Wave Staff and Wire Reports
LOS ANGELES — Two days after the effort to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom ended in failure, a group trying to recall Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón hit the reset button.
With their original recall campaign falling short, organizers of the “Recall District Attorney George Gascón” committee announced they have formed a new political committee and will start again from scratch.
According to a statement issued Sept. 16, the original recall effort was hampered by COVID-19 pandemic health mandates, along with a “premature start.” Therefore, the effort will be restarted under a new campaign committee known as “Recall District Attorney George Gascón.”
“The reset will allow Recall District Attorney George Gascón to gather necessary financial resources prior to starting the 160-day period for signature collection, rather than play catch up,” according to organizers.
“The committee will be filing an updated petition with the Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters shortly.”
By starting over, the committee can try to raise the finances necessary to operate a large-scale recall campaign before beginning the 160-day period to gather the necessary signatures needed to put the recall on the ballot.
The committee includes former los Angeles County Dustrict Attorney Steve Cooley and former Los Angeles City Councilman Dennis Zine.
In their statement, recall organizers said, “Make no mistake, this is not a white flag — it is a double-down on our efforts.”
Despite the failure of the original effort, organizers said they remain committed to recalling Gascón, who has come under fire from critics for a progressive agenda that has included directives against seeking the death penalty and dropping sentence-enhancing allegations in criminal cases.
Recall backers say Gascón has turned his back on crime victims and lost the confidence of his fellow prosecutors and cities within his jurisdiction. As many as 30 of the 88 cities in Los Angeles County have had their city councils hand down a vote of “no confidence” in Gascón’s policies.
Gascón has repeatedly defended his policies, saying his stances were well known during his campaign and his election signified public support of his agenda.
A campaign spokesman told the Los Angeles Times the original recall drive had collected about 200,000 signatures. The group needed about 580,000 signatures by Oct. 26 to force a recall election.
A group that was attempting to recall Los Angeles City Councilwoman Nithya Raman announced Sept. 17 that it was dropping its effort, saying it could not gather enough signatures of registered voters by the Nov. 4 deadline.
The group sought to remove Raman, who was elected last November, because she was putting her own “personal homelessness ideology over constituent safety.”
The group, which began circulating recall petitions against Raman in July, had to collect 27,405 signatures by the Nov. 4 deadline.
Current recall efforts against L.A. City Councilmen Mike Bonin and Kevin de León are continuing.
