricade and confronts US Capitol Police officers before pushing it over.The select committee will illustrate Quested’s testimony about how that incident unfolded by playing footage leading up to that moment and a photo Quested took of the moment that Samsel is about to confront and then push past the officers.Heaphy is expected at that point to have the second witness, US Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards, testify about her recollections of those key minutes during which she was assaulted by another man who had been speaking with the Proud Boy member.The testimony by Edwards, who was the first officer injured in the attack, is expected to be harrowing. Edwards, the New York Times reported, was knocked backwards into concrete steps by the surging pro-Trump mob that overturned the bike rack-like barricade on to her.Heaphy is expected to return to Quested to have him analyse other moments that he caught on camera as the Proud Boys led the charge up to the inaugural platform elected for Biden’s swearing-in weeks later, and then smashed a window in order to enter the Capitol.But in a notable omission, the select committee is not expected to use Quested’s footage of Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys, meeting with Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the far-right Oath Keepers militia group, at a secret rendezvous the night before.The justice department has cited that meeting, which took place in an underground parking garage near the Capitol, in seditious conspiracy indictments against Tarrio, Rhodes, and other members of both the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers groups.Quested is considered the star witness in the select committee’s inaugural hearing, which will be covered live by most of the major US cable news networks, including MSNBC, CNN, CBS and ABC. Fox News will have its top-rated host Tucker Carlson deliver counter-programming.The Emmy award-winning documentary film-maker spent much of the post 2020 election period filming Tarrio and the Proud Boys – with their permission – and has testified multiple times to the panel in closed-door depositions.Quested had accompanied the Proud Boys to a number of pro-Trump rallies in Washington DC in November and December 2020, and was with the Proud Boys as some of its members stormed the Capitol. He also filmed Tarrio’s reaction to the riot later on January 6 in Baltimore, MD.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

How Republicans pass abortion bans most Americans don’t wantLegalized abortion in some form is widely supported, but gerrymandered districts allow politicians to push extreme measures through On 10 April 2019, the Ohio legislature easily passed SB 23, a bill that banned abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected, as early as six weeks into a pregnancy.It was a move that should have carried considerable political risk in Ohio, a state closely divided between Democrats and Republicans. There wasn’t widespread support for the bill – polling showed public opinion was nearly evenly split over the bill (a poll after the bill was passed showed a majority opposed it), John Kasich, a previous Republican governor, had twice vetoed the bill, saying it was unconstitutional, and it had stalled in the legislature for years.But Ohio’s governor, Mike DeWine, a Republican, nonetheless signed the bill into law the next day. And the following fall, when the politicians who passed the measure came up for re-election, Republicans didn’t lose any seats in the state legislature. In fact, they expanded their majority.Pro-choice forces are working to keep abortion legal in Michigan with a ballot initiativeRead moreOhio offers a case study of how US politicians enact extreme abortion measures that don’t align with voters’ views but face little accountability at the polls – an issue even more at stake this month as the supreme court is on the verge of issuing a decision that will probably overturn Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 decision establishing a constitutional right to an abortion. In Ohio and elsewhere, politicians are protected by their ability to draw their own political districts every 10 years, distorting them in such a way as to virtually guarantee their re-election. Republicans drew the lines in Ohio in 2011 and have held a supermajority in the state legislature ever since. “We can kind of do what we want,” Matt Huffman, the top Republican in the Ohio senate, told the Columbus Dispatch recently.In a leaked draft opinion overturning Roe, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that disputes over abortion should be resolved through the political process. “The permissibility of abortion, and the limitations, upon it, are to be resolved like most important questions in our democracy: by citizens trying to persuade one another and then voting,” Alito wrote, quoting the late Justice Antonin Scalia.But as it urges returning abortion to the political sphere, the supreme court has sanctioned a manipulation of the political process that makes it nearly impossible for Ohioans and voters in other states to make their voices heard on abortion. In 2019, Alito and four of the court’s conservative justices said federal courts could not do anything to police partisan gerrymandering, giving lawmakers in Ohio and elsewhere more freedom to gerrymander their districts.That kind of gerrymandering will probably serve as an invisible, virtually impenetrable fortress that will allow lawmakers across the US to continue to push extreme abortion measures that are unsupported by the public. Although public attitudes about abortion can be complex, the vast majority do not support overturning Roe v Wade and a majority supports legalized abortion in some form. State lawmakers who have pushed measures criminalizing abortion and outlawing it entirely have ignored those attitudes.