What Chesa Boudin Revealed About an Undemocratic Election System
Recall efforts are a symptom of a deeper political disease.
This week, San Francisco voters recalled Chesa Boudin, the city’s district attorney and the face of the nationwide progressive-prosecutors movement. The election, widely described as a referendum on crime and disorder and a backlash against the Democratic Party’s leftmost edge, was a caustic local fight played out on a national stage. It was democracy at work, with the public ousting a leader they considered incompetent or unfitting.
It was also part of an underrecognized national trend: a boom in recall efforts across the country, targeting all kinds of officials, of all political stripes. That recall surge is due in no small part to voter anger at incumbent politicians and everything else. Yet it is also a symptom of
