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      Drug Sentencing Bill Is in Limbo as Midterm Politics Paralyze Congress

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      A broadly supported bipartisan measure to eliminate a racial disparity in drug sentencing faces a difficult road as Republicans seek to weaponize the issue of crime against Democrats.WASHINGTON — The Equal Act would appear to be a slam dunk even in a badly divided Congress.The legislation, which aims to end a longstanding racial disparity in federal prison sentences for drug possession, passed the House overwhelmingly last year, with more than 360 votes. It has been enthusiastically embraced on the left and right and by law enforcement as a long-overdue fix for a biased policy. It has filibuster-proof bipartisan support in the Senate and the endorsement of President Biden and the Justice Department.Yet with control of Congress at stake and Republicans weaponizing a law-and-order message against Democrats in their midterm election campaigns, the fate of the measure is in doubt. Democrats worry that bringing it up would allow Republicans to demand a series of votes that could make them look soft on crime and lax on immigration — risks they are reluctant to take months before they face voters.Even the measure’s Republican backers concede that bringing it to the floor could lead to an array of difficult votes.“I assume the topic opens itself pretty wide,” said Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri, who became the 11th member of his party to sign on to the Equal Act this month, giving its supporters more than the 60 votes needed to overcome procedural obstacles.The drug legislation is not the only bipartisan bill caught in a midterm political squeeze. A multibillion-dollar Covid relief package has been languishing for weeks, as Republicans insist that consideration of the measure must include a vote on retaining pandemic-era immigration restrictions that the Biden administration wants to lift.Democrats are increasingly at odds with the administration over its plan to wind down the public-health rule, known as Title 42. A vote would underscore that division and potentially open some of them to a politically difficult vote.Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri, became the 11th member of his party to sign on to the legislation this month.T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York TimesThe uncertainty surrounding the bipartisan bills is a clear sign that if legislating on Capitol Hill is not already done for the year, that moment is fast approaching.Given the calendar, virtually any legislation that reaches the floor is bound to attract trouble. Even consensus measures are at risk unless enough supporters in both parties agree to band together to reject politically difficult votes that could lend themselves to 30-second attack ads — the kind of deal that grows more difficult to reach each passing day.There are exceptions. A request by Mr. Biden this week to send an additional $33 billion in aid to Ukraine to bolster the war effort is expected to draw broad bipartisan support and little dispute. Democrats are still hopeful they may be able to salvage pieces of a hulking social safety net and climate package under special rules that allow them to move forward without Republican support. But that, too, could require a series of votes orchestrated by the G.O.P. to make Democrats squirm.A Guide to the 2022 Midterm ElectionsMidterms Begin: The 2022 election season is underway. See the full primary calendar and a detailed state-by-state breakdown.In the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are the four incumbents most at risk.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering, though this year’s map is poised to be surprisingly fairGovernors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Key Issues: Inflation, the pandemic, abortion and voting rights are expected to be among this election cycle’s defining topics.“What’s hurting bipartisanship is that even when there’s enough Republican support to pass a bill, the hard-right militants sabotage it to score political points, and gridlock prevails,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader. “But there’s always hope that cooler heads prevail, and occasionally they do.”Backers of the Equal Act and other criminal justice legislation said they hoped that was true for them. They insist that they can still get their bill passed this year, and that opposition will backfire politically.“This is a real opportunity for bipartisan achievement to eliminate one of the worst vestiges of injustice from American drug policy,” said Holly Harris, the president and executive director of the Justice Action Network and a leading proponent of criminal justice changes. “Those who seek to thwart this opportunity for 15 minutes of fame, five minutes of fame — I don’t think that’s going to be rewarded by voters.”The measure has bipartisan support in the Senate and the endorsement of President Biden and the Justice Department.T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York TimesIn a letter to Senate leaders this week, Ms. Harris’s group and about 50 law enforcement, progressive and conservative organizations urged them to quickly take up the legislation, saying that “we cannot miss this moment to right this decades-long wrong.”The legislation would eliminate the current 18-to-1 disparity in sentencing for crack cocaine versus powder. The policy that can be traced to the “war on drugs” mind-set of the 1980s, which treated those trafficking in crack cocaine more harshly. It resulted in a disproportionate number of Black Americans facing longer sentences for drug offenses than white Americans, who were usually arrested with the powder version.As a senator, Mr. Biden was one of the champions of the policy; it has since become widely discredited, and he has disavowed it.The United States Sentencing Commission has said that passage of the legislation could reduce the sentences of more than 7,600 federal prisoners. The average 14-year sentence would be cut by about six years, it estimated.Though Mr. Schumer endorsed the legislation in April, he has not laid out a timeline for bringing it to the floor. Democrats say he is giving backers of the bill a chance to build additional support and find a way to advance the measure without causing a floor fight that could take weeks — time that Democrats do not have if they want to continue to win approval of new judges and take care of other business before the end of the year.“Getting the opportunity is the challenge,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois and one of the original sponsors of the legislation. “We just don’t move many free-standing bills which involve some controversy.”Its supporters say that they recognize the difficulties but believe that it is the single piece of criminal justice legislation with a chance of reaching the president’s desk in the current political environment.“Of all the criminal justice bills, this is the one that is set up for success right now,” said Inimai Chettiar, the federal director for the Justice Action Network. “It is not going to be easy on the floor, but I think it is doable.”The problem is that the push comes as top Republicans have made clear that they intend to try to capitalize on public concern about increasing crime in the battle for Senate and House control in November.The approach was crystallized in their attacks on Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson during her Supreme Court confirmation hearings last month, as they accused her of leniency in sentencing. Given the rise in crime and drug overdoses, some Republicans say they are also having second thoughts about the landmark First Step Act, a sweeping bipartisan law passed in 2018 that freed thousands from prison after their sentences were reduced in a bid to ease mass incarceration.Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and minority leader, this week reprised his criticism of Judge Jackson and attacked Mr. Biden for having issued his first round of pardons and commutations, including for those convicted of drug crimes.“They never miss an opportunity to send the wrong signal,” he said of Democrats.Senator Tom Cotton, the Arkansas Republican who led the opposition to the First Step Act, said he was in no mood to let the Equal Act sail through. He has said that if the disparity is to be erased, penalties for powder cocaine should be increased.Demonstrators at a criminal justice reform rally in Washington in 2018.Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images“My opposition to the Equal Act will be as strong as my opposition to the First Step Act,” Mr. Cotton said.The legislation encountered another complication on Thursday, when Senators Charles E. Grassley of Iowa and Mike Lee of Utah, two top Republican supporters of the previous criminal justice overhaul, introduced a competing bill that would reduce — but not eliminate — the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine. They said that research showed that crack traffickers were more likely to return to crime and carry deadly weapons.“Our legislation will significantly reduce this disparity while ensuring those more likely to reoffend face appropriate penalties,” said Mr. Grassley, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee.Sponsors of the Equal Act say they intend to push forward and remain optimistic that they can overcome the difficulties.“We’ve got an amazing bill, and we’ve got 11 Republicans and people want to get this done,” said Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey and the lead sponsor of the legislation. “My hope is that we are going to have a shot to get this done right now.”Ms. Harris said that Democrats must recognize Republicans will attack them as soft on crime regardless of whether they act on the measure.“They are fearing something that is already happening,” she said. “Why not dig in, stay true to your principles, and do what is right for the American people? Maybe, just maybe, the politics will shake out.” More

