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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. There was an election result in San Francisco last week that we haven't mentioned yet on the show, but we are going to get to now because of its possible relevance to elections in any liberal city where crime and homelessness are prominent issues. In case you didn't hear this yet, voters in San Francisco recall their progressive prosecutor, Chase Boudin, and it wasn't even close.

Now, there are versions of these kinds of attempted removals going on in other places too. In the Republican primary debate for Governor of New York on Monday on WCBS, all the candidates had some version of this about Manhattan's progressive prosecutor, Alvin Bragg. This is an example from candidate, Harry Wilson.

Harry Wilson: In terms of Mr. Bragg, I've been very clear, he has been a disgrace to the office and I would fire him day one.

Brian Lehrer: Now that despite Wilson having made a campaign donation to Bragg in the past, but our liberal-minded urbanites really alienated from their progressive prosecutors who were trying to fight crime and mass incarceration at the same time. Let's take a closer look with Fordham University law professor, John Pfaff, who has an article on Slate called What the San Francisco DA Recall Really Tells Us and What it Doesn't. John Pfaff is also the author of the 2017 book, Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform. Professor Pfaff, thanks for coming on. Welcome back to WNYC.

John Pfaff: Thank you so much for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Let's start by refreshing our memories on what people mean by the term progressive prosecutor or at least how you, in particular, use it.

John Pfaff: Yes, it's a tricky term. It encompasses a wide range of behavior. There's a growing number of prosecutors who describe themselves that way, and people agree and disagree as to whether or not they count. I think anything unifies all of them is the idea that trying to scale back to have a reflect the desire to rely on punishment first, a greater embrace of diversion, and other forms of trying to move cases out of the criminal legal system without necessary conviction or certainly not jail or prison time.

Though some focus on very much low-level offenses, like misdemeanors and marijuana cases, and nothing much more than that. Others start moving into trying to change how we punish even serious crimes. In Philadelphia, for example, Larry Krasner, has made a big push to start charging homicides much more as a murderer three, rather than a murder two or murder one, which is actually quite significant because it changes the minimum time in prison from life without parole to 10 years, which doesn't change anything in the short run, but 10, 15 years down the line could have a very big impact.

It's a wide range of options, but mostly centered on this idea that maybe prison and jail shouldn't be our first go-to instinct, but we should try to think about how prison and jail themselves contribute actually in many ways to future reoffending. Maybe we should other approaches that are more humane.

Brian Lehrer: I think your overall frame is that despite the media attention to Chase Boudin in San Francisco and Alvin Bragg in Manhattan, many other progressive prosecutors with similar policies have not become lightning rods. You can look as close to Manhattan as Brooklyn where you mentioned DA Eric Gonzalez. Do you see Bragg and Gonzalez as similar on policy as progressive prosecutors, just not in how much they're lightning rods?

John Pfaff: I think they're fairly similar. If anything, I almost think that Gonzalez is more progressive in many ways than Bragg is proven to be. I think in part because Bragg retreated fairly quickly after the blowback he got from his proposed first-day memos, or what he was going to do the day took over, which is where a lot of the political blowback that he got has come from. I think also, the term progressive prosecutor can be a little confusing because I think when we say progressive, people and in fact, the data backs us up that progressive voters tend to be more liberal, more white college-educated voters.

Those voters do tend to support these more reform-minded prosecutors, but I think the real bedrock support for these prosecutors actually doesn't come from the white left progressive side of the politics. I think it comes from the much less progressive and still Democratic voting Black communities and Latino communities, especially Black communities, where violence tends to be concentrated disproportionately, because they see both the costs and benefits of enforcement.

What I'm seeing in my own research across multiple cities, is that the support for progressive VAs is strongest where violence actually is the largest. The communities with the most amount of gun violence are the ones most likely to vote for progressive VAs because they realize that just locking people up without trying to address the underlying problems doesn't work because they see and experience, and live the failures.

I think there's one thing to note about San Francisco, is that unlike Brooklyn, unlike Philadelphia, unlike Boston, and St. Louis, and Chicago, only about 5% of San Francisco is Black. It's about 45% white, about 3% Asian, and so the racial politics [unintelligible 00:05:22] are just different in San Francisco, which that makes it hard to draw, perhaps a big national, what does this all mean kind of story from it.

