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      After the election results in California, the left must organize and fight | Ben Davis

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      After the election results in California, the left must organize and fightBen DavisProgressive movements that have built power in cities across the country are facing a well-financed backlash from entrenched interests they vowed to fix There are a few clear lessons from the recent primary elections in California. The first is that California is still a one-party state. The second is that once partisanship is removed in the eyes of voters, conservative forces have a lot of room to operate. Despite their failure at a federal level, conservative forces are on the move in California using a playbook that will be repeated across the country.In California’s top statewide races, Democrats easily finished with a large majority of votes across the board, with Republicans struggling to even approach 40% of the statewide vote. As recently as a decade ago, Republicans in California could threaten Democrats when they had an advantage in the national climate. Today, there’s effectively no threat of Republicans being involved in state-level governing. Republicans may pick up a few seats in California if there ends up being a massive Republican wave this fall, but they are still a defeated force at the federal and state level in all but a few pockets of California.The election did see some huge results which will have implications across the country, in particular on the municipal level. California represents the vanguard of a phenomenon of urban reaction. Progressive movements centered on racial justice, criminal justice reform, tenants’ rights and more have spent the last decade building power locally in cities across the country; these movements are now running into a serious and well-financed backlash from the entrenched interests they vowed to fix.This is most apparent in the successful recall of the progressive San Francisco district attorney, Chesa Boudin, but can also be seen in the first-place primary finish of the real estate developer and recent Republican Rick Caruso in the Los Angeles mayoral race, and the first-place primary finish of Los Angeles’s rogue sheriff, Alex Villanueva. This comes on the heels of Republican Ann Davison winning the Seattle city attorney election and as a number of other Republican-aligned candidates make headway in Democratic primaries and non-partisan municipal elections in a number of historically progressive cities. This election cycle is the first test case of how entrenched powers in cities react to threats.The recall of Boudin is instructive. The San Francisco power establishment had its sights on him from the day he won, and used a number of tactics to stymie and ultimately defeat him.The first prong is one we will see more and more as progressives try to enact their democratic mandates in municipal governments: a police work slowdown. Police in the United States have operated with impunity for decades, effectively isolated from democratic accountability to the communities they serve. In California in particular, police and sheriff departments have allegedly engaged in large-scale criminality, operating in many locales as gangs that terrorize the population or as occupying forces. When police see the threat of being held accountable to the public, they impose costs that protect their positions.This is an age-old tactic of conservative sections of the state when they feel threatened by elected progressive governments. After Boudin was elected, police in San Francisco stopped fully doing their jobs, a tactic used by the Baltimore police department after the death of Freddie Gray and the New York police department to punish Mayor Bill de Blasio. San Francisco now boasts a woeful clearance rate. Police efforts to sabotage Boudin went so far that the prosecutor had to rent a U-Haul to carry out a major arrest because the police refused to participate.The message to residents was clear: remove Boudin and stop efforts to exercise accountability or people won’t be safe.The second prong of the attack on Boudin came directly from capital. San Francisco is increasingly run by extremely wealthy tech oligarchs who can outspend any opposition by huge margins. Actually dealing with crime involves spending more on social programs and redistributing wealth downwards, anathema to the ultra-wealthy. Progressive prosecutors threaten a shift from prosecuting petty crime to enforcing regulations on businesses and the wealthy. The oligarchs can finance massive political campaigns, but they can also threaten capital flight and capital strikes, another age-old tactic to resist progressive government and democratic oversight.In the US and California in particular, a new wealthy class has been moving from suburbs to cities and displacing the urban working-class population. In San Francisco, billionaires and the ascendant class of wealthy tech workers moved into a city with all that urban life entails – noise, homelessness, people of many economic and racial backgrounds in close proximity, etc – and have responded by trying to turn the city into the suburbs. As the housing crisis worsens and cities become more wealthy and more unequal, we will see a sort of reverse of the white flight of the 1950s and 60s and the suburban tax revolts of the late 1970s, as the new urban ruling classes seek to instate a homogeneous society in place of the bustling, messy, diverse, cultured places they inherited.The final prong of the recall effort was a massive campaign by the media, which has ramped up around the country. Boudin’s tenure was marked by breathless coverage of crime and increasing media alarmism about the city becoming a war zone. Hundreds of articles have been written in San Francisco and elsewhere attributing rising crime to progressive prosecutors and criminal justice reform.This hysteria is largely evidence-free: crime has been rising nationwide at about the same rate, with no correlation whatsoever to progressive prosecutors or city governments. In fact, cities with Republican mayors and prosecutors are far more dangerous. Republican-governed Jacksonville, for example, is about the same size as San Francisco and has three times the murder rate. The media, however, has focused almost exclusively on progressive-run jurisdictions. In San Francisco, people were whipped into a frenzy, despite the fact that the city is vastly safer than it was for most of the previous 50 years.Boudin’s recall is the tip of the spear of reaction, rather than just one example of backlash against progressive governance. San Francisco is a unique city that, despite its left-leaning reputation, gave unique opportunities for conservative forces to move so aggressively. For one, Boudin only won in the first place with 36% of the vote, hardly a clear mandate. Indeed, the 40% who voted to retain him demonstrates that, if anything, he gained support over his tenure.In contrast, the handy re-election victories of progressive prosecutors Larry Krasner in Philadelphia and Kim Foxx in Chicago further demonstrate Boudin’s unique vulnerability. Krasner and Foxx both lost white voters, winning re-election on the back of large margins from the Latino and especially Black voters who together make up a majority of both their districts. In San Francisco, however, Black people and Latinos together make up just 20% of the population, with Black residents alone just 5% of residents.San Francisco is also vastly wealthier than most other American cities, leaving a much smaller base of people affected by policies that primarily harm poor and marginalized people. The election map shows that support for the recall was strongest in the wealthiest areas. In Philadelphia, someone seeing a homeless encampment on their way to work is likely to be a working-class person; in San Francisco, there’s a decent chance this person is a millionaire or even billionaire who will make their distaste everyone’s problem.There is much to learn in these results for progressives, but no clear path forward. How can institutions be made to actually respond to democratic leadership? How can the ultra-wealthy be counteracted? Can the left build an alternative media structure? There are no obvious answers, and, absent a plan, the forces of municipal conservative backlash will continue unabated.Unless activists, workers and tenants regroup, reflect and commit to organization and politics on a mass level, the results in California will be the first in a series that serve to further militarize cities, stratify them by class, and brutalize the most vulnerable. These results are a canary in the coalmine for anyone who wants thriving, diverse, equitable cities that are good places to live and work.
      Ben Davis works in political data in Washington DC. He worked on the data team for the Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign and is an active member of the Democratic Socialists of America
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      San Francisco recalls DA Chesa Boudin in blow to criminal justice reform