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      How This ‘Progressive Prosecutor’ Balances Politics and Public Safety

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      As his peers around the country face fierce criticism, Eric Gonzalez, the Brooklyn district attorney, is navigating a narrow path so far.On the first Sunday in February, Eric Gonzalez, Brooklyn’s district attorney, sat in the front row at Antioch Baptist Church in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. The visit was emblematic of Mr. Gonzalez’s approach to criminal justice: Alongside dozens of parishioners, he and several local officials and police leaders listened to music, prayer and a biblical account of healing by faith and touch.When the service was over, Mr. Gonzalez and a top police commander stepped outside and into a crime scene. Just down the street, at around 2 a.m. that day, an 18-year-old man had been fatally shot in his car — Brooklyn’s 11th homicide of the year.A few short hours and a few hundred feet apart, the two episodes illustrated the narrow path that Mr. Gonzalez must walk. First elected in 2017, he pledged to bring a modern, progressive approach — a prosecutor’s healing touch — to a criminal justice system that has long been seen as a source of inequity. But as he begins his second term, stubborn increases in shootings, gang violence and other crimes have focused the city’s attention on public safety and complicated Mr. Gonzalez’s ability to fulfill that pledge.Some New Yorkers — most notably, Mayor Eric Adams — have blamed the increases in everything from shoplifting to shootings on leniency in prosecuting lower-level crimes. Calls for a tough-on-crime approach have run up against efforts to reduce the city’s jail population and rectify decades of racially biased policing.Mr. Gonzalez joined other elected leaders at the Antioch Baptist Church in Brooklyn this month, a visit that was emblematic of this approach to criminal justice.Amr Alfiky for The New York TimesAcross the country, many of Mr. Gonzalez’s peers in what has come to be known as the “progressive prosecutor” movement — including Alvin Bragg, Manhattan’s newly elected district attorney — have struggled to balance the competing demands. Although it is unclear what is causing the spike in shootings, their critics have focused on what they see as heightened scrutiny of the police, an emphasis on social services over prosecution and the easing of bail and sentencing laws.Faced with a spate of grisly crimes, rising public anxiety, relentless criticism from conservative commentators and open rejection by police unions, Mr. Bragg has spent his first weeks in the job clarifying and, in some cases, reversing some of his more ambitious proposals.Mr. Gonzalez has largely escaped such scrutiny, despite pursuing similar policies for years.How he navigates these at times conflicting priorities — reducing crime while making the justice system more just; responding to residents’ concerns without filling jails; serving victims while addressing the roots of criminal behavior — could be key in shaping the future of the city’s criminal justice system.“I know what works, and my strategy has not shifted,” Mr. Gonzalez said in a recent interview. “It’s my job to care about quality of life. What I am responsible for is safety — I am also a steward of public trust in our justice system.”He added: “Those are all things progressives have not gotten right in their messaging.”According to current and former colleagues, nonprofit leaders, academics, Mr. Gonzalez’s peers and other law-enforcement officials, his strategy boils down to this: Listen to the community. Work with the police. Do not speak in absolutes or make promises you cannot keep. Work quietly and steadily, making change case by case.A Career in BrooklynMr. Gonzalez joined the Brooklyn district attorney’s office in 1995. He rose through the ranks to become acting district attorney in 2016 and was elected to his first full term the next year. Amr Alfiky/The New York TimesMr. Gonzalez, 53, grew up in the East New York and Williamsburg neighborhoods, at a time when violence and drugs plagued Brooklyn.He graduated from John Dewey High School in Coney Island, then went to Cornell University and the University of Michigan Law School. In 1995, he started working at the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, rose through the ranks as a prosecutor, and never left. He lives with his wife and three sons in Williamsburg, less than a mile from where he grew up.He became acting district attorney in late 2016, after his predecessor, Ken Thompson, died of cancer.When he was elected to a full term the next year, Mr. Gonzalez pledged to lead “the most progressive D.A.’s office in the country,” promoting public safety and treating Brooklyn’s minority residents fairly.Mr. Gonzalez and his advisers put together a vision for the office, which was discussed widely within the office and shared with residents and the police. Early release from prison would be the default position in most parole proceedings; intervention efforts would be employed to drive down gang crime; prosecutors would be encouraged to resolve cases without jail time. The plan also called for more vigorous prosecution of certain sex crimes — such as so-called acquaintance rape — and the addition of a hate crimes unit.When the plan, “Justice 2020,” came out, it was “a non-story, because he had already sold it and begun to implement it,” said Tali Farhadian Weinstein, who served as general counsel under Mr. Gonzalez, and ran unsuccessfully against Mr. Bragg last year. She and several other former colleagues said the quiet, incremental rollout was typical of his style. “Not because you’re trying to hide the ball, but because that’s sometimes the best way for public safety,” she said.In his first full term, Mr. Gonzalez continued the work he began as acting district attorney: He dismissed tens of thousands of summonses for low-level offenses, and virtually stopped prosecuting marijuana possession. He expanded a mentorship program that allowed some young men arrested with a gun for the first time to avoid prison, and he reached plea deals with immigrant defendants that allowed them to avoid deportation.Yung-Mi Lee, the legal director of the criminal defense practice at Brooklyn Defender Services, said an important difference between Mr. Gonzalez and Mr. Bragg was that Mr. Gonzalez did not come out of the gates with a sweeping set of changes.Instead, Ms. Lee said, he had been “quietly implementing his policies, in terms of what kinds of cases should be prosecuted, which kinds of cases he has been declining to prosecute” — with some getting “a very hard-line approach.”“It’s all about prosecutorial discretion,” she said.When residents of Bay Ridge were upset about a group of men who often lingered on a corner near a school, drinking and urinating, Mr. Gonzalez said, his office intervened. Instead of seeking charges, the office contacted a charity service, and got a couple of the men into shelters.“Eric Gonzalez, rhetorically, is very progressive,” said Carl Hamad-Lipscombe, the executive director of the Envision Freedom Fund, a Brooklyn nonprofit and bail fund that pushes for alternatives to pretrial detention.“What plays out in court is often very different,” Mr. Hamad-Lipscombe said, with prosecutors from Mr. Gonzalez’s office seeking bail in cases that might not call for it.Working With the PoliceAfter historic lows in the years before the pandemic, shootings and murders rose sharply in Brooklyn in 2020. Amr Alfiky for The New York TimesOne factor that contributes to Mr. Gonzalez’s ability to walk the line between progressive priorities and community calls to tackle public safety concerns more aggressively is his diplomatic relationship with the Police Department, which he cultivated over a quarter century as a state prosecutor.