Brian Lehrer: Let's stop for a minute and put a big bracket around what you just said. That was the next thing I was going to bring up anyway. I think it's so important. Only about 5% of the population of San Francisco is Black, and yet a lot of the media seems to be drawing the conclusion from the recall of Chase Boudin, the progressive prosecutor, as, "Oh, urbanites in Liberal cities are getting turned off to progressive prosecutors," but it's so unusual for a major city to have only a 5% Black population. Of course, as you say, that's who feels both sides of crime, too much crime, and over-policing. I don't think we can emphasize that enough really.

John Pfaff: Yes. I think in some ways, there's one lesson to take away from San Francisco, it's really paying attention to that fact, and then when outlier, San Francisco was from the start. I think how that term progressive prosecutor does mischaracterize the politics of the moment that we're in.

Brian Lehrer: Another variable that you bring up in your article is insider versus outsider status of a progressive prosecutor. There are insider progressive prosecutors?

John Pfaff: Yes. What I meant by that is that some of our most high-profile server form VAs, the ones who are the lightning rods. Can you be the ones who weren't DAs first? Larry Krauser, in Philadelphia, he was a defense attorney who sued the police a lot before he became a prosecutor. Chase Boudin, similarly was not a career prosecutor or had any prosecutor experience. He was a public defender before he became the chief prosecutor. I think those candidates tend to attract the most negative political attention.

On the flip side of that, I think one of the most successful if underappreciated reform DAs out there is Brooklyn's Eric Gonzalez. Gonzalez joined a Brooklyn DA's office the day he graduated from law school. He spent his whole career there, he worked his way up through the ranks. For him, he probably has more buy-in from his own staffers. They know him. He's not this outsider coming up in the office, he's this person they've known his entire life. I think also his inaction [unintelligible 00:07:48] by the media is different, just because he has that prosecutorial demeanor and seems like it's an internal evolution rather than serving outside revolution.

Kim Fox in Chicago, she used to be about 10 or 12 years as a prosecutor in Chicago, Marilyn Mosby, in Baltimore. There's a lot of these DAs who seem to be doing fairly well electorally, who perhaps their path to the office was much less dramatic.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, anyone in San Francisco, listening early in the morning, San Francisco time, it's 5:00 to 8:00, or with ties to San Francisco, want to call in on the recall of progressive prosecutor, Chase Boudin. What happened there, and what do you think it means for other cities, New York, or anywhere else? 212-433-WNYC. Hello, 415. Call over to the 212-433-9692 for Fordham University law professor, John Pfaff, who has an article in Slate about what he thinks the recall really means, and really doesn't. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer.

Whether you voted in the recall or not, but I am curious to hear anyone with ties to San Francisco, who might have a local-ish take on that to share with people in New York and elsewhere, because of the press that that recall has gotten and the implications that people are tending to take from what it means. I and I should say, Professor Pfaff, that you do see the case of Chase Boudin in San Francisco as somewhat emblematic of larger trends and public opinion as well as somewhat not, right?

John Pfaff: Right. I also think that one of the real challenges we face trying to take lessons away from-- I think there are two big challenges you face trying to go with lessons in this one. Is that throughout the whole history of criminal legal reform, from the 1700s onwards, it goes from tougher to more progressive, more punitive, and back and forth, is that in hindsight, we realize this as often sort unexpected events that change the politics of this. This isn't putters along the size, fight with each other and then some broader social upheaval upends the political balance, perhaps untied to crime altogether. It takes predicting where we're going very hard because you never quite know what these shocks are going to be.

I think also it's worth knowing that a lot happens in a very small number of places. I figured out that if you look at the counties with the four biggest counties of progressive DAs, which would be Los Angeles County, Kings County, Brooklyn, Cook County, Chicago and Dallas County. Those four counties have as many people, and those four prosecutors oversee as many people as the 600 and some counties and the 590 some elected DAs in the 12 smallest states that elect the prosecutors. A small number of elections determine a huge amount of what happens.