“They are different strands of the same braid. We don’t have those restrictions without the gerrymandering,” said Kellie Copeland, the executive director of Pro-Choice Ohio, a group that works to protect abortion access in the state.When Ohio was considering the six-week abortion ban, Copeland said, her organization facilitated a “parade of witnesses” – medical professionals, women who had abortions, religious leaders – to give emotional testimony to the legislature. Many lawmakers didn’t stick around to listen. “They don’t care. And they don’t care because they know they’re untouchable because of gerrymandering,” she said.It’s a problem that exists beyond Ohio. The vast majority of Americans believe abortion should be legal in at least some circumstances, but state lawmakers continue to offer a blitz of increasingly extreme restrictions on abortion. Republicans control far more state legislative chambers than Democrats do and only about 17.5% of state legislative districts are expected to be competitive over the next decade. Very few chambers are expected to flip partisan control. In Ohio, Republicans have once again come up with a state legislative map distorted to their advantage and have openly defied the state supreme court’s orders to come up with a fairer map.Extreme restrictions with extreme consequencesIn 2010, Kasich had ousted an incumbent Democrat and Republicans flipped control of the Ohio house as part of a nationwide Republican effort aimed at winning state legislative chambers to control the redistricting process. Armed with complete redistricting power, Ohio Republicans drew new districts that allowed them to win a supermajority in the state legislature throughout the last decade, even as Barack Obama carried the state in 2008 and 2012.A wave of new restrictions on abortion restrictions began to flow. In 2012, the state enacted a new law banning abortions after a fetus was viable, except in cases of medical emergency, and requiring viability testing at 20 weeks (three to four weeks before the accepted medical definition of viability). The next year, Ohio lawmakers tucked a number of restrictions into a budget bill, including a hugely consequential measure that prevented abortion clinics from entering into required patient-transfer agreements with taxpayer-funded hospitals. The state went on to prohibit certain government money from going to Planned Parenthood, ban abortion at 20 weeks post-fertilization outright and, in 2019, passed the six-week abortion ban.“Throughout the ’80s, ’90s, early 2000s, there were occasional laws that would tinker with the informed consent requirement for an abortion or tinker around the edges with minors access to abortion and things like that,” said Jessie Hill, a law professor at Case Western Univerity. “We really started to see an uptick in abortion restrictions after 2010, or 2011, the last time the redistricting took effect in Ohio. It’s been since then, just sort of increasingly extreme restrictions.”Those restrictions produced extreme consequences. Between 2011 and 2015, seven of the state’s 16 abortion clinics either closed or curtailed their operations (six full-service clinics remain open today with three additional clinics providing medication abortion services). A complete ban on abortion in the state could increase the average distance a woman has to travel in Ohio to an abortion clinic from an average of 26 miles to as much as 269 miles in a worst-case scenario, according to one recent study.It’s a burden that significantly harms those in rural areas, who have seen clinics in their counties close and who will have to take more time off work to travel.“It’s kind of death by a thousand cuts,” said Sri Thakkilapati, the interim executive director of PreTerm, an abortion clinic in Cleveland. “Maybe any one or two of these things you could overcome, but all together it becomes a really burdensome process,” As the supreme court weighs overturning Roe v Wade, Ohio is now considering a virtually complete ban on abortion. Such a ban would mean that those seeking an abortion will have to pay “exorbitant amounts of income” to travel to obtain an abortion out of state, said Danielle Bessett, a professor at the University of Cincinnati who studies abortion access. “People who are not gonna be able to afford that travel … are then going to try and self-source abortion care at home. And we’ll probably see lots of inequality in how people are prosecuted and arrested for that,” she said.And lastly, she said, there will be those who don’t try either of those and are forced to carry their pregnancy to term. “There are equity issues there, too, with Black women having the highest rate of maternal mortality,” she said.As lawmakers have pushed these severe restrictions, they have consistently remained out of line with what most Ohioans believe. Polls have consistently shown that a majority of Ohio voters support some form of legalized abortion, while a minority believes it should be illegal.