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      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

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      High-stakes California races will decide LA mayor and San Francisco recall

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      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

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      Bid to recall San Francisco DA could be bellwether for progressive prosecutors

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      Bid to recall San Francisco DA could be bellwether for progressive prosecutors Chesa Boudin says effort to oust him, backed by wealthy donors, is part of ‘Republican-led playbook’Chesa Boudin, San Francisco’s chief prosecutor, elected on an agenda of tackling mass incarceration, is facing a recall election that could have ramifications for criminal justice reform efforts across the US.A former public defender and the son of two leftist Weather Underground radicals who spent decades in prison, Boudin pledged to undo the harms of racism in the system, hold police accountable for misconduct and end the criminalization of poverty. After his election in November 2019, he became one of the most prominent leaders in a growing movement to elect progressive prosecutors.Boudin, 41, enacted many campaign promises: he became the first San Francisco district attorney to charge an officer for on-duty manslaughter; created a wrongful conviction unit that freed a man imprisoned for decades; stopped prosecuting contraband cases stemming from minor traffic stops; eliminated cash bail; and reduced jail and prison populations.But amid escalating anxieties about crime during the pandemic, Boudin has faced intensifying opposition from law enforcement, conservatives, tech investors and some constituents and elected Democrats in the city, including the mayor. Critics have blamed Boudin for the city’s struggles with violence, homelessness and addiction and have called for a law enforcement crackdown and harsher punishments.San Francisco’s progressive district attorney will face recall election Read moreAfter an initial recall campaign failed to get enough signatures last summer, a newly formed committee of his opponents, called San Franciscans for Public Safety, in November succeeded in placing the measure on the 7 June ballot. If the recall succeeds, the mayor will appoint a successor.Recall backed by the ultra-wealthyConservative-backed recalls have become increasingly popular in California, where the barrier to getting a recall on the ballot is lower than in many other states and where voters can petition to remove a politician for any reason.The campaign to recall Boudin has a financial advantage, backed by ultra-wealthy donors, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, including Ron Conway, an early DoorDash investor; Garry Tan, an Instacart investor; David Sacks, a former PayPal executive; and William Oberndorf, a billionaire and Republican mega-donor.The recall has painted a bleak picture of violence in San Francisco, saying crime is “surging” and has “hit an embarrassing high”. During the pandemic, homicides in the city have increased, mirroring national trends, though overall violent and property crimes have decreased and are lower than they were decades prior, according to the Chronicle.“This is a Republican- and police union-led playbook to undermine and attack progressive prosecutors who have been winning elections across the country,” Boudin said in a recent interview with the Guardian. “The playbook involves delegitimizing and fear-mongering and recalling. It’s a tactic being used by folks who are increasingly unable to prevail in elections when they put forward their views about public safety and justice.”Progressive prosecutors in Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia have also been threatened with recall attempts, in some cases after they were re-elected.“If these folks who are attacking my administration have the courage, they can run for district attorney next year and put their record, credentials and policy ideas to voters and see if their views are popular,” Boudin said.The backlash against progressive prosecutors is rooted in the false premise that DAs directly affect crime trends, said Sandra Mayson, a University of Pennsylvania law professor: “There’s an almost universal misperception prosecutors control crime rates, but they don’t. Crime rates are a function of complex socio-economic forces.”Boudin’s office noted that some of the California regions with “tough on crime” conservative DAs relying on harsh punishments had experienced some of the state’s highest crime rates.