“They have always been given a voice at the table,” Mr. Gonzalez said of the police.In 2017, the city’s largest police union endorsed Mr. Gonzalez in the Democratic primary, saying he “demonstrated a clear commitment to justice and fairness, as well as an understanding of the difficult and unique nature of a police officer’s duties.”Still, Mr. Gonzalez has occasionally faced criticism from the police. In 2019, when his office released a list of officers whose credibility had been undermined through discredited testimony or workplace infractions, the police union that once endorsed him said he had “abandoned his prosecutorial role,” siding with “criminals, not crime victims.”The department also objected strongly to his approach to gun possession cases. The police started to send gun cases to federal prosecutors instead; one of Mr. Gonzalez’s former top aides recalled that he had to work hard “to rebuild those bridges.”Mr. Gonzalez’s delicate approach to working with the police is rooted, observers said, in a fundamental understanding of New York: When it comes to law and order, much of the city can be somewhat conservative. In last year’s Democratic mayoral primary, Mr. Adams — a former police officer who ran on a tough-on-crime platform — carried many of the districts hit hardest by violent crime.“I constantly hear people say they want more cops — they just want their cops to behave differently,” said Richard Aborn, the president of the Citizens Crime Commission of New York, a nonprofit group that works closely with law enforcement and community organizations.Mr. Gonzalez, center, has forged collaborative relationships with the police while acknowledging that their approaches to reducing crime sometimes differ.Amr Alfiky/The New York TimesBy the end of 2020, Brooklyn had tallied 175 murders and 652 shootings, compared with about 100 murders and 290 shootings the year before. Aggravated assaults also increased, as did burglaries and car thefts.Brooklyn reported some improvement last year: a 15 percent decline in murders and 20 percent fewer shootings. Robbery, rape and burglary also dropped. Mr. Gonzalez’s office worked with the police on four major gang takedowns.But there is more work to be done.“We became the safest large city in America,” Mr. Aborn said. “When you’ve had 15 years of those levels of safety, and suddenly random shootings and murders start to creep up — people being shot, people being pushed on the subway, bodegas broken into with guns, that is going to shake an already shaken city.”Mr. Gonzalez has argued that this is not a problem the city can arrest its way out of. Many of the concerns he hears, he said, are not about violent crime or gangs or gun violence, but about residents’ perceptions of an erosion of public safety.“You have to have your ear to the ground, because it really goes from community to community,” Mr. Gonzalez said.His office recently fielded a call from a chain drugstore in the Brownsville neighborhood that was being targeted regularly by several shoplifters who would get violent when confronted.“There are neighborhoods with one pharmacy,” Mr. Gonzalez said. If that branch shuts down, “Suddenly, that community doesn’t have a 24-hour pharmacy.”A woman in Mr. Gonzalez’s office who handles cases involving repeat offenders talked to the local precinct and set up a pilot program. Detectives in unmarked cars stationed outside the store arrested the shoplifters but, rather than jail or prosecute them, the district attorney’s office spoke with them about what was behind the thefts: Of the six who agreed to participate in the pilot program, two reported having mental health problems, three were homeless and all reported substance abuse problems.The six were referred to service providers, and Mr. Gonzalez’s office is tracking their progress.“To me, being progressive is not simply about not prosecuting cases,” Mr. Gonzalez said. “It’s about using the resources to protect communities.”Nicole Hong More

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      Kathy Hochul Gives Her First State of the State Speech

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      Gov. Kathy Hochul pledged $10 billion to boost the state’s decimated health care work force, proposed a new transit line, and directed funds to combat gun violence.In her first State of the State address, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a $10 billion pledge to fortify New York’s health care work force and outlined her economic recovery plan.Cindy Schultz for The New York TimesALBANY, N.Y. — In her first State of the State address, Gov. Kathy Hochul on Wednesday outlined her vision for shepherding New York State through its recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, while vowing to open a new chapter of ethical, more transparent government.In her most ambitious proposal, Ms. Hochul, the state’s first female governor, called for spending $10 billion to bolster the state’s health care work force, which has been devastated by the pandemic. She also pushed initiatives to support small businesses and to lure new investments, vowing to position New York as the most “business-friendly and worker-friendly state in the nation.”The annual address, typically as much a declaration of politics as policy, provided Ms. Hochul her most expansive opportunity yet to define her agenda. She faces a contested Democratic primary in June, her first election since she unexpectedly ascended to the state’s highest job after former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo abruptly resigned in August amid allegations of sexual misconduct.In the speech, Ms. Hochul, a moderate from outside Buffalo, sought to balance competing political challenges: She wants to court more liberal urban voters in the party’s primary, but not so much that she becomes vulnerable to Republicans hoping to make electoral gains in November’s general election.She offered some left-leaning measures like a “jails-to-jobs” program, and others aimed at the political center, including tax cuts for middle-class New Yorkers and several initiatives meant to curb a spike in gun violence, which is likely to be a contentious election-year issue.“My fellow New Yorkers, this agenda is for you,” Ms. Hochul said at the State Capitol. “Every single initiative is filtered through the lens of how it’ll help you and your families, because I know you’re exhausted. I know you want this pandemic to be over. I know you’re worried about the economy, inflation, your kids, their education and what the future holds.”The state faces immense challenges: The unemployment rate in New York City is 9.4 percent, more than double the national average. In the past year, New York’s population declined by more than 300,000 people — more than any other state in the country. The economic struggles underscore the state’s gravest loss: 60,000 lives since the pandemic began.Ms. Hochul outlined a lengthy list of proposals intended to appeal to a constellation of constituencies, including business leaders, homeowners and influential unions representing teachers and construction workers, all of whom could play a crucial role in her campaign.Wearing suffragist white, Ms. Hochul stressed that she would be different from Mr. Cuomo, declaring that she would pursue a more collaborative relationship with Democrats who control the Legislature and with Eric Adams, New York City’s new mayor. She positioned herself as a champion of good government, proposing to overhaul the state ethics commission and to institute term limits on governors. The latter measure, which would curb her own power, was seen as a not-so-subtle rebuke of the outsize influence Mr. Cuomo amassed over more than a decade in office.“For government to work, those of us in power cannot continue to cling to it,” Ms. Hochul said, speaking before a sparse crowd of about 50 people.The package of ethics and government reforms were meant to hold accountable elected officials in a State Capitol with a long history of graft and corruption.One of her boldest proposals called for abolishing the embattled ethics commission, the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, whose members are appointed by the governor and state lawmakers. Instead, under Ms. Hochul’s plan, a rotating, five-member panel of law school deans or their designees would oversee ethics enforcement.The address, typically a lively affair that attracts crowds of activists and lobbyists to the Capitol, was tinged with decidedly 2022 touches: masks, testing requirements and attendance limits that meant many lawmakers watched remotely. The Assembly speaker, Carl E. Heastie, was absent, because of Covid-19 concerns. Outside the Capitol, a throng of protesters waving American flags crowded the lawn and railed against vaccine mandates.Keenly aware of potential attacks from Republicans, Ms. Hochul focused part of her remarks on new efforts to combat a surge in gun violence, including financing for more police officers and prosecutors, investments in neighborhoods where violent crime is common and money earmarked for tracing the origin of illegal guns.