OAKLAND — The recall targeting Alameda County’s top prosecutor initially appeared on the path to success early Tuesday evening, potentially striking a blow to progressivism in the criminal justice system across in one of California’s bluest enclaves.
After the first batch of voting results were made public Tuesday evening, District Attorney Pamela Price faced the prospect of becoming the first elected district attorney to be recalled from office in the county’s history. An early majority of voters voiced support for removing her from office less than two years into her first, six-year term, though final results could take days to be finalized as city and county election officials continue to count ballots cast on Election Day.
If the results hold, Price’s self-proclaimed “exclamation point in history” as the first Black woman elected to the office would end in a historic whimper. The Alameda County Board of Supervisors would then be tasked with appointing a replacement to serve until the next general election in 2026.
The early returns came as voters appeared in a mood for wholesale changes at the highest levels of the East Bay’s political scene: The recall targeting Oakland’s Mayor Sheng Thao also was passing by a nearly 2-to-1 margin early voting returns Tuesday evening.
Moments after the first batch of counted ballots were posted online, the recall’s leaders voiced early optimism for the measure passing. If the results held, it would suggest “the voters and the people in the county would like to see change and would like to see someone who is really taking the job seriously and taking the victims and the families seriously,” said Oakland Chinatown leader Carl Chan.
For Price, the election marked a referendum on progressive politics in the criminal justice system — particularly after the 2022 recall of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, a fellow progressive district attorney who also served as Price’s confidant and advisor.
The longtime civil rights attorney rose to power that same year with the goal of reimagining how the DA’s office prosecutes cases and pushing back against the nation’s legacy of mass incarceration, which disproportionately affected Black residents and communities of color.
Yet her critics blasted that approach as being too lenient on crime – particularly as she personally intervened in high-profile murder cases during the early months of her administration. Each time, she sought significantly less prison time for defendants who had faced a lifetime behind bars after being charged by former DA Nancy O’Malley.
“People now are demanding a different way, in terms of dealing with public safety,” said Chan, in the lead-up to the election he helped get on the ballot.
Recalling Price would “certainly slow the progress of reform” in the Bay Area and elsewhere in California, said Jon Simon, a criminology professor at the University of California, Berkeley. That’s despite many of Price’s policies falling largely in line with goals set by the state’s Committee on the Revision of the Penal Code, which urged …read more
Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
