California Ballot Breakdown

Who wants to be a San Francisco DA?

Left to right: Maurice Chenier, John Hamasaki, Joe Alioto Veronese, Brooke Jenkins

San Francisco’s holding a special election for District Attorney, with four people running on a ranked-choice ballot to take over an office that became a punching bag for right-wing media, got rocked by a recall, and is now considering the first homicide prosecutions of San Francisco Police Department officers in that department’s 173-year history. We spoke to 75% of the candidates.

The Candidates: 

  • 02:12 Maurice Chenier, currently a partner at the firm Resnick and Louis.
  • 11:40 John Hamasaki, criminal defense attorney and a former member of the San Francisco Police Commission.
  • 23:08 Joe Alioto Veronese, a principal at the Alioto Law Group, also a former San Francisco Police Commission member, and a former California Criminal Justice Commission member.

The Not-Candidate: 

  • 35:20 Joe Eskenazi, managing editor at the nonprofit newsroom Mission Local.

(Where’s appointed incumbent Brooke Jenkins? Starting in September, we made repeated requests via phone and email to schedule her for an interview, but  neither she nor her staff followed up to get her booked)

Music credits:

T Shirt Weather” by Poddington Bear, used under CC BY-NC 3.0 US

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