When Jackie Lacey sought a second term as Los Angeles’ top prosecutor in 2016, she wound up running unopposed.
The man who ousted her from office, George Gascón, has a much steeper hill to climb to win reelection next year.
During his first term in office, Gascón has frequently been at odds with his own prosecutors and law enforcement, who say his policies aimed at reducing mass incarceration and racially disparate outcomes in the criminal justice system have led to spikes in violence. Data show the violent crime rate is trending down, but some experts have cautioned against making connections between short-term shifts in the crime rate and a prosecutor’s policies…
Gascón, who announced his own reelection campaign and claimed the endorsement of L.A.’s powerful Federation of Labor last week, still figures to be well-funded and has largely retained the support of the burgeoning L.A. progressive bloc that vaulted him into office in 2020.
But in a sign of the divide in the race, Gascón declined to attend the first debate last week. Hosted by police unions that spent millions against the progressive candidate in 2020, contenders at the forum spent two hours making the case that Gascón is unfit for office and needs to be replaced.
Here are the contenders vying for Gascón’s office next March, listed in the order they announced their candidacy:
Deputy Dist. Atty. Maria Ramirez
A veteran prosecutor who has worked in the D.A.’s office for 30 years, Ramirez is far and away Gascón’s most experienced opponent. While she led the office of special prosecutions in 2020, Ramirez said she was demoted for challenging some of Gascón’s policies governing the use of sentencing enhancements and whether juveniles could be tried as adults. She is among a group of about 20 prosecutors suing Gascón for retaliation or defamation. Gascón has denied all wrongdoing.
If elected, Ramirez said she would rein in Gascón’s sweeping policies and empower prosecutors to make decisions on a case-by-case basis. Ramirez has also repeatedly touted her management experience as critical to helping the office recruit new employees to address a staffing shortage and dig out of a serious case backlog.
“We do not need another outsider to come and fix our office,” she said at Wednesday’s debate in the City of Industry. “We need a deputy district attorney who has the heart and soul of the D.A.’s office in their veins.”