“Time and time again, New Yorkers tell me that they don’t feel safe,” Ms. Hochul said during the half-hour speech. “They don’t like what they see on streets and things feel different now, and not always for the better.”Members of her party’s ascendant left wing were pleased to hear the governor express support for the Clean Slate Act, which is meant to seal certain crimes on the records of formerly incarcerated people to help them find jobs and housing.But some of her proposals were not as far-reaching as some left-leaning Democrats had hoped. Ms. Hochul’s plan to expand child care would increase access for 100,000 families, well short of the more expansive Universal Childcare Act recently introduced in the Legislature. She made no reference to longstanding efforts to advance universal health care, or to institute a carbon tax.Ms. Hochul offered a five-year plan to build 100,000 units of affordable housing and, with the state’s moratorium on evictions set to expire this month, she proposed a program that would provide free legal assistance to poor renters facing eviction. But she was silent on demands to enshrine in state law a requirement limiting the ability of landlords to evict tenants and raise rents. The housing plan was applauded by the state’s influential real estate lobby, but criticized by a group of democratic socialist legislators for not doing enough to address the affordability crisis. A leading coalition of tenant activists, Housing Justice for All, called Ms. Hochul “Cuomo 2.0” in a statement.Most notably, Ms. Hochul sidestepped an explosive ideological wedge issue that is bound to come up this year: potentially amending the bail reform legislation passed in 2019. Embracing such a move could put her at odds with many lawmakers in her party. The legislation, which was meant to address inequities in the criminal justice system by abolishing cash bail for most crimes, has since been attacked by Republicans, who argue that the changes released violent criminals and cited the reforms in successful campaigns against Democrats last November.Republicans criticized Ms. Hochul’s plans, saying they would do little to address rising inflation or to lower taxes.“Our state’s oppressive tax burden drives businesses and families away in record numbers because, year after year, New Yorkers have been forced to pick up the tab for the out-of-control spending habits of liberal politicians,” said Will Barclay, the Assembly’s Republican leader.A Guide to the New York Governor’s RaceCard 1 of 6A crowded field. More

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      Chesa Boudin, San Francisco’s Top Prosecutor, Faces Recall

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      Voters will decide in June whether Chesa Boudin should remain in office, a test of the national movement to elect prosecutors who have promised to dismantle mass incarceration.Chesa Boudin, the district attorney of San Francisco, will face a recall election next year after a backlash in one of America’s most liberal cities to his policies aimed at reducing the number of people in jails and prisons.Elections officials in San Francisco certified this week that recall supporters had gathered enough signatures to force an election in June, when Californians will vote in a statewide primary for governor and congressional seats. The district attorney contest will serve as a test of how far liberal prosecutors can go in changing the justice system at a time of rising concerns about crime.Mr. Boudin, a former public defender whose story of growing up a son of incarcerated parents was central to his campaign two years ago, is among a number of liberal prosecutors who have recently been elected on promises of reducing incarceration and tackling racial bias within the criminal justice system.But Mr. Boudin, like other liberal prosecutors in places such as Philadelphia and Los Angeles, has faced sharp pushback from conservative activists, as well as other residents concerned about public safety, who say that he is not taking a hard enough line on crime and that his policies have made San Francisco less safe.Mr. Boudin has also faced opposition from within his own office, which has seen high rates of turnover, with some prosecutors resigning in protest of the department’s policies.One homicide prosecutor in the office, Brooke Jenkins, who said she supported Mr. Boudin’s efforts to reduce prison sentences and address racial biases and said she identified as a progressive, recently resigned and has supported the recall effort, citing mismanagement and low morale.“It’s my perception that Chesa lacks a desire to actually and effectively prosecute crime, in any fashion,” Ms. Jenkins said. “While he ran on a platform of being progressive and reform focused, his methodology to achieving that is simply to release individuals early or to offer very lenient plea deals.”In his time in office, Mr. Boudin has become a polarizing figure in San Francisco, a place where many voters have embraced the notion of transforming the criminal justice system by locking away fewer people but at the same time have grown weary of petty crime and scenes of despair on city streets.Fears of growing crime have divided the city, even though it has not faced the type of surge in homicides and gun violence that other major cities have experienced since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Unlike Oakland across the Bay, which is facing a sharp rise in homicides, the primary concerns in San Francisco are property crimes like theft and burglary, and quality-of-life issues like open-air drug dealing and the proliferation of homeless encampments.“Everybody’s like, why doesn’t the D.A.’s office just scoop these people up and throw them in jail so I don’t have to look at them anymore,” said Lara Bazelon, a professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law who is a supporter of Mr. Boudin. “That’s not how the law works. It is not a crime to be homeless.”Mr. Boudin framed the recall effort as driven by traditional law-and-order conservatives who want to roll back his efforts, such as not asking judges for cash bail, seeking more lenient sentences and sending fewer juveniles to prison.“This is clearly about criminal justice reform,” he said. “This is a question of whether we’re going to go forward and continue to implement data-driven policies that center crime victims, that invest in communities impacted by crime, and that use empirical evidence to address root causes of crime in our communities — if we’re going to go back to the failed policies of Reagan and Trump.”While fears about crime have fueled the recall effort, the data tells a more nuanced story: Major crimes were down 23 percent overall last year, according to the San Francisco Police Department, even as burglaries and auto thefts rose.Part of the problem, Mr. Boudin said, is that the police are arresting fewer people — an issue that he blames in part on the pandemic because many perpetrators, wearing masks to protect them from the virus, are difficult to identify.On Tuesday evening, Mr. Boudin was walking out of an event at a local university when a man came up to him and said, “When are you going to start making arrests?”“I said to him, I’m not going to start making arrests,” he recounted. “That’s not what the D.A. does. We don’t make arrests.”While some of the big money behind the recall effort comes from conservative donors — the largest donor toward an earlier effort was David Sacks, a conservative venture capitalist and former PayPal executive — the coalition lining up against Mr. Boudin also includes Democrats and others like Ms. Jenkins who identify as progressive but believe that Mr. Boudin’s policies are too radical.This recall effort comes on the heels of the failed attempt to oust Gov. Gavin Newsom, which was fueled largely by conservative anger over the policies and business shutdowns that the governor used to contain the virus.George Gascón, Mr. Boudin’s predecessor as district attorney of San Francisco, has faced similar efforts to recall him from office since being elected as the top prosecutor in Los Angeles on a similar promise of reducing imprisonment. A first signature-gathering campaign failed, but a new effort to recall him is underway. More

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      Seattle’s Choice: A Police Abolitionist or a Law-and-Order Republican?