“Those who are anti-abortion and claim a faith tradition, they don’t speak for me. They don’t represent the countless folks who are faithfully pro-choice. Same thing with our elected leaders. They don’t represent who we are and what we believe in our communities,” said Elaina Ramsey, the executive director of Faith Choice Ohio, which works to protect abortion access.Thakkilapati agrees. “It’s frustrating. In some ways it’s hopeful that people do think that abortion should be a right and should exist for people in Ohio. It’s helpful to know that there are more of us. But in some ways it’s very disheartening,” she said. “It feels like it’s not gonna make a difference.”TopicsAbortionThe fight to voteOhioRoe v WadeUS supreme courtUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

San Francisco recalls DA Chesa Boudin in blow to criminal justice reformGavin Newsom easily advances to November election as Karen Bass and Rick Caruso head to mayoral runoff in Los Angeles San Francisco residents have voted to recall the district attorney, Chesa Boudin, who was elected on an agenda of criminal justice reform but faced intensifying backlash from law enforcement, conservatives and residents concerned about crime.Boudin’s removal as the city’s top prosecutor in the middle of his first term is a major blow to a growing movement across the US to elect progressive DAs dedicated to tackling mass incarceration, police brutality and racism in the legal system.The race was called by the Associated Press just over an hour after polls closed, with partial returns showing the recall received about 60% of the vote.In a speech to his supporters on Tuesday night, Boudin struck a defiant yet optimistic tone, saying he had been outspent by opponents but noting progressive candidates were winning or leading in their races in other parts of California and the US: “The movement that got us elected in 2019 is alive and well. We see the results from coast to coast, from north to south.”He noted that even as his office reduced incarceration rates and prioritized mental health and drug treatment, “crime rates stayed flat or declined”, adding: “We’ve already won, because we are part of a national movement that recognizes we can never incarcerate our way out of poverty. We have shown San Francisco and the world that we do not need to rely on fearmongering or exploitation of tragedy to build safety.”Boudin is a former public defender and the son of two leftist Weather Underground activists who spent decades in prison. He became one of the most prominent prosecutors in the US fighting to undo the damage of harsh punishments in a country that locks up more people per capita than any other.After his election in 2019, Boudin created a wrongful conviction unit that freed a man imprisoned for decades; eliminated cash bail in an effort to ensure people weren’t jailed because they were too poor to pay a fee; stopped prosecuting contraband cases that originated with minor traffic stops; and became the first San Francisco DA to charge an officer for an alleged on-duty manslaughter.Through resentencing, diversion and other reforms, Boudin has overseen a 35% reduction in the population of San Francisco residents in state prisons, a 37% decline in the adult jail population, and a 57% decline in the juvenile jail population.Boudin’s ousting came on a day of high-stakes primary races up and down the state, with the rising cost of living, policing and the state’s growing homelessness crisis high on voters’ minds.Karen Bass and Rick Caruso head to runoff in Los Angeles mayoral raceRead moreIn Los Angeles, a mayor’s race that pitted a tough-on-crime real estate developer, Rick Caruso, against the former community organizer and Democratic congresswoman Karen Bass will head for a November runoff after neither candidate cleared the necessary 50% vote threshold to win outright. That election was marked by record spending and a focus on crime and homelessness. Caruso, who has an estimated net worth of $4bn, poured more than $38m of his own fortune into his campaign, with a pledge to “clean up” Los Angeles.Meanwhile, the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, cruised to an easy victory, advancing to the November general election, where he will be an overwhelming favorite to win a second term barely a year after surviving his own recall attempt.The state’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, a progressive who has backed reform efforts, advanced to the general election on Tuesday night, with early results showing Bonta held a substantial lead over three challengers with more conservative platforms.Tuesday’s primary has been marked by low turnout, in what experts say is a stark sign of political apathy considering all registered voters in California were mailed a ballot.