LOS ANGELES—With a little over a month left until the Los Angeles County registrar’s deadline, the Recall George Gascón campaign has surpassed 500,000 petition signatures and raised $6.5 million in donations as of May 31.
To trigger a recall election, the campaign needs signatures from 10 percent of registered county voters—or 566,857 signatures—by July 6 to qualify for the Nov. 8 ballot.
Organizers also mailed out 3.6 million petitions with pre-paid return envelopes, hoping for at least a 5 percent return rate that would provide enough signatures to pass the threshold.
Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón called the recall effort against him an imitative “driven by very conservative, very right-wing forces” during an interview with the “How We Win” podcast on June 1.
“They have sort of created this false narrative about this is anti-safety, which is kind of the same fear-mongering tactics frankly that you can go back to the Nixon era,” Gascón said during the hour-long interview.
Gascón, who was elected in 2020, made promises to reform Los Angeles County’s criminal justice system.
He introduced several “bold steps” for reform, such as holding accountable law enforcement officers who violate the law, no longer charging minors as adults, eliminating many sentencing enhancements including firearms, ending the death penalty, and removing cash bail for misdemeanors or nonviolent felony crimes.
Critics of these policies say it has only increased crime, pointing to recent statistics from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department that show a 94 percent jump in homicides between 2019 to 2021, and a 54 percent increase in auto theft.
In response to Gascón’s comments, recall organizer Tim Lineberger said the effort is largely bipartisan.
“There are a half of democrats involved in the recall. Democrat cities and elected Democrat officials are endorsing the recall,” Lineberger told The Epoch Times on June 2. “This has nothing to do with partisan politics, and it’s the only defense Gascón can do at this point because he has no other argument.”
Lineberger added that many of the recall proponents previously voted for Gascón because what he was running on—police accountability and reform—were “good things.” However, “he turned his back on victims and insulted real criminal justice reform,” he said.
Angelenos have this “recall in their hands” with the mailed-in petitions, which he said could help swing the recall election in their favor.
The campaign has raised just over $6.5 million and will need to raise more to be in a comfortable position ahead of the election, he said.
More than 30 cities in Los Angeles County, including Torrance, Santa Clarita, Lancaster, and Beverly Hills, support the recall, with more than a dozen passing votes of no confidence against Gascón’s policies.
Several high-profile law enforcement unions, including the Los Angeles Association of Deputy District Attorneys, Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva, and the Los Angeles Police Protective League also support the recall.
Los Angeles mayoral candidate and real estate billionaire, Rick Caruso, also supports the recall.
Friends Read Free