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      The finalists in the race to become Seattle’s next city attorney have extreme differences in their views. Some residents are wary of both of them.SEATTLE — In the campaign to become Seattle’s next city attorney, the two candidates would like to tell you that their past remarks are not representative of who they are.One of the candidates, Nicole Thomas-Kennedy, is a self-described “abolitionist” who seeks to upend the criminal justice system. In Twitter posts last year, she celebrated those who set fires at a youth detention facility, called property destruction “a moral imperative” and praised whoever apparently triggered an explosive inside a police precinct as a “hero.” Over that same period, her opponent, Ann Davison, was moving in the opposite direction. A former Democrat, she declared herself a Republican appalled by what she saw as a lack of order in Seattle. In a city where Republicans have long been cast out of city politics, Ms. Davison filmed a why-I’m-not-a-Democrat video for a supporter of Donald Trump who later stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.Initially viewed as long shots who joined the campaign just hours before a filing deadline, Ms. Thomas-Kennedy and Ms. Davison have emerged as the two finalists to be city attorney, which represents the city in legal matters and leads prosecutions of low-level crimes. The extreme range in their political views has left some residents feeling unmoored ahead of Tuesday’s election. They said they are worried about worsening polarization surrounding the urgent issues facing the city: homelessness, housing affordability, crime, mental health and police reform.“I think a lot of us are disappointed in the choices that we have before us,” said State Senator David Frockt, a Democrat who represents Seattle. “I am wary of both of them.”The campaign has stirred a conversation about what it means to be a Democrat in a city where eight of the nine council members are Democrats —- the only departure being a socialist.Gary Locke, a former Democratic governor who worked as President Obama’s ambassador to China, said he didn’t consider the race through a partisan lens.“Sometimes you have to look at the candidates and their positions, not just at the party label,” Mr. Locke said.Mr. Locke decried Ms. Thomas-Kennedy’s past statements and said her call for fewer prosecutions would exacerbate problems in the city. He has joined with another former Democratic governor, Christine Gregoire, to endorse Ms. Davison.But other Democratic Party groups and leaders have rallied around Ms. Thomas-Kennedy, with each of the Democratic caucuses representing the city’s seven legislative districts endorsing her.Shasti Conrad, the chair of the King County Democrats, who has done consulting work for the Thomas-Kennedy campaign, said she was shocked and disheartened to see Mr. Locke and Ms. Gregoire back a candidate like Ms. Davison. People can’t call themselves Democrats and endorse a Republican for the job, she said, adding that the former governors were simply not in touch with the people living in Seattle.Seattle’s current city attorney, Pete Holmes, ran for re-election but lost in the primary.Elaine Thompson/Associated PressWhile she understands that some people have concerns about Ms. Thomas-Kennedy’s past remarks, she said that when people consider the vision and experience that Ms. Thomas-Kennedy would bring to the office, there was no question about who would be the better choice.“Things feel so broken that we need someone who is visionary and need someone who is going to address racial equity and take this office in a direction that will yield better results,” she said.Many local elections around the country on Tuesday have been shaped by debates around crime and how to overhaul the criminal justice system. Seattle’s mayoral election features one candidate, Lorena González, who last year was among those who endorsed a 50 percent cut in the police budget, running against Bruce Harrell, who has campaigned on a message for more police.Seattle recorded more homicides last year than in any year over the past quarter-century, although property crimes that would be handled by the city attorney’s office have not followed a similar rise. In a city that has become one of the nation’s most expensive places to live, there has been a surge in visible homelessness, with researchers counting a 50 percent increase in tents within the urban core since the start of the pandemic.Ms. Thomas-Kennedy was a public defender who said she grew appalled watching how the city handled misdemeanor crimes, prosecuting people for things that were essentially crimes of poverty. She got into the race but didn’t expect to be competitive against the three-term incumbent, Pete Holmes.“I thought I would have a blurb in the voter’s pamphlet about what’s happening at Seattle Municipal Court and how we could be doing things better, but I expected to kind of largely be ignored,” Ms. Thomas-Kennedy said. She said she was surprised to see herself come in first in the primary, carrying 36 percent of the vote, but she said it was evidence of how much people are yearning for substantial change.Ms. Thomas-Kennedy said the tweets she sent last year, before even considering a run for office, came at a time when she was angry after police were shooting tear gas into her neighborhood, forcing her to buy a gas mask for her child. But she said the remarks were inappropriate for someone running for office.“A lot of those things are just hyperbolic,” she said. “They were very flippant. And I will say that I think, more than anything, they were kind of childish. And do I think that’s appropriate for someone that’s running for office? No. Would I tweet like that anymore? No.”While she campaigns on a platform of eventually abolishing the criminal justice system as we know it, she said she knows that the process of reaching her goals won’t happen overnight. She envisions that the city first needs to have systems in place to support health care, education, job training and treatment services.For the city attorney’s office, she said she sees an opportunity to use the office’s civil division to go after corporations who commit wage theft and to protect tenant’s rights. She expects she would still prosecute things like serious assault or repeat DUIs because there aren’t yet alternative systems in place to address those crimes.Seattle Police investigate a shooting in the city’s Pioneer Square neighborhood, where multiple people were shot in July. The city recorded more homicides last year than in any year over the past quarter-century.Bettina Hansen/The Seattle Times, via Associated PressMs. Davison came to the election from an opposite viewpoint: that the city was already letting prosecutions slide in too many cases.Ms. Davison said the office in recent years has focused so much on helping support people accused of crimes and not enough representing the interests of victims of crimes. She contends that the lack of consequences for those committing crimes is making the city less safe. She also said the residents of the city want to see both police reforms and enforcement.Although she is a lawyer, she focuses mostly on civil contract law and arbitration. She said in an interview that she hadn’t handled a case in a courtroom since she left a downtown law firm more than a decade ago. But she contended that such experience isn’t necessary for the job.“The role is being a leader, and you hire subject-matter experts,” Ms. Davison said.A year ago, Ms. Davison was running for the state’s lieutenant governor position as a Republican and recorded a video explaining why she was a former Democrat as part of a “WalkAway” campaign — a pro-Trump effort. The founder of the WalkAway campaign, Brandon Straka, pleaded guilty this year to disorderly conduct during the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.As part of the video, Ms. Davison decried what she said was Democratic leadership in Seattle moving too far to the left.“I just can’t be part of that anymore,” she said. On Twitter, she decried that the far left was pulling the city toward “Marxism.” She joined conservative efforts to repeal a sex-education law.But although she was running as a Republican and courting Republican endorsements, Ms. Davison has tried to distance herself from the declaration. She notes that the office she is running for is technically nonpartisan. She said she actually voted for Joe Biden and voted for the Democratic candidate in the three prior presidential races.Republicans are still supporting Ms. Davison, hoping she has an opportunity to turn what seemed like an unstoppable tide in Seattle. Cynthia Cole, the chair of the King County Republican Party, laughed when she was asked when the last Republican was elected in the city.After some research, she found a Republican that served as mayor in the 1960s. But one did serve in the city attorney position more recently: He departed the office 32 years ago. More

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      In Nassau County D.A.'s Race, Kaminsky and Donnelly Clash on Bail Reform