“Even if you make it extremely easy to vote, like in California, but the political culture, candidates and issues aren’t there, you aren’t going to increase the turnout,” the political scientist Fernando Guerra said.The San Francisco recall campaign had a huge financial advantage, backed by ultra-wealthy donors, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, including Ron Conway, an early DoorDash investor, and William Oberndorf, a billionaire and Republican mega-donor. Critics blamed Boudin for crime, violence, homelessness, retail thefts and other challenges that escalated during the pandemic. Homicides have increased in the city, echoing national trends, but overall violent crime decreased during the pandemic.Experts say prosecutors’ policies often have little bearing on crime rates, which are a function of complex socioeconomic factors, with some research suggesting that harsher punishments do not deter crime. As the recall gained ground, Boudin’s office noted that some California regions with “tough on crime” DAs promoting a traditional punitive approach were experiencing higher crime rates than San Francisco.Bid to recall San Francisco DA could be bellwether for progressive prosecutorsRead moreIn an interview before the election, Boudin said the recall was “dangerous for democracy”, noting that voters were opting to remove him without knowing who would replace him. The recall, he said, was relying on a “Republican- and police union-led playbook to undermine and attack progressive prosecutors who have been winning elections across the country”.San Francisco’s mayor, London Breed, a moderate Democrat, will appoint a successor to take over the DA’s office, but did not immediately announce her pick on Tuesday. Breed has increasingly opposed Boudin’s policies and criminal justice reforms more broadly, repeatedly siding with police officials in disputes and pushing to expand the police force and its powers. Boudin will be removed 10 days after the results are formally adopted, and his replacement will remain in place until the November election.Progressive DAs in Philadelphia and Chicago have won re-election despite intense backlash but have also faced renewed calls to have them removed from office. There are also efforts to recall the Los Angeles DA, who was elected on a reform platform, but an initial campaign last year failed to get enough signatures.Miriam Krinsky, the executive director of Fair and Just Prosecution, a network of local prosecutors who support reform, said in a statement on Tuesday night that Boudin’s ouster was the result of “a low turnout recall process easily swayed by special interests and coming at a time of deep frustration and trauma”. She said there was no evidence that reform-minded prosecutors had caused an uptick in crime in the US and praised Boudin for creating diversion programs to reduce recidivism.Recall efforts, often backed by conservatives, have become increasingly common in California, where voters can petition to remove a politician for any reason. In February, San Francisco held its first recall vote in the city since 1983, with residents electing to remove three school board members amid frustrations about closed schools during the pandemic.The Associated Press and Lois Beckett contributed reportingTopicsSan FranciscoUS politicsCalifornianewsReuse this content More

The daily White House press briefing has started, and at the podium is actor and Uvalde native Matthew McConaughey, who is making his pitch for gun control.McConaughey said he’d spent the past week in his home town and was now in Washington to share stories of the victims and their families in hopes of swaying lawmakers skeptical of gun control legislation.“While we honor and acknowledge the victims, we need to recognize that this time seems that something is different,” McConaughey said, speaking from behind the White House podium. “There’s a sense that perhaps there’s a viable path forward. Responsible parties in this debate seem to at least be committed to sitting down and having a real conversation about a new and improved path forward.”“I’m here today in hopes of applying what energy, reason and passion that I have and to try to turn this moment into a reality. Because as I said, this moment is different. We are in a window of opportunity right now that we have not been in before. A window where it seems like real change. Real change can happen,” he continued.You can tune into the full briefing here.That’s it from us today. Here’s how the day unfolded in Washington, as voters in several states head to the polls:
Primaries are being held in California, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota to choose candidates for the upcoming midterm elections in November. At the local level, voters in San Francisco are weighing whether to oust District Attorney Chesa Boudin amid rising concerns about crime and homelessness in the city.
Actor Matthew McConaughey appeared at the White House press briefing to urge lawmakers to strengthen gun laws. McConaughey, who was born in Uvalde, recounted his experiences meeting with families who lost children in the massacre at Robb Elementary school last month. He told reporters, “We are in a window of opportunity right now that we have not been in before — a window where it seems like real change, real change can happen.”
The Senate judiciary committee held a hearing on domestic terrorism in response to the racist shooting in Buffalo last month. Among those who testified was Garnell Whitfield Jr, whose mother was killed in the Buffalo attack. Whitfield said at the hearing, “I ask every one of you to imagine the faces of your mothers, as you look at mine and ask yourself, is there nothing that we can do? Is there nothing that you personally are willing to do to stop the cancer of white supremacy?”
Joe Biden met with Democratic Senator Chris Murphy to discuss negotiations over a compromise gun-control bill. After the meeting, Murphy said he was optimistic about the progress being made in talks with his Republican colleagues. “I am encouraged by the discussions that we have had with Republicans over the course of the last week and a half,” Murphy told reporters on Capitol Hill. “Every day we get closer to an agreement, not further away.”
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and House speaker Nancy Pelosi attended a memorial service for the victims of gun violence on the National Mall. At the memorial, Pelosi condemned Republicans for opposing gun-control legislation in the wake of tragedies like the Uvalde massacre and the shooting in Buffalo. She said, “Understand this: your political survival is nothing compared to the survival of our children.”
The blog will be back tomorrow with more coverage of the Senate’s gun-control negotiations and the January 6 committee’s upcoming hearing. See you then.Further up the west coast, my colleague Hallie Golden has an article out today about how a recent study found the terrifying tsunami threat to the Pacific Northwest from the Cascadia fault may be even more scary than originally known:Scientists have long predicted a giant 9.0-magnitude earthquake that reverberates out from the Pacific north-west’s Cascadia fault and quickly triggers colossal waves barreling to shore.But what if these predictions were missing an important piece of information – one that, in certain scenarios, could tell an even more extreme story?A new study, published last month in the peer-reviewed journal Earth-Science Reviews, points toward such a missing piece. Researchers revealed a previously unknown relationship between the severity of a tsunami triggered by an earthquake and something known as “the outer wedge”, the area between the main earthquake fault and the seafloor.A mega-tsunami in the Pacific north-west? It could be worse than predicted, study saysRead moreThus far, Californians don’t seem particularly stoked on this election. While every registered voter was mailed a ballot, only 15% of them were returned early as of Monday evening, the Los Angeles Times reports.The piece chalks the lack of enthusiasm up to a variety of factors unique to the Golden State, including voters’ weariness following last year’s failed recall of Governor Gavin Newsom, the lack of high-profile races and the fact that the polls aren’t viewed as an opportunity to weigh in on the ever-controversial Donald Trump and his allies. From the piece:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} Election experts say the lackluster participation by Californians stems from a dearth of excitement over this year’s contests, which largely lack competitive races at the top of the ticket. It’s a stark contrast with some parts of the nation, where voter turnout is exceeding expectations.
“It’s a boring election,” said Paul Mitchell, vice president of PDI. “It’s clear from what we’re seeing that we’re going to have a low-turnout election despite the fact the state has made it easier than ever to vote.”
The Democratic consultant predicts primary turnout is likely to be under 30%. “Nothing puts this in better contrast than looking at Georgia right now: They’re doing everything they can, it seems, to make it harder to vote, yet they are having record turnout because voters there feel the future of the country is at stake.”
Georgia’s May 24 primary came after a GOP-backed law imposed new voting requirements and restrictions.
Some predicted that a leaked Supreme Court draft decision eliminating federal protection for abortion access as well as a spate of high-profile mass shootings could motivate voters. But in California, this does not appear to be the case.
