CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JANUARY 22, 2021, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“DEMOCRATS’ IDENTITY CRISIS PLAYS
OUT IN LA COURTS”
The identity crisis that has divided the California
Democratic Party for the last few years is now playing out in full force in the
court system of the state’s largest county.
This is one meaning of the controversy that followed December’s
order by George Gascon, the newly-elected Los Angeles County District Attorney,
that all 1,000 or so of his courtroom deputies immediately stop enforcing the
state’s “three-strikes-and-you’re-out” and cease adding potential sentence
enhancements to any charges they file against criminal suspects.
“In essence,” said one judge, “Gascon is saying there are
no ‘career criminals’ that society has an interest in keeping off the streets
as long as possible. To state that proposition is to affirm its absurdity.”
Gascon argues that penalties for actual crimes being charged
are significant on their own and that sentencing enhancements like those for
hate crimes and third strikes lead to excessive prison terms disproportionately
affecting Blacks and Latinos. He contends they do not deter many crimes, but do
wreck lives and cause societal damage.
“People that commit a crime…they are going to face
accountability,” he told a reporter. “That accountability will be proportionate
to the crime.” In effect, he was endorsing the Biblical principle of “an eye
for an eye,” rather than make penalties for any single crime greater than their
actual effect on victims.
The conflict is a dramatic reflection of the divide within
the state’s Democratic Party between moderates and ultra-liberals calling
themselves progressives. During last year’s presidential primary, this divide
saw the ultra-liberal Vermont Sen. Bernard Sanders take 35 percent of California’s
Democratic vote while other, more moderate candidates like President-elect Joe
Biden and his transportation secretary-designate Pete Buttegieg got 65 percent.
That was akin to the margin by which U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein,
a moderate, won her 2018 primary against the self-described progressive Kevin
de Leon, now a Los Angeles city councilman.
Gascon, a former deputy Los Angeles police chief who later
was San Francisco’s district attorney – and left the city in a crime crisis
when he was finished, according to critics – may be the ultimate California
carpetbagger, moving from south to north and back south whenever it could boost
his career.
His edicts immediately after taking
office went far beyond “reforms” he promised while campaigning. No one knows if
he could have been elected had voters known what was coming. Supporters justify
his moves by saying they are extensions of voter-approved initiatives that
shifted some felonies to less-penalized misdemeanors and lowered prison populations.
But among Gascon’s actions is an attempt at virtual
elimination of cash bail in Los Angeles County. That’s counter to the resounding
vote last fall on Proposition 25, which threw out a recently-passed state law banning
cash bail. So Gascon is not simply carrying out voter wishes.
Gascon also threatens to have prosecutors freeze out judges
who don’t go along with his edicts by not filing felony cases in their
courtrooms, even though state law and state Supreme Court decisions give judges
the power to add sentence enhancements to criminal charges where they believe
it’s justified. Enhancements can add years to a prison sentence.
This, Gascon’s office argued in one directive, can “(waste)
critical financial state and local resources.”
Ultimately, it will be local voters who decide via a proposed
recall election whether Gascon is carrying out the public will.
And the deputy district attorneys’ union has sued Gascon,
saying he is trying to force his deputies to choose between “following the law,
their oath…or following…orders.”
This all makes sense in the context of the struggle for the
soul of California Democrats. Activists on the left often pack local caucuses
and elect mainly “progressive” delegates to state party conventions where
endorsements are decided.
This was why, for one example, Feinstein ran three years ago
without her party’s backing, but won handily anyhow when the mass of the state’s
Democrats decided things.
It’s a quarrel that won’t end soon, but ultra-liberals like
Gascon should beware that if they swing their party too far left, they will
endanger the Democrats’ current domination of state politics and all its major
offices.
-30-
Email Thomas Elias at
tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising
Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It" is now
available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net
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