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      A special election for Nassau County district attorney has centered on recent changes to New York’s bail laws.When the district attorney seat in Nassau County became vacant earlier this year, Todd Kaminsky, a Democratic state senator and a former federal prosecutor, was widely seen as a shoo-in.But the special election next Tuesday has become increasingly competitive, largely because Mr. Kaminsky’s Republican opponent, Anne Donnelly, has effectively framed the contest as a suburban referendum on the state’s recent laws to loosen bail restrictions.Backed by an influx of money from the local Republican Party, Ms. Donnelly’s campaign has run a barrage of ads that incessantly attack Mr. Kaminsky for supporting the state’s bail reform laws. They falsely depict Mr. Kaminsky as the mastermind behind the 2019 legislation; highlight mug shots of violent criminals her campaign says were released as a result of the law; and urge voters to “keep Nassau safe” by voting against “‘Turn ‘Em Loose’ Todd.”The race has become a key test of just how far Democrats can pursue left-leaning criminal justice policies before those policies return to haunt moderate members, like Mr. Kaminsky, in competitive districts with ever-crucial swing voters — even in Nassau County, which has trended Democratic in recent elections.Jay Jacobs, the chairman of the New York State Democratic Party, said Ms. Donnelly was a “substandard” candidate who had distorted the damage done by changes in bail laws and who mischaracterized Mr. Kaminsky’s record on the issue. But he acknowledged that the race had become competitive because of the passage of bail reform.“My question to the far left is: What do you win when you force things too far and you end up losing good progressives who are more moderate?” said Mr. Jacobs, who is also the leader of the Democratic Party in Nassau County.Anne Donnelly, the Republican candidate, said that “bail reform makes people less safe.”Johnny Milano for The New York TimesBail reform is also playing a notable role in neighboring Suffolk County, where Timothy Sini, the Democratic district attorney, and Ray Tierney, the Republican challenger, have both criticized the changes to state law, saying they endanger public safety.“We fought hard against this law,” Mr. Sini, a former police commissioner credited with taking on the MS-13 gang, said during a recent town hall. But nowhere has the issue seemed more divisive in New York than in Nassau County, where the district attorney contest has become one of the state’s most bitterly fought races.Mr. Kaminsky and Ms. Donnelly have dueled over crucial newspaper endorsements, spent millions in advertising and traded accusations of lying and fearmongering about violent crime in Nassau County — made up of mostly affluent white suburbs that have long been heralded as the safest in the country.“There’s been an extensive effort by Republicans in this race to give people the perception that crime is on the rise here, and that city crime, which is out of control, is coming here,” Mr. Kaminsky said in an interview. “That has been their underlying and explicit message from Day 1.”Ms. Donnelly, who has worked in Nassau’s district attorney office for more than 30 years, said in an interview that Nassau was “a very safe county,” but that “bail reform makes people less safe and has put a revolving door on the front of the courthouse where criminals are not held accountable.”“I made bail reform an issue against my opponent because he owns bail reform,” she said. “He voted for it. He made sure it got passed. It’s not moderate.”In 2019, after regaining full control of the State Legislature for the first time in years, Democrats passed a law that sharply curtailed judges’ ability to set cash bail for most misdemeanors and some nonviolent felonies. It was an effort meant to stop the poor from being jailed before trial simply because they couldn’t afford to post bail, while those charged with the same crime who had more resources were released.The law created significant backlash after law enforcement officials raised the specter of dangerous criminals on the loose. It then became a political flash point in Albany, pitting moderate Democrats against the progressive wing of the party in 2020, an election year. Democrats ultimately agreed to roll back certain parts of the law that year after acknowledging some limitations.At the same time, Republicans spent millions of dollars attacking Democrats for supporting the original law, as well as the defund the police movement, running ads that were meant to stoke fears over the supposed harm to public safety from the law.Their tactic worked, to an extent. Democrats lost two House seats in 2020, as well as two State Senate seats just outside of New York City, including on Long Island. But Democrats in the State Capitol ultimately expanded their majority in the State Senate, buoyed by record turnout from the 2020 presidential election and an aggressive mail-in vote campaign.Now, the district attorney race has catapulted the bail law, and Mr. Kaminsky’s involvement in it, to the forefront for a second year in a row.“This race has become a talisman for how deeply this bail reform issue cuts with voters,” said Bruce Gyory, a Democratic political consultant. “You can bet that if Kaminsky were to lose this race, having gone into it as such a clear favorite, that the Republicans and some of their allies will double down and run against incumbent Democrats on this issue.”Mr. Kaminsky said Ms. Donnelly was being “dishonest” in saying that he wrote the bail law in 2019. While he voted for the state budget that included the bail law, he was not a co-sponsor of the law and was one of the Democrats who lobbied for a more restrained version of the law, in 2019, as well as when it was rolled back in 2020.“The Republicans have basically said, ‘What’s the penalty for lying?’” Mr. Kaminsky said. “I think being honest is a central character trait of being the district attorney, which has to have the most integrity of any position in government.”Mr. Kaminsky entered the race with an edge.Once a reliable G.O.P. stronghold, Nassau County has turned more Democratic over the past few decades as a result of demographic changes, mirroring a national political shift of traditionally conservative suburban voters slowly moving to the left. The county has more registered Democrats than Republicans — it voted twice for Barack Obama, as well as for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020 — but it still has a sizable contingent of independent voters. The previous district attorney, Madeline Singas, who resigned this year to become an associate judge on the State Court of Appeals, is a Democrat.Mr. Kaminsky jump-started his campaign with nearly $1.5 million he raised as a State Senate candidate. Since then, he has raised an additional $1.5 million, including $20,000 from Michael R. Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor.Ms. Donnelly, in her first run for public office, has received just over $250,000 in campaign contributions, including nearly $50,000 from Ronald S. Lauder, the billionaire cosmetics heir who spent millions of dollars last year in support of candidates running against Democrats who supported bail reform. Her campaign has also received substantial financial support from the county’s Republican Party, which has transferred more than $720,000 to her campaign account.The Daily News editorial board endorsed Mr. Kaminsky, but he suffered a blow after the editorial board of Newsday, the largest daily newspaper headquartered on Long Island, announced on Saturday it was endorsing Ms. Donnelly. The endorsement portrayed Mr. Kaminsky as an ambitious politician who was late to push back against bail reform, “perhaps to stay in the graces of New York City progressives who hold the key to success for statewide office.”National politics could also play a role in the race if President Biden’s sagging approval ratings energize more Republicans to vote next week or dampen enthusiasm among Democrats, especially in an off-year election.Indeed, some political observers are eyeing the Nassau race — as well as the races for governor in New Jersey and Virginia — as an early test of Democrats’ ability to protect their slim majority in Congress in next year’s midterm elections, when many of the most competitive races will play out in swing suburban districts.“As important as this race might be for people in Nassau, it’s about a heck of a lot more than who the next chief law enforcement officer in the county will be,” said Lawrence Levy, the executive dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University, on Long Island.“It’s about how specific issues like bail reform and other law-and-order issues will play to the impact of the party’s national brand,” he said. “Long Island, even if it doesn’t count in national elections because it’s in a blue state, is a typical suburban swing region, so what happens here can be a bellwether for what might happen next year.”Katie Glueck contributed reporting. 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      Conservative Group, Seizing on Crime as an Issue, Seeks Recall of Prosecutors