“Chesa has been focusing on tackling the root of violence in our cities,” John Legend, the musician and criminal justice activist, who is supporting Boudin, said in a recent interview, noting Boudin’s lawsuit against the manufacturers of untraceable “ghost guns” and his efforts to expand victims’ services. “He’s creating diversion programs to ensure we’re not overusing incarceration as a solution, when there are better solutions available that don’t disrupt families. He’s done what he promised to do for San Francisco.”‘This will be a bellwether’Boudin also argued that some attacks against him were rooted in misinformation. Several widely cited cases where he was accused of being “soft on crime” have fallen apart under scrutiny. In one instance, a local reporter claimed the DA had dropped charges against a teenager who had allegedly attacked an elderly woman, but it came out a month later that charges had never been dropped.In another, a 69-year-old man sued Boudin after he was attacked by a father and his “teenage” son, who allegedly used a baseball bat. The father pleaded guilty to misdemeanor battery, which the man said was a “slap on the wrist”. But subsequent reporting revealed the “teenager” was actually an 11-year-old who had swung a plastic bat, and his father was a wheelchair user. The dispute started when the 69-year-old complained about the father and son taking up too much space on the sidewalk, the DA said. The initial charges had been filed in 2019 by Boudin’s predecessor.Son of jailed radicals, reviled by the police union. Now, Chesa Boudin is San Francisco’s top copRead moreAsked about that case and how he thinks the DA should have handled it, Richie Greenberg, chairman of one of the pro-recall committees, said: “We try not to get involved with actual policy or analysis. But we need to hold criminals accountable, regardless of their age, whatever is the appropriate accountability method.”But should the 11-year-old have been charged or imprisoned? “We need to go back and see how other DAs would’ve handled it. I’m not in charge of the DA’s office,” responded Greenberg, a former Republican mayoral candidate who launched the first recall effort last year.Boudin has cut the juvenile jail population in half, with 33 children incarcerated at the start of his term compared with 14 on average as of March 2022, his office said. Boudin also oversaw a 35% reduction in the population of San Francisco residents in state prisons, achieved through resentencing and diversion.Pressed on whether he thought more youth overall should be jailed, Greenberg said: “We’re not talking about philosophies on whether or not we want to change the system on how you sentence a juvenile versus an adult. This is starting to veer off into another topic.”Greenberg said Boudin never should have been elected because he was a public defender. The DA, Greenberg claimed, had gained supporters by being “charismatic” and “using buzzwords like mass incarceration and racial justice. He just throws out those words and people eat it up like in a cult, like he is a cult leader … This is a woke, non-DA, a pretender, a poser.”Brooke Jenkins, a former prosecutor under Boudin and volunteer spokesperson with San Franciscans for Public Safety, the pro-recall group, said in an interview after publication that Democratic voters put the measure on the ballot and that her group was led by Democrats.“Our committee is a diverse coalition … Crime affects everyone. It doesn’t matter what your party is or what neighborhood you live in. Everyone wants to feel safe,” she said.Jenkins said she supported the spirit of some of Boudin’s reforms, but that he had gone too far, adding that he was failing to deter crime and should be “setting a tone where criminal offenders understand there’s accountability and consequences”. The recall groups have not endorsed a successor to replace Boudin.Boudin said this was part of the problem with recalls: “Voters have no idea what policies or person could replace [me] and that’s a very dangerous thing for democracy.”Mayson said the recall would be a “bellwether for progressive prosecution” across the US, adding that the outcome would “affect whether prosecutors elsewhere feel emboldened to take new approaches or whether they will perceive that as a political risk”.Greenberg said he wanted the recall to be a “template” for targeting other progressive DAs and candidates: “My vision is to take the movement national so that we can push back against these quote-unquote ‘progressive’ DAs.”TopicsSan FranciscoUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      San Francisco mayor: recalled school board members were distracted by politics