California’s early returns are a major drop off from the same period in September’s gubernatorial recall election, when nearly 38% of voters had voted as of election eve. Some 22% of voters had cast ballots at the same point before the last midterm primary election, in 2018, when ballots were not mailed to all California voters.Polls are open in California until 8pm.Meanwhile in California, polls are open in the state’s primary election, where voters will decide among a slew of candidates. Particularly closely watched will be the mayor’s race in Los Angeles and the petition to recall the prosecutor in San Francisco. The Guardian’s Lois Beckett dove into these issues and what they portend for politics in the country’s most-populous state.High stakes primary races taking place on Tuesday in California are expected to have major consequences for police reform, incarceration, and the state’s growing homelessness crisis.The most closely watched race is the mayor’s contest in Los Angeles, where voters are deciding between a tough-on-crime real estate developer, Rick Caruso, who has already poured nearly $40m of his own fortune into his primary campaign, and the former community organizer and Democratic congresswoman Karen Bass. In San Francisco, the city’s progressive prosecutor, Chesa Boudin, is facing a recall election that could have a major impact on movements for criminal justice reform across the US.High-stakes California races will decide LA mayor and San Francisco recall Read moreDemocratic Senator Chris Murphy, who is taking a leading role in crafting a compromise gun-control bill, said lawmakers are making progress in their negotiations.Speaking at a press conference on Capitol Hill, Murphy said this felt like “a moment where doing nothing is simply not an option,” in the wake of the massacre at Robb Elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.“I am encouraged by the discussions that we have had with Republicans over the course of the last week and a half,” Murphy told reporters. “Every day we get closer to an agreement, not further away.”Sen. Chris Murphy: “I am encouraged by the discussions that we have had with Republicans over the course of the last week and a half. Every day we get closer to an agreement, not further away.” pic.twitter.com/aR6wUHsjU1— CSPAN (@cspan) June 7, 2022
Murphy acknowledged that a compromise bill would not encompass all of the gun-control proposals he would like to see enacted, but he emphasized the importance of reaching an agreement with his Republican colleagues.“The American people are looking for progress right now. They’re looking for action,” Murphy said. “And my hope is, in the coming days, we’ll be able to come together in a way that gets us 60-plus votes.”Noting that he is the father of a fourth-grader, Murphy expressed hope that Americans could soon live in a country where their children do not have to go through drills to prepare for a tragedy like the one seen in Uvalde.McConaughey is telling the story of slain 10-year-old Alithia Ramirez, describing how, due to the wounds inflicted on her by the AR-15 style weapon used in the Uvalde shooting, she was identified by the green Converse sneakers she wore to school that day.“Counselors are going to be needed in Uvalde for a long time. Counselors are needed,” McConaughey said. “I was told by many that takes a good year before people even understand what to do next … A lifetime is not going to heal those wounds.”“This gun responsibility issue is one that we agree on more than we don’t,” he continued. “But this should be a non-partisan issue. This should not be a partisan issue. There is not a Democratic or Republican value in one single act of the issue.”After wrapping up his speech, McConaughey left the room.The daily White House press briefing has started, and at the podium is actor and Uvalde native Matthew McConaughey, who is making his pitch for gun control.McConaughey said he’d spent the past week in his home town and was now in Washington to share stories of the victims and their families in hopes of swaying lawmakers skeptical of gun control legislation.“While we honor and acknowledge the victims, we need to recognize that this time seems that something is different,” McConaughey said, speaking from behind the White House podium. “There’s a sense that perhaps there’s a viable path forward. Responsible parties in this debate seem to at least be committed to sitting down and having a real conversation about a new and improved path forward.”“I’m here today in hopes of applying what energy, reason and passion that I have and to try to turn this moment into a reality. Because as I said, this moment is different. We are in a window of opportunity right now that we have not been in before. A window where it seems like real change. Real change can happen,” he continued.You can tune into the full briefing here.A package of legislation addressing gun violence will be introduced tomorrow in the House, its speaker Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday:House update: Pelosi says gun package coming to the floor tomorrow: “Tomorrow, our Democratic Majority will bring the Protecting Our Kids Act to the Floor, under the leadership of Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler”— Jordain Carney (@jordainc) June 7, 2022
It’s unclear if this proposal is related to the ongoing negotiations in the Senate, where Democrats and Republicans are trying to reach a bipartisan compromise that can clear the 60-vote bar needed for passage.Actor Matthew McConaughey will appear at the White House press briefing this afternoon, which is expected to begin at any moment.McConaughey was born in Uvalde, Texas, and he has voiced ardent support for strengthening America’s gun laws in the wake of the massacre at Robb Elementary school.In an op-ed published Monday, McConaughey wrote, “I believe that responsible, law-abiding Americans have a Second Amendment right, enshrined by our founders, to bear arms. I also believe we have a cultural obligation to take steps toward slowing down the senseless killing of our children.”In addition to his appearance at the White House, McConaughey met earlier today with House speaker Nancy Pelosi to discuss the ongoing negotiations over gun-control legislation.“After the recent tragedy in his hometown of Uvalde, we agreed on the need for urgent action to save lives — especially for the children,” Pelosi said on Twitter.Today, I had the privilege of welcoming @McConaughey to the US Capitol to discuss Congress’ efforts on gun violence prevention legislation. After the recent tragedy in his hometown of Uvalde, we agreed on the need for urgent action to save lives — especially for the children. pic.twitter.com/8eVpVDLUhJ— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) June 7, 2022
The shooters in both Uvalde and Buffalo used an AR-15 style rifle, which many Democrats have said they would love to ban nationwide, while Republican have been more hesitant. CNN reporter Manu Raju has today been going around the Capitol asking Republican senators what people need AR-15s for.Here’s Missouri Senator Josh Hawley’s views:CNN’s @mkraju: “Why do people need [AR-15s]?”Sen. Hawley (R-MO): “That’s used for sporting events, for sporting activities all the time.”@mkraju: “People misuse them obviously.”Hawley: “People misuse handguns all the time. I think this [Uvalde] kid had a handgun as well.” pic.twitter.com/D9771zukF9— The Recount (@therecount) June 7, 2022
And in this clip, John Thune of South Dakota and Texas’s John Cornyn, who has been negotiating with Democrat Chris Murphy on a potential gun deal, weigh in:Thune tells me on AR-15s: “In my state, they use them to shoot prairie dogs and other types of varmint”Cornyn: “You’re talking about a constitutional right to keep and bear arms — people who are law-abiding citizens are in good mental health and aren’t a threat to the public” pic.twitter.com/AffMpM7tQR— Manu Raju (@mkraju) June 7, 2022
It’s worth pointing out that the AR-15 was not always available to American gun owners. The 1994 Federal Assault Weapons ban specifically prohibited the Colt AR-15 and some similar weapons, though that measure lapsed in 2004. More

High-stakes California races will decide LA mayor and San Francisco recall Analysts watch to see if voters in America’s more liberal cities will address police reform, homelessness and mass incarceration High-stakes primary races taking place on Tuesday in California are expected to have major consequences for police reform, incarceration and the state’s growing homelessness crisis.The most closely watched race is the mayor’s contest in Los Angeles, where voters are deciding between a tough-on-crime real estate developer, Rick Caruso, who has already poured nearly $40m of his own fortune into his primary campaign, and the former community organizer and Democratic congresswoman Karen Bass.Street activist, congresswoman – mayor? Karen Bass reaches for LA’s top jobRead moreIn San Francisco, the city’s progressive prosecutor, Chesa Boudin, is facing a recall election that could have a major impact on movements for criminal justice reform across the US.Midway through a tense midterm elections year, the races are likely to serve as a litmus test for Democrats and progressives. Analysts are watching to see if the majority of voters in some of America’s most ostensibly liberal cities decide to reject attempts to reduce mass incarceration and address the stark racial disparities in the criminal justice system.But one of the starkest takeaways so far is that voters simply are not very engaged in California’s primary election, despite multiple measures designed to make it easier for them to participate. Early turnout so far has been abysmal, even though every registered voter in California was mailed a ballot.