The Fazio factor
Two self-described liberals are in the runoff for district attorney – and conservative voters will pick the winner.

By Savannah Blackwell

WHILE THE RACE to succeed Mayor Willie Brown is making national headlines and dominating the local dailies' campaign coverage, the Dec. 9 runoff election also includes a much more low-profile race that is critical to the lives of San Franciscans.

District Attorney Terence Hallinan, recognized as being among the most progressive law enforcement officials in the nation, is fighting the biggest, and possibly the toughest, battle of his long political life. The two-term, eight-year incumbent is facing an aggressive, heavily funded challenge from Kamala Harris – a former prosecutor with close ties to Brown, some of Brown's largest fundraisers, and many members of San Francisco's politically active high society.

After breaking a pledge to voters to spend no more than the $211,000 cap set in the general election and mounting a campaign replete with TV ads, slews of mailers and recorded phone calls, Harris overcame relative obscurity, shot past three-time D.A. candidate Bill Fazio, and finished second with 34 percent of the vote – two points behind Hallinan.

And now, in a race featuring two self-identified liberals, the outcome will depend on conservative voters.

Roughly 30 percent of the voters in the general election went for Fazio, who ran on an old-fashioned law-and-order platform. Unless either Harris or Hallinan loses a lot of original supporters (which is unlikely), the Fazio voters – in neighborhoods such as West of Twin Peaks, Lake Merced, the Marina, and the Sunset – will decide who the next district attorney will be.

Ideology vs. cronyism

On the surface, that leaves Hallinan at a decided disadvantage. He's identified as a supporter of medical marijuana and alternatives to incarceration. The San Francisco Chronicle has criticized him for supposedly having a low conviction rate. Both Fazio and Harris endorsed supervisor and mayoral candidate Gavin Newsom's Proposition M – the measure aimed at stopping homeless people from aggressively panhandling on traffic medians and in other public areas – that voters approved Nov. 4; Hallinan did not.

"If the Fazio vote breaks more for Harris than Hallinan, it's going to get really close," pollster David Binder said at a meeting of the Noe Valley Democratic Club Nov. 19.

A KPIX, channel 5, poll taken Nov. 11 through 13 found that 63 percent of certain and probable voters who cast ballots for Fazio or a write-in candidate or didn't vote in the D.A. race Nov. 4 are supporting Harris, and a Nov. 22 through 24 poll showed that 73 percent of those voters are going with the challenger.

"But then again," Binder noted, "Terence Hallinan has come from behind many times."

And while Fazio hasn't endorsed anyone, many of his supporters are shifting to Hallinan.

Their argument: For all the problems they have with Hallinan, at least he's independent – and Harris is too closely allied to the corrupt Brown administration.

"What Fazio supporters need to understand is that Hallinan, like Fazio, is less a member of 'the club' than Harris," former Fazio supporter John Jones, a San Francisco attorney from the Excelsior who is now pulling for Hallinan, told the Bay Guardian. "Hallinan doesn't owe the political establishment as much as Harris does."

Among the key Fazio backers who have endorsed Hallinan are Meagan Levitan, a member of the Democratic County Central Committee, and Fazio's former campaign coordinator, Parrish Spisz, who is now on Hallinan's payroll.

Levitan participated in a press conference Dec. 1 featuring more than one dozen prominent local female leaders who support Hallinan, including Rep. Nancy Pelosi, and Levitan and Sharon Bretz, a juvenile probation officer, are featured in a Hallinan mailer that will go to west-side voters.

Levitan's husband, Dale Carlson, whom Brown appointed to the Treasure Island Development Authority, wrote a letter to the editor that ran in the Chronicle Oct. 21 blasting the big daily for ignoring the fact that Harris signed a pledge to abide by the campaign spending cap, then broke the cap anyway.

"She violated the law. She signed a pledge – a legally binding pledge – to limit spending on her campaign," the letter noted. "She broke her word and she broke the law. She lied. She committed a crime. She will do anything to get elected. That's not my idea of bringing 'dignity and integrity' to public office."

Other former Fazio backers echo that concern. "Even though I'm more conservative than Hallinan in my beliefs, and it might seem more likely I would support Harris, after watching her closely on the campaign trail, I've made the leap to Hallinan," Spisz said. "It's the pattern of disingenuousness," he added, referring to her habit of misstating the number of cases she's tried in court (see "To Tell the Truth," 10/29/03).

Conviction number games

Harris, who by any measure seems to be a competent prosecutor, has made a concerted effort since Nov. 4 to reach out to Fazio supporters. She's nabbed the endorsement of many of the organizations that originally supported him, including the Chinese American Democratic Club and the Recorder legal newspaper. She's made a strong effort to walk west-side neighborhoods and sent out a mailer, aimed at conservatives, featuring former U.S. attorney and Republican Joe Russoniello, that blasts Hallinan for running an office that has "become a laughing stock."

Even Fazio agrees that some of his backers may shift to Hallinan.

"The conventional wisdom was that people who supported me would tend to go toward [Harris]," Fazio told us. "Yet people who have been closely involved in my campaign, I don't know of any of them supporting Harris now, and several have aligned themselves with Hallinan. That's interesting."

On Nov. 26, Harris got the endorsement of one of Fazio's biggest longtime supporters – the Police Officers' Association, which stayed out of the general election. That will no doubt help her push a charge her campaign clearly feels will resonate with Fazio voters: Hallinan is ineffective at dealing with violent crime and has a low conviction rate.

A recent Harris mailer featuring Chronicle headlines focused on Hