Like a certain interim mayor who may not be so interim after all, George Gascón came out of nowhere to take a leading role in San Francisco politics. But unlike Lee, who emerged from city hall’s bureaucratic shadows, Gascón had never lived a day here until he assumed command of the San Francisco Police Department two years ago. The onetime Cuban refugee honed the role of outsider at the scandal-plagued Los Angeles Police Department, where he made a name by touting constitutional rights, and then perfected it as police chief in Mesa, Arizona, where he went mano a mano against immigrant-bashing lawman Joe Arpaio. Now, after his stunning appointment as district attorney as Gavin Newsom was heading out the door, Gascón is waging his first-ever political campaign to win the job outright. Meanwhile, opponents such as well-connected Alameda County prosecutor Sharmin Bock are citing their insiderness as a key selling point.
Yet to hear Gascón tell it, a relative newcomer is exactly who’s needed for the city’s top elected law enforcer. (So thinks lefty ex-supe and Newsom nemesis Matt Gonzalez, now No. 2 at the public defender’s office, who ranks as one of Gascón’s most surprising supporters.) As budgets shrivel, every aspect of California’s criminal justice system—from cops to courts to prisons—is headed toward a deceptively innocuous-sounding “realignment.” Who better to steer this state-ordered catharsis, Gascón argues, than someone with a different perspective?
Why do you want to be D.A.? I assume it’s not because you’re angling to be head of the FBI, as Sharmin Bock and Congresswoman Jackie Speier have suggested. That’s not the reason. Frankly, it would be very difficult to get through a congressional confirmation with the Republicans looking at my immigrant-rights trajectory in Arizona. No, I’ve been involved with reform of the criminal justice system for 10 years. And it has become obvious to me that the D.A. controls the doors to reform. That’s why I accepted the appointment. You decide who’s going to be prosecuted, how, and what punishment they receive.
There’s been a lot written about a purported conversation between you and Bock. She basically said, “I want to be your No. 2, and if not, I’m going to run against you.” And I said, “Well, maybe you need to follow your heart and run.” And that’s where we left it. She was very blunt—I was very surprised.
The D.A.’s office has experienced a lot of turmoil in recent years. Has the way you were appointed, followed by this campaign, aggravated the tensions? To be fair, you’d have to ask other people. My sense is that people in the office are very happy. Morale is very high. I’ve gotten tremendous support from prosecutors concerning the policy changes I’m doing—for example, a new trial integrity unit to investigate corruption.
One of Bock’s criticisms is that you don’t have any experience as a prosecutor. It’s true: My lawyering experience has been primarily in civil and labor cases. But you’re not electing a D.A. to try cases in a courtroom. You’re hiring someone who can run large organizations and who understands how to move public policy.
Another concern in some quarters is that you were a Republican… Look, if you came from Ireland to Boston or New York, you were a Democrat. If you came from Cuba through Miami, you were a Republican. It was a family tradition, because Republicans were anti-Castro. But that’s changing a lot. I supported Obama, as many Cubans did. I also supported Bill Clinton.
Frankly, it’s easy to be a progressive—to be pro–LGBT rights or pro–immigration rights—in San Francisco. Now do that in 2006 in Maricopa County, Arizona, as I did. That was one of the most toxic political environments I’ve ever encountered. Everything was run by this incredible hatred for immigrants and brown people. See if you’re willing to take the heat and stand up for what you believe is right.
Then there’s the fact that soon after you became D.A., you were quoted as saying you aren’t opposed to the death penalty. What are the chances that you’d use…? Let me say this very clearly: I’m against the death penalty. I recently endorsed legislation that would put an end to it in California and replace it with life without possibility of parole. But as long as the death penalty is state law, I have the same system that Kamala Harris had, where a group of experienced prosecutors reviews the special-circumstances cases. I’ve reviewed several of these cases and elected not to conduct a death penalty prosecution. And it’s very unlikely that I would.
Even in the case of an officer being killed? Here’s the problem with the death penalty. It’s been proven in all contexts, and for a variety of reasons, not to work. Number one, there is always the potential for executing an innocent person. Two, there is little closure for the victim’s family because the process can go on for decades, with a continual reopening of the wounds. Third, we have seen terribly disparate outcomes in how we use the death penalty—people on death row are overwhelmingly racial minorities. Finally, the economics: The cost of prosecuting the statute has skyrocketed until it’s financially unfeasible, and then you add all the hearings and appellate processes. So, the answer as to whether to pursue it or not becomes very obvious.
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