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ACCORDING TO LIZ - Should Wendy Carrillo be hounded out of the CD 14 race for pleading no contest to a DUI charge?
Should we overlook previous CD14 Councilmember Huizar’s own accident while driving drunk, politely squashed by the LAPD and City Hall, not to mention his convictions for corruption, extortion and tax evasion, his sexual peccadillos and the use of public funds in the cover up?
How does driving drunk, something that most Americans have done at some point, make her a poorer candidate than Kevin De León? The same De León who was taped in 2021 making derogatory racist remarks and tacitly condoning the physical “beatdown” called for by his colleague, Nury Martinez, because Councilmember Bonin’s three-year-old was acting not like a monkey but like a... three-year-old.
Wendy accepted her punishment while De León defied his critics, refused to step down from his job that, with benefits, pays him close to $300,000 a year, and spent months hiding from disgruntled constituents.
I may not be Wendy’s greatest fan but in the battle for the hearts of those living in CD 14, she ranks far above someone who while in the doghouse, did not take the high road but engaged in a physical altercation with an activist.
Who put an aggrandized pseudo-progressive self-image above the interests of his constituents again and again by pursuing the folly of destroying Colorado Boulevard through Eagle Rock, throwing his lot in with the woke proponents of Metro’s road diet traffic fiascos and the aggressive adherents of the LA Bicycle Coalition.
Even if those who oppose him were a minority, they have the right to be heard, not have their voices throttled at public hearings and by not being invited to others.
The laughable addition of “De” to a plebian surname reveals his not-quite-Trumpian narcissism and an ego that needs to be accepted and loved by his immediate coterie, behavior that he has demonstrated again and again prevails over his civic duty.
Extortion and the encouragement of corporal punishment of a child of color will never be acceptable behavior for an elected official.
Having an affair or being charged with a DUI – meh.
Unless public funds are used to further or cover up the affair, and the drunk driver refuses to own up or takes a life.
On another front, the campaign for the Los Angeles County District Attorney kicked off with a debate between ten of the twelve contenders last Thursday, with incumbent George Gascón being lambasted by the others.
Before listening to his opponents trot out statistics on how less safe Los Angeles is, let’s look at what Gascón inherited.
And let’s look at the rest of the United States, let’s look at the impact of Trump, at the Black Lives Matter movement, at the pressures brought by Covid and the problems created by vaccine and masking deniers.
Let’s look at the 2014 California voter-approved Proposition 47 to ease prison crowding by adopting alternative sentencing methods for nonviolent crimes reduced six crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, including simple drug possession and petty theft under $950.
This was state-imposed but failed to provide funding for adequate supervision and supportive programs – addiction, mental health, job training and placement, housing, and family services linked to reintegration.
While most Americans have been scared into believing that crime is running rampant, the truth is that it is dropping: according to the LAPD’s COMPSTAT, violent crime is down 10.8% and property crime is down 18% year-to-date from two years ago.
Highly visible smash-and-grab robberies may have fueled a media frenzy, but a number of these are the result of teen-to-twenties vandalism – the joy-riding of the 2020s – not the actions of the hardened criminals Gascón is supposed to have reinvigorated by his progressive policies.
His progressive changes are actually mostly beneficial – with less time spent in jail for victimless crimes such as driving on a suspended license, public intoxication, and possession of drug paraphernalia; for the crime of being homeless; and for minor shoplifting. Jail time rarely deters and more often allows more opportunity for down-on-their-luck people to internalize how they lack personal value within the system, and how to become or become real criminals.
Contrary to his detractors, repeat offenders don’t get an automatic bye; this policy’s intent is to keep wrongdoers out of jail the first time, before they learn bad habits from cellmates.
Tough on crime policies at the national level created the crisis we are in today.
Prison population blossomed beginning in the 1970s with the war on drugs until the United States had one of the highest number of incarcerated individuals in the world: well over six million now jailed, imprisoned, on probation or on parole.
This costs taxpayers over $80 billion annually, with related expenses such as court costs and bail bond fees tacking on almost $40 billion more. Do we really want these amounts to soar even higher?
This excess of imprisonment gave rise to generations of professionally-trained criminals; the ugly underside of discrimination revealed itself with laws and policies that target people of color so we now have one in three black men in their 20s and 30s languishing in dehumanizing cells when they could be growing good careers and contributing to the economy.
The LAPD and the Sheriff’s Department who oppose Gascón have a history of supporting tough-on-crime policies justifying demands for manpower and salary increases. But continuing to expand incarceration has shown few benefits and is not in the best interests of the community as a whole.
There are huge benefits for low-level lawbreakers’ families and society when felonies are reduced to misdemeanors – because felons don’t get a couple of years in jail they get a life sentence. And because the real problem is recidivism; imprisoning people contributes to rather than breaking the cycle of crime.
Gascón’s opponents, like Carrillo’s competitors in the CD 14 race, would like nothing more to tank their opponents and give themselves a hand up. Truth? Respect? Who cares?
If the focus of an election becomes more about how opponents will abuse the guilty and less about actual statistics, when spin-meisters build out erroneous public perceptions at the expense of the truth, no-one wins.
Personal vindictiveness and ugly attack ads instead of graciousness and generosity of spirit do not presage quality leadership.
Too often it’s only the public that loses when politicians tear their opponents apart and denigrate values others hold dear. Relegating potential advocates to the back of the bus because of a minor or irrelevant infraction that is blown out of proportion or irrelevant is a true disservice to voters.
Do Angelenos really want a District Attorney’s office with limited resources to focus on prosecuting misdemeanors leaving less manpower to pursue organized crime, murders, child abuse, and arson?
Do Angelenos really want to pay more and more for criminal education in jails or work for rehabilitation?
Do Angelenos really want to elect wanna-be murderers against a tide opposing the cruelty and inequity of capital punishment? Half of Gascón’s opponents are agitating for the reinstatement of government-sanctioned killing.
(Liz Amsden is a contributor to CityWatch and an activist from Northeast Los Angeles with opinions on much of what goes on in our lives. She has written extensively on the City's budget and services as well as her many other interests and passions. In her real life she works on budgets for film and television where fiction can rarely be as strange as the truth of living in today's world.)