You don't have to win all 2,200 DA races to shift politics in dramatic direction, just change the 15, 20 biggest counties, and it upends how we do criminal legal practice in this country. Yes, no, does Boudin give us some sense of where we think reform prosecutors have a better chance where they're less vulnerable to fear mongering? I think it's important to remind listeners just how much was spent on the recall, is one of the most expensive elections in recent time for the number of votes actually cast. Perhaps the big lesson in San Francisco is that there are vulnerabilities in cities where you don't have that core constituency of criminal legal system exposed Black and brown voters who are much less vulnerable to this fear mongering.

I think the Boudin election is perhaps a good reminder for all people focus on MLK's, I Have a Dream Speech. I think the far more important line remember is his passage and the letter from Birmingham jail, where he warns about the moderate white voter who prefers order over justice. That white voters can be very fickle, I think when it comes to criminal legal reform, because they're with it until they feel the least a bit unsettlement, and then when they get nervous, they can turn very quickly because it's not the dysfunction of the system is not something they and their families, and their neighbors bear, and that makes their political support weak. I think San Francisco is an example of how that can play out.

Brian Lehrer: We remember in Dr. King's case, he was referring to even nonviolent disorder as preferred over justice. The nonviolent civil disobedience actions that he undertook and some of those alienating, some of the white moderates who he referred to in that letter. If you're in San Francisco, like Josh, who's calling in. Hi, Josh, you're on WNYC.

Josh: Hey, Brian. Long time listener. Love your show. We still listen to you in San Francisco. I'm just calling because I've been covering this recall for the past few months and I think the real takeaway is San Francisco. This is San Francisco, it's not the liberal version that folks want it to be. I think we're seeing so much in the mainstream press about how this is the death mail for progressive prosecution in the US, but as John notes, it's a 5% Black city and his support concentrated in certain areas of the city where it is more Black and brown, Chase did very well.

This is San Francisco, and I think that's the takeaway that we need to take from this, as somebody who was a new Yorker for the last 20 years and until moving to San Francisco a few years ago, that's what I see.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much for that. Here's Tom in Manhattan, who I think wants to amplify something that Professor Pfaff brought up a few minutes ago. Tom, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Tom: Hi. Exactly what you just said, I would like to amplify the fact that he was defeated by a campaign that had so much money behind it, and by a vote that was tiny compared to the normal election in San Francisco. He was clearly defeated by Silicon Valley interests in the San Francisco area. It's at this absolutely clear, that doesn't reflect the reality in almost any other big city in the United States.

Brian Lehrer: Tom, thank you. Now, there was an article in The Nation, Professor Pfaff, in The Nation, Progressive Publication, if there is one, that still said even though it was a tiny turnout in San Francisco for this progressive prosecutor recall election, San Francisco is such an overwhelmingly Democratic Party city that even a tiny turnout is likely to be made up of mostly Democratic Party voters. That's an interesting analytical take, but you did both in your articles touch on Silicon Valley, right? San Francisco, this is not 1967 Haight-Ashbury San Francisco, this is Silicon Valley orbit San Francisco 2022. Right?

John Pfaff: I think that's right. I would also add that Democratic and progressive are not interchangeable terms. I think that the first call is right, that San Francisco might be a very solidly Democratic city. I'm not sure if it maintains as much as being a solidly progressive city, at least as we mean. Again, even then it's more confusing because [unintelligible 00:15:49] comes again like I said it comes to prosecutors, the term progressive misstates the political Alliance here.

I also think it's important to point out that while San Francisco had these defeats directly across the bridge in Alameda, a reform sheriff won her election becoming the first Latino, not the first female Hispanic sheriff, and another one in San Mateo county won in the DA race in Alameda County, which is much bigger than San Francisco. The progressive is currently in first place, although it's going to runoff and in all fairness, she's in first place and the two people behind her, if their votes can style later on a tough on crime person, she would lose, so it's not clear how that runoff is going to go.