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      A group backed by undisclosed donors is targeting three Democratic prosecutors in Northern Virginia for recall campaigns in a test of what could be a national strategy in 2022.WASHINGTON — A Republican-linked group said on Monday that it was beginning a recall campaign backed by undisclosed donors to brand Democrats and their allies as soft on crime by targeting progressive prosecutors.The initial focus is three prosecutors who were elected in the affluent Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington in 2019 amid a national wave of pledges by Democrats to make law enforcement fairer and more humane.The group, Virginians for Safe Communities, said the targets of the recall effort were Buta Biberaj of Loudoun County, Parisa Dehghani-Tafti of Arlington County and Steve Descano of Fairfax County, all of whom hold the position of commonwealth’s attorney.The campaign faces uncertain prospects, starting with clearing signature-gathering requirements and legal hurdles.But the organizers described it as part of a broader national push to harness voters’ concerns about rising crime rates in cities and a backlash to anti-police sentiment.“All things in politics have their time, and now is the moment that people who are for law enforcement have woken up,” said Sean D. Kennedy, a Republican operative who is the president of Virginians for Safe Communities. He called the recall efforts in Northern Virginia a “test case to launch nationwide.”He said the group had raised more than $250,000, and had received pledges of nearly another $500,000. He would not reveal the identities of donors to the group, which is registered under a section of the tax code that allows nonprofit groups to shield their donors from public disclosure.Mr. Kennedy, who has worked for Republican campaigns and committees, is an official at the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, but he said the new group was independent from that one. Others involved in the new group include the former F.B.I. official Steven L. Pomerantz and Ian D. Prior, who was an appointee at the Justice Department during the Trump administration and before that worked for well-funded Republican political committees.Mr. Kennedy cast Virginians for Safe Communities as something of an antidote to a political committee funded by the billionaire investor George Soros, a leading donor to Democratic causes. His group, Justice and Public Safety PAC, has spent millions of dollars in recent years backing candidates in local district attorney elections who supported decriminalizing marijuana, loosening bail rules and other changes favored by progressives.The spending upended many of the races, which had previously attracted relatively little funding and attention from major national interests.Mr. Soros’s representatives did not respond to a request for comment.His PAC spent hundreds of thousands of dollars each supporting the campaigns of Ms. Dehghani-Tafti, Mr. Descano and Ms. Biberaj in 2019, when they swept into office promising a new approach to criminal justice.Their victories came at a time when politicians from both parties were re-examining tough-on-crime policies that enacted harsh sentences for drug crimes and laid the groundwork for the mass incarceration that disproportionately affected Black communities. In late 2018, President Donald J. Trump signed into law the most consequential reduction of sentencing laws in a generation. The next month, Joseph R. Biden Jr., then preparing to run against Mr. Trump, apologized for portions of the anti-crime legislation he championed as a senator in the 1990s.The skepticism of law enforcement and the criminal justice system was further catalyzed by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020, after which calls to “defund” law enforcement echoed from racial justice marches to the halls of Congress. Many Democrats, including President Biden, have rejected the “defund the police” movement.But, a year and a half after Mr. Floyd’s death, American cities are facing a surge in gun violence and homicides that began during the throes of the pandemic and has continued into this year.Republicans have sought to pin the blame on Democrats and their allies, and have tried to reclaim the law-and-order mantle that politicians of both parties had embraced in the 1980s and 1990s, but later downplayed amid concern about police misconduct and disparities in the criminal justice system.Conservatives “have basically sat on the sidelines of this issue,” Mr. Kennedy said. “It has been dominated by one side, and our side had basically unilaterally disarmed.”He accused the three Northern Virginia prosecutors of enacting “dangerous policies” that are “undermining the public’s faith in our justice system.” He cited an increase in the homicide rate between the end of last month and the same time last year in Fairfax County.Ms. Dehghani-Tafti, the head prosecutor for Arlington County and the City of Falls Church, said in an email that she was “doing exactly what I promised my community I would do — what I was elected to do — and doing it well: making the system more fair, more responsive and more rehabilitative, while keeping us safe.”Some of the more progressive planks in her campaign platform and those of Ms. Biberaj and Mr. Descano — ending prosecutions for marijuana possession and not seeking the death penalty — were at least partially codified statewide this year. Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia signed legislation abolishing the death penalty and legalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana.Ms. Dehghani-Tafti accused Mr. Kennedy’s group of using undisclosed “dark money” and “relying on misinformation” to “overturn a valid election through a nondemocratic recall.”Recalls are rare in Virginia, requiring the collection of signatures from a group of voters equal to 10 percent of the number who voted in the last election for the office in question, followed by a court trial in which it must be proved that the official acted in a way that constitutes incompetence, negligence or abuse of office. In the case of the prosecutors, the signature requirement would range from about 5,500 in Arlington to 29,000 in Fairfax.Mr. Kennedy said his group intended to pay people to gather signatures starting as soon as this week, with the goal of reaching the thresholds by Labor Day.Recent efforts to defeat or recall progressive prosecutors have so far not been successful in other jurisdictions, including Philadelphia and Los Angeles, and a pending grass-roots effort to recall the three Virginia prosecutors has not gained much apparent traction. More

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      Los Angeles Just Elected a Liberal D.A. He’s Already Facing a Recall Effort.

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      George Gascón is facing an intense backlash for enacting the sorts of policies demanded by protesters after the killing of George Floyd.LOS ANGELES — From inside the walls of Folsom State Prison, the two inmates, one a convicted murderer, clinked their cups of prison moonshine in a toast to the new district attorney of Los Angeles, George Gascón.A video of the celebration was released earlier this year by Mr. Gascón’s opponents — and there are many — who used it to attack what is perhaps the most far-reaching plank of his progressive agenda: the review of nearly 20,000 old prison sentences, many for violent crimes like murder, for possible early releases.Mr. Gascón, a Democrat, has brushed off the video as nothing more than a Willie Horton-style attack by get-tough-on-crime proponents that “plays well on Fox News.” But he doesn’t shy away from his belief that even those convicted of violent crimes deserve a chance at redemption.