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      San Francisco mayor: recalled school board members were distracted by politicsCovid closures and attempt to rename schools deemed named for figures linked to injustice, including Abraham Lincoln, fueled vote San Francisco school board members recalled from their posts this week allowed themselves to become distracted by politics, the city’s mayor said on Sunday.Florida governor: school districts that defied no-mask mandate to lose $200m Read moreVoters overwhelmingly approved the recall of board president Gabriela López, vice-president Faauuga Moliga and commissioner Alison Collins.The board was enveloped in controversy over Covid regulations and closures; an attempt to rename 44 schools deemed to be named for figures linked to racism, sexism and other injustices, among them Abraham Lincoln; and remarks by Collins about Asian Americans.The mayor of San Francisco, London Breed, spoke to NBC’s Meet the Press. Discussing her obligation to name replacements, she said: “I’m going to be looking for people that are going to focus on the priorities of the school district and not on politics, and not on what it means to run for office, and stepping stones, and so on and so forth. “We need people who want to be on the school board to make a difference, and who meet those qualifications to do the job.”Breed sidestepped suggestions the recall showed voters rejecting progressive policies.“My take is that it was really about the frustration of the board of education [not] doing their fundamental job,” she said. “And that is to make sure that our children are getting educated, that they get back into the classroom. And that did not occur. They were focusing on other things that were clearly a distraction.“Not to say that those other things around renaming schools and conversations around changes to our school district weren’t important, but what was most important is the fact that our kids were not in the classroom. “And San Francisco … we’ve been a leader during this Covid pandemic. In some cases, we have put forth the most conservative policies to ensure the safety of all San Franciscans. And our vaccination rates, and our death rates and other numbers demonstrate that we are a clear leader. “But we failed our children. Parents were upset. The city as a whole was upset, and the decision to recall school board members was a result of that.”School boards have become battlegrounds across the US, often as conservative parents and activists look to control what children are taught and how schools deal with Covid.Breed said: “This is not a Democratic/Republican issue. This is an issue about the education of our children.”She also said parents wanted “someone who is going to focus on … making sure that children get the education that they need in our schools, dealing with the challenges of learning loss, dealing with the mental health challenges that exist”.López, the board president, said her recall was the “consequence” of her “fight for racial justice”, and added: “White supremacists are enjoying this, and the support of the recall is aligned with this.”Breed said: “Well, of course [that’s] not the right kind of reaction. And the fact that we’re still even listening to any of the recalled school board members is definitely a problem. Bills to ban US schools’ discussion of LGBTQ+ issues are threat to free speech – reportRead more“… This person is making it about them when it really should be about our kids who have suffered, not just in San Francisco but all over this country as a result of this pandemic.”Her host, Chuck Todd, asked: “How much of this was about renaming the schools of George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln, and [Senator] Dianne Feinstein [and] how much of it was also parents upset that the rules were changed at how you got into some specific magnet schools?”Breed said it “was probably both. But at the end of the day, our kids were not in school. And they should’ve been.”“… And yes, of course there were people who were probably upset about some of the proposed changes. But those are discussions that are important to have, but not at the expense of making sure that the priority of what the school district is there to do is met.”TopicsSan FranciscoCaliforniaUS educationRaceCoronavirusUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Nancy Pelosi says she was 'set up' in hair salon mask dispute – video

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      House speaker Nancy Pelosi says she was ‘set up’ after she was photographed in a San Francisco hair salon without a face covering, breaking the city’s coronavirus prevention rules. ‘I take responsibility for trusting the word of a neighbourhood salon that I have been to over the years many times,’ she said. ‘I don’t wear a mask when I’m washing my hair. Do you wear a mask when you’re washing your hair?’ Security camera footage of Pelosi in the salon was obtained by Fox News, sparking outcry over the incident which was pounced on by Donald Trump
      Nancy Pelosi says she was victim of ‘setup’ in hair salon mask dispute

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      ‘He made a mistake’: will California’s black voters look past Bloomberg’s stop-and-frisk past?

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      As Super Tuesday looms, the New York mayor has been emphasizing his push for gun legislation and policies on systemic racism As presidential hopeful Mike Bloomberg heads into the primary elections on Super Tuesday, the question of whether black voters will be able to look past the New York mayor’s legacy of stop-and-frisk continues to […] More

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      Donald Trump praises US coronavirus response while playing down impact

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      President to receive briefing from CDC experts on Wednesday San Francisco declares precautionary local emergency Donald Trump praised US health officials’ response to the coronavirus outbreak on Wednesday, as he and other members of his administration attempted to play down its possible impact. Related: Will coronavirus trigger a global recession? | Jeffrey Frankel Continue reading… More