Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price appears to be facing recall this 12 months after her opponents cleared the ultimate major hurdle in putting the query before voters on Monday.
Nearly 15 months after taking office, Price must now work to maintain her job after county officials said Monday that the Save Alameda For Everyone recall campaign had submitted valid signatures to force an election. According to Tim Dupuis, the county's registrar of voters, the group submitted 74,757 valid signatures, just barely greater than the 73,195 needed to get the query on a ballot. Another 48,617 signatures were found to be invalid, meaning they may not be considered within the group's try to unseat Price.
The Alameda County Board of Supervisors must now settle on a date for the election.
On Monday, recall organizers hailed the announcement as a pointy rejection of the district attorney's try to overhaul the East Bay's justice system. For greater than a 12 months, they’ve railed against Price's decisions to not impose long prison sentences on defendants – calling such measures too lenient on crime.
Since a recall was nearly as good as possible, they vowed to perform their try to remove Price from office.
“The successful collection of signatures demonstrates the overwhelming support of residents throughout Alameda County for a change in leadership and a renewed commitment to the principles of integrity and public service,” the group’s announcement said.
Messages left as a part of Price's “Protect the Win” campaign weren’t immediately returned.
The move marks the second time in recent times that a recall effort has been made against a Bay Area district attorney. In June 2022, San Francisco voters removed their very own progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin from office in a nationally watched campaign.
Price has faced vocal opposition for the reason that first months of her term, with opponents first holding a rally in April 2023 to call for her impeachment on the identical courthouse steps where Monday's rally took place. She filed formal paperwork to form a recall committee over the summer and worked from September through early March to gather enough signatures to force an election.
Recall leaders say Price has been too soft on crime since taking office and criticized her efforts to shorten prison sentences and reduce the variety of sentencing enhancements given to defendants. They identified that her handling of several high-profile murder charges – including a plea deal for a person once accused in three murders as an adolescent – was an indication that Price was not tough enough on crime.
However, Price calls the long prison sentences a remnant of the country's racist overreaction to crime – a response that has devastated communities of color and led to the unnecessary mass incarceration of criminals. A vocal critic of law enforcement, she has also taken steps to reopen misconduct cases against police and sheriff's deputies.
image credit : www.mercurynews.com