“Even if you make it extremely easy to vote, like in California, but the political culture, candidates and issues aren’t there, you aren’t going to increase the turnout,” political scientist Fernando Guerra said. “We have extreme generational issues, with homelessness and crime and the cost of housing, and I think we have the candidates. There’s a lack of political culture.”Lower turnout is likely to be a particular challenge for “a lot of the young progressive candidates”, who might end up losing to an incumbent by a small margin of votes, Guerra said.Voters in California and nationwide are concerned about gas prices and the cost of living. A recent poll found that only a third of Los Angeles voters approved of the city’s police department, a lower approval rating than in 1991, after the police beating of Rodney King, but that nearly half of voters surveyed wanted to increase the size of the force.The role of the police in public safety is one of the key issues up and down the ballot, with younger progressive candidates who support defunding the police challenging older centrist Democrats in several Los Angeles city council races.Bass, the former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, supports police reform and a modest increase in Los Angeles police department staffing; Caruso has pledged to put an additional 1,500 officers on the street.Both Bass and Caruso have promised to put an end to people sleeping on the street in Los Angeles. Caruso has expressed willingness to arrest unhoused people who refuse to move to a city-provided shelter bed, and has also praised an army camp for undocumented children at the Texas border as a good model for how to deal with the city’s homelessness crisis.For some Los Angeles progressives, Bass’s more centrist positions on policing and homelessness have been a disappointment. Two years after George Floyd’s murder by police sparked worldwide protests, some activists see Bass’s endorsement of putting more police on the street as a step backwards.“She’s losing the enthusiasm of folks on the left, and I think that is a miscalculation,” said Melina Abdullah, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter, Los Angeles, who endorsed Gina Viola, a local activist running to Bass’s left, for mayor.Progressive groups in LA have also organized to oust the incumbent LA county sheriff, Alex Villanueva, who has been at the center of multiple scandals related to abuse and misconduct cases within the department. His critics, however, have not rallied behind one opponent among his eight challengers.The role of massive personal fortunes in public elections has also become a central issue in California’s primary campaigns. The attempt to recall Boudin, a central figure in the movement to elect prosecutors who want to make the legal system less punitive and racist, is reportedly being funded by ultra-wealthy donors, many of them in the tech industry, including: Ron Conway, an early DoorDash investor; Garry Tan, an Instacart investor; and David Sacks, a former PayPal executive.The result of the attempt to recall Boudin in San Francisco will “affect whether prosecutors elsewhere feel emboldened to take new approaches or whether they will perceive that as a political risk”, said Sandra Mayson, a University of Pennsylvania law professor.Political spending on the Los Angeles mayoral primary has already topped $50m, with Caruso’s campaign spending more than $40m of that. Bass’s campaign has spent $3m, in contrast, and a local police union has spent a similar amount on advertisement opposing her candidacy.On Friday, Elon Musk, one of the richest men in the world, tweeted his public endorsement of Caruso, who himself is ranked No 261 on Forbes’ list of richest Americans. “He’s awesome,” Musk wrote. “Executive competence is super-underrated in politics – we should care about that a lot more!”Caruso, a real estate developer with an estimated net worth of $4bn, has used at least $38m of his own money to move to the front of a crowded non-partisan primary field, a number that has already broken every previous record for mayor’s races in Los Angeles, local experts said. The billionaire’s personal fortune has funded a barrage of attractive television ads and mailers touting his candidacy, even as Caruso has skipped some mayoral debates, and largely avoided engaging with the press or holding open public events.Bass and then Caruso took an early lead in mayoral polls, leading other mayoral primary contenders to drop out of the race, though some, such as Kevin de Leon, a current city council member, fight on.Heading into Tuesday, polls showed Bass and Caruso closely matched in terms of voter support, setting up the possibility that neither would surpass the 50% vote threshold needed to win outright. In that case, the top two candidates will advance to a runoff election in November, a result that is expected to generate millions more in political spending from Caruso and from Bass’s progressive backers in Hollywood.TopicsCaliforniaUS politicsLos AngelesSan FranciscoUS policingUS justice systemnewsReuse this content More