The Antelope Valley Times

Your community. Your issues. Your news.

Signature-gathering approved for recall effort against DA George Gascon

by •

[Image via George Gascón Twitter page]
Signature-gathering has been approved for the effort to recall Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón, organizers announced Thursday.

Backers of the recall must gather valid signatures from 579,062 registered voters in the county — 10% of the total number of voters in the county — by Oct. 27 for the recall to qualify for the ballot. Elected officials must be in office for at least 90 days before a recall effort can be started. Gascón was sworn in on Dec. 7.

Gascón has drawn criticism from crime victims and prosecutors over various directives, including not seeking the death penalty, not seeking sentencing enhancements in most cases and keeping cases involving juveniles out of adult courts.

“George Gascón got elected by disguising a radical, dangerous, and pro-criminal agenda as ‘criminal justice reform,’ but that’s not what he is doing,” said Desiree Andrade, organizer and spokeswoman for the effort to recall Gascon.

“What he failed to mention was that he would cater to the most heinous offenders in our society at the expense of victims and let cold-blooded killers back onto our streets,” she said. “We have no choice but to seek Gascón’s immediate removal from office because his twisted social experiment is jeopardizing the safety of our communities and revictimizing victims and their families all over again.”

In a March 17 Zoom call coinciding with his first 100 days in office, Gascón said his changes were “based on data and science that will enhance the safety for our community while reducing racial disparities and the misuse of incarceration,” and he vowed that the efforts are “just beginning.”

In the call, Gascón also said “the death penalty does not make us safer. It is morally wrong and fiscally irresponsible,” adding that the death penalty requires the families of murder victims to wait through decades of appeals and forces them to relive the trauma “for a sentence that will never be imposed” in a state in which Gov. Gavin Newsom has declared a moratorium on executions. Gascón also said research suggests “excessive sentences don’t enhance safety but do exacerbate recidivism, leading to more victims of crime.”

The effort to recall Gascón began Feb. 27 with a “victims vigil” outside the downtown Los Angeles Hall of Justice where signatures for an intent to recall were gathered.

The city councils of at least 14 of Los Angeles County’s 88 cities, including Lancaster, have passed votes of no confidence against Gascón. Recall petitions will be available by Friday, May 21, at recallgeorgegascon.com/petition.

The recall attempt has drawn the backing of Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva, former Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley, and former Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich.

–

–

24 comments for "Signature-gathering approved for recall effort against DA George Gascon"

  1. The only recall I want to see is a Recall of Rex. Wasted public spending on insider boodoggles like LEAPS. No bid contracts to political contributors. Encouraging citizens to break the law an carry guns to shoot the homeless if they attempt robbery. Lying about mentally ill people shooting a sheriff deputy. Lying about Communist Chinese birth tourism. Suing neighboring cities for voting districts he will not implement in Lancaster. Ruining the lives and careers of Raymond Lee Jennings, Johnathan Ervin, Randy Floyd, Esmeralda Jorge. Supporting a big box store development across the street from QH high school that was opposed by the hard working people of QH. Closing the homeless shelter in Lancaster after receiving funding from the county. Refusing to open the county facility on Avenue I for a homeless shelter to house 1400 and instead pushing for a 140 bed for rent project being built by his political friend. Ramming solar farms down the throats of the hard working people of Antelope Acres who moved there for a rural lifestyle and not to be surrounded by acres of ugly solar panels.

    Recall Rex.

    • Recall Rex…You continue to promote the false narrative about 60th street and Ave I. I explained yesterday and many times before that the county facility was too far out to provide inclusive services for the homeless that have names, not some mass of humans to be shipped out to the outskirts. Anyway, there were 93 beds not 1400. It was used as an emergency facility only because of inclement weather. You can hate Rex all you want, I don’t like him either, but at least don’t push false narratives. He’s done plenty without you falsifying . Also the shelter on Yucca was way too small, I stayed there and it was for the best to close it.

  2. “In the call, Gascón also said “the death penalty does not make us safer. It is morally wrong and fiscally irresponsible,” ”

    I thought this state was a democracy and the people of the state decide if we will have a death penalty or not. Why is one man deciding this?

    • Gascon is not a state official. In the jurisdiction he represents after being elected in a democratic process I would guess a majority probably agree with him. Just because California as a state has enough hillbillies to buy in on the death penalty being available doesn’t mean that every jurisdiction should elect a DA that will pursue it.

  4. These California democrats are America’s worst crop of politicians, since Tammany Hall.

    • Nord Stream Pipeline V. Keystone Pipeline, capital punishment V. pro-choice, reverse-racism, different laws for different people, being a Democrat requires mountains of learned lumber comprising a complicated menagerie of sequentially placed narratives, disinformation and talking points, but for no good reason than to rationalize their double-standards, and their hypocrisy.

          • If I thought you were smart I might think you meant “individual racism that affects people other than those who are directly harmed by the systemic racism of their society” when you say that, but as is I figure you are just whining because in your peer group of people who can’t succeed even with all the advantages being white in the USA provides it sounds clever.

        • If you think about it, reverse racism is actually kind of great. Because if it did exist, it would mean we lived in a society in which all racial groups have an equal amount of power, but we don’t.

    • Democrats gone berserk, things are so bad here in California, we’ve lost a congressional seat, along with it a brain drain, some of California’s best ‘n brightest, in flight to safe harbor in red states, where law enforcement isn’t politicized, where small business still enjoys protection from opportunistic behavior of ANTIFA and BLM.

      • Studies, and heck voting results show that these red states are starting to turn blue due to people from California and New York moving there. See Texas and Georgia, but whatever.

      • LOL… “safe harbor”? Red states are so poorly managed they can’t even keep the heat on in the winter. The funniest thing about the “red flight” out of California is that it isn’t “the best and the brightest,” it’s the crybaby Republicans who can’t compete in California…and when they get to their “red state paradise” their immediate reaction is “what kind of craziness is this?” and they become democrats.

        • The “orange’ states are more like 3rd world states. They have fewer services and lower wages and they filch companies from the industrious blue states.

          In addition, they are mostly welfare states taking more from DC than they send in taxes.

          California needs to adjust that going forward.

  6. I have no direct knowledge, but someone getting black listed by Wrecks, Villanueva, and Antonovitch can’t be all bad. I’d investigate heavily before signing to recall this guy.

    • Gascon has the misfortune of being correct on these issues before it becomes stylish. It may be his undoing as there are too many people who think that justice is equated with the punishing of violators and not the stopping of crime.