“There’s no way we can get to meaningful prison reduction in this country without looking at more serious crimes,” Mr. Gascón, who also supports ending cash bail and eliminating the prosecution of juveniles as adults, said in an interview. “The public stories you hear are the really scary stuff. You’re talking about the violent sexual predator. You’re talking about some sadistic murderer. The reality is those are really a small number of the prison population and violent crime.”But the prospect of convicted murderers getting out early, or getting lighter sentences than they would have received in a previous era, has fueled an effort to force a recall election next year and remove Mr. Gascón from office. More than a thousand volunteers, as well as dozens of paid workers, are collecting signatures for the recall at gun stores, bail bonds offices, and even outside Mr. Gascón’s home.A rally in support of Mr. Gascón on Friday in Los Angeles.Morgan Lieberman for The New York TimesAnd inside courtrooms, some prosecutors who believe Mr. Gascón’s policies will harm public safety are openly working against him by attempting to sabotage his directives to pursue lesser sentences and not seek cash bail.Mr. Gascón, 67, who was propelled into office by grass-roots activists in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd, is one of the nation’s most progressive prosecutors in one of America’s most liberal cities, and yet he is facing an intense backlash in enacting the sorts of policies demanded by protesters last year and aimed at reducing the vast racial disparities in arrests and prosecutions.The pushback is a sign of the many challenges liberal district attorneys in big cities are facing, at a time when Republicans are increasingly trying to portray Democrats as soft on crime, amid a rise in gun violence and homicides across the nation that began during the pandemic and has continued into 2021. In Los Angeles, for instance, murders increased 36 percent last year.Mr. Gascón’s approach, and whether he can be successful, is being closely watched by activists who have led a national movement in recent years to elect prosecutors who promise to send fewer people to prison. They achieved early victories in 2016 in St. Louis and Chicago, and earned another one the next year with the election of Larry Krasner, a former civil rights attorney, as the district attorney of Philadelphia. (Mr. Krasner, who shares many of Mr. Gascón’s views, recently cemented his power by winning the Democratic primary by an overwhelming margin, all but ensuring another term in office.) But their most important victory has been Mr. Gascón’s election in Los Angeles, because of its size and its history of high incarceration rates.While in all of those places the newcomers faced intense resistance when they took office, perhaps none of them has faced as much pushback as Mr. Gascón, who has been hampered by Civil Service protections that largely prevent him from firing prosecutors and bringing in like-minded deputies.The recall campaign is supported by high profile figures like Sheriff Alex Villanueva and Steve Cooley, a former Los Angeles district attorney, as well as some victims of crime, including Desiree Andrade, whose son was killed in 2018 when he was beaten and thrown from a cliff after a drug deal. Some of the men charged in her son’s killing now face lesser sentences under Mr. Gascón’s policies — but still face decades in prison — and Ms. Andrade, at a recent news conference, described Mr. Gascon as pushing a “radical, pro-criminal agenda.”The recall push, which is funded in part by Geoff Palmer, a real estate developer and Republican megadonor who raised millions for former President Donald J. Trump, is still a long shot. Supporters need to collect nearly 600,000 signatures by late October to force a new election, and recalls are easy to start in California, but rarely lead to an officeholder’s ouster.A booth to collect petition signatures for the recall of Mr. Gascón at a farmers market in San Dimas, Calif.Morgan Lieberman for The New York TimesMr. Gascón said the efforts against him reflect the polarization of America’s politics, and underscores that California, while deeply blue, is not monolithic. “We have some counties that you could pluck them up and put them in the middle of Texas or Arizona and you wouldn’t see the difference,” he said.A Cuban émigré who moved to Los Angeles as a boy, Mr. Gascón started as a beat cop in South Los Angeles in the turbulent 1980s, a time of gang warfare and a crack epidemic. He went on to be the police chief in San Francisco, before being appointed district attorney there in 2011 to replace Kamala Harris, who had become California’s attorney general. He was elected to the job twice, and reduced the number of people San Francisco sent to state prison.Los Angeles, under Mr. Gascón’s predecessor, Jackie Lacey, maintained a more punitive approach to crime, and in recent years sent people to state prison at four times the rate of San Francisco.Mr. Gascón, who won the office from Ms. Lacey by a wide margin in November, speaks often about how, as an officer, he found himself locking up multiple generations of Black men from the same family. Over time, his views on crime and punishment changed, and he said he sees it as his job as district attorney to undo the damage of that time, especially for Black and Latino communities in Los Angeles.“Those days continue to haunt me,” he said of his time as an officer, in his inauguration speech.Mr. Gascón points to data that shows lengthy sentences increase recidivism and thus make the public less safe — a direct rebuttal to those supporting the recall in the name of public safety. He believes that most people, even some that have been convicted of violent crimes and especially those who committed their crimes when they were young, deserve second chances. He has also promised to do more to hold the police accountable for on-duty shootings, and is reviewing old cases in which Ms. Lacey declined to prosecute.Mr. Gascón said that his office will carefully weigh whether a person is suitable for release, either because of advanced age or because they are model inmates, and that people still believed to be dangerous to the public will not be let out early. And judges and parole boards would have the final say.Already, in his first three months in office, prosecutors have sought roughly 8,000 fewer years in prison compared to the same period a year ago through eliminating many so-called enhancements — special circumstances such as the use of a gun in a crime, or gang affiliations or prior felonies under the “three strikes law,” a pillar of an earlier era’s war on crime — that can add years to a sentence.The elimination of enhancements has perhaps provoked the most anger from his own prosecutors, who form the largest office in the country. A lawsuit filed by the Los Angeles Assistant District Attorney’s Association resulted in a judge ruling largely in favor of the union, saying that in most active cases underway before Mr. Gascón took office he cannot order prosecutors to eliminate the enhancements.Richard Ceballos, a longtime deputy district attorney who prosecutes gang cases, said he was outraged when he was ordered by the new administration to remove a gang enhancement in a case in which an alleged MS-13 gang member was accused of stabbing a transgender woman in MacArthur Park. He briefly ran for the top job before exiting the race in 2020, and endorsed Mr. Gascón.“I so regret endorsing him or giving him any money,” he said. “I’m a progressive prosecutor. I don’t think he’s progressive. He’s reckless and dangerous.”Mr. Ceballos said he and other prosecutors opposed to Mr. Gascón are “smart enough” to figure out how to carry out his directives in ways that are not directly insubordinate but are unsuccessful in the courtroom. He said though he can no longer ask for gang enhancements, he can make it clear in court that he believes a suspect is a gang member, and leave it for the judge to decide. At the same time, while Mr. Gascon has directed prosecutors not to seek cash bail, Mr. Ceballos asks detectives to ask for bail on court documents.“We look for loopholes, just like any lawyer,” he said.The fact that inmates have taken notice of Mr. Gascón’s initiatives has been seized upon by those who believe the changes underway in Los Angeles are a threat to public safety.The California District Attorneys Association pointed to the prison video as evidence that “violent criminals” will be the biggest beneficiaries of Mr. Gascón’s “radical policies.”“We have multiple incidences of convicted murderers who are very aware of Gascón’s directives and are trying to take advantage,” said Vern Pierson, the president of the association.Mr. Gascón was embraced by a supporter after a rally in Los Angeles on Friday.Morgan Lieberman for The New York TimesFor the activists who helped elect Mr. Gascón, this is only the beginning of what they hope is a sustained push to transform criminal justice in Los Angeles. They say he is doing everything he said he would, and are rallying around him to oppose the recall. Ivette Alé, an organizer with Dignity and Power Now who advised Mr. Gascón, said the elimination of gang enhancements was something she had long pushed for, because they have led to severe racial disparities in sentencing.“That is huge,” she said. “That policy would do so much for racial and economic justice.”On Friday morning, allies of Mr. Gascón, including union leaders, faith leaders, Black Lives Matter activists and formerly incarcerated people, rallied in downtown Los Angeles. Robert Carson pointed to himself as an example of someone who changed in prison, and said he hopes others will get the same chance. “I did everything necessary to rehabilitate myself,” said Mr. Carson, 56, who left prison in February after serving 23 years for murder.If Mr. Gascón survives the recall and is able to push through his agenda, his goal over the long term is ambitious: that California can eventually close two or three state prisons by dramatically reducing sentences, especially for those who were young when they committed crimes.“I don’t think any of us would want to be judged by one of the dumbest things that we did, especially when it’s a young person,” Mr. Gascón said. More