In Los Angeles, you see that the sheriff Lanoeva as facing a recall that no one's not coming. It's interesting, even within the context of California, this very progressive state, why is it that our commentary focus is just on Boudin and it's ignoring the fact that directly across the ridge in a much larger, and to be fair, much Blacker town, the progressive are doing well, and go on the Los Angeles and the progressives are doing much better than the initial June 7th media coverage suggested. There is, to me, something intriguing that I think there's a sense in the way criminal league reform is covered. The reform is weird in a way, I think to a lot of people.

When you see a win, like Krasner's win or Fox's win, or the Sheriff's winning in elevated in San Mateo, that's a weird thing be puzzled by, but when Boudin loses, that's everything going back to his normal natural order, and that gets all the attention. I think there's a lot of confirmation bias going on in which races we're choosing to really try to draw natural stories from, and which races get view with a little bit of puzzlement, but there's not a big story to take from this. You could write all of his same big national stories, 180 degrees in opposite direction if you just chose different races just from California, just from the same night that Boudin lost.

Brian Lehrer: Reggie in Bed-Stuy, you're on WNYC. Hi, Reggie.

Reggie: Hi. I'm a musician here, but I have a close musician friend that ended up moving and living over there. One of the things that he brought up was that he voted for Boudin, he voted in that recall and he voted for Boudin, but he said that Boudin ran a crummy defense. It was, as the reporter said, lots of money going against Chase Boudin, but on a couple issues, Boudin didn't defend himself well. He was not prosecuting illegal immigrants that were in San Francisco, and they played on that a lot because he was saying that, "Well, if I prosecuted them, they'd be sent back to their country and they might be killed or something like that." They played on that a lot.

He did not defend himself well, as opposed to someone like Larry Krasner in Philly. I've got friends of mine in Philly, where Krasner will be there because he's effectively laid his case down to the whole community that's going to vote for him.

Brian Lehrer: Better communicator, I think you're saying. One more. Susan in Westchester with people in San Francisco. Hi, Susan.

Susan: Hi, Brian. Yes, I have several friends in San Francisco who say that it really is personality, not policy. They truly had a visceral reaction against him, plus the number of staff who quit. I'm just wondering if too much is put on policy and maybe we have to look at personality as well, voters will vote on that too. Thank you very much.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much for your call. That backs up what the previous caller was saying about personality mattering and the case of Boudin, some interesting comments on Twitter. Let's see one person writes, "Progressive DAs can never succeed because they don't have the resources and cooperation of the rest of the justice system. They are just one piece of the puzzle. These DAs are set up for failure." Another listener writes, "Cities have been affected by the past couple of years of intersecting crises. With one consequence being rising violent crime rates, the highlighting of cities with progressive prosecutors and Democratic mayors by the right, as opposed to those with GOP leadership has distorted the issue.

Another one writes, "It was a California GPO funded effort with strong backing from the San Francisco Police Union to take down Boudin. The whole campaign tried to pin-crime on the DA while the San Francisco Police Department stands back and refuses to arrest people committing crimes." There are all those comments, Professor Pfaff. As we run out of time, I want to throw one more little iron onto this fire from your article. That is you note that recall elections, and this is a recall election that so many people are trying to figure out how much it represents national feeling.

Recall elections are very different from races between candidates, leading to questions about how much of a bellwether it can be seen to be. What's the difference you think is important between a recall and a race?

John Pfaff: Yes, I think it goes back to what one of the callers just said, which I think is right, which is that it becomes a vote much more on the person than on the policy. They're not being chosen between two competing visions. You don't even know what the replacement's going to be, but if you just don't like this person, you get to express your dislike of this person. I think there were a concept, Boudin was not a great politician, had some pretty big missteps that he didn't necessarily handle all that well. If it's two different views, sometimes you put aside the person because your focus on the policy and polling data does suggest that San Franciscos are much more behind the policy than they're voting for Boudin would suggest.

Again, I think when you don't have that head to head, and we have a Democratic mayor who you maybe trust to point a better person to do the same job. I think it does suggest this, the role of personality plays a much bigger role here than it would in a normal conventional race.

Brian Lehrer: Fordham Law, Professor John Pfaff. He has an article on Slate called What the San Francisco DA Recall Really Tells Us and What it Doesn't. He's also author of the 2017 book, Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform. Thank you so much.

John Pfaff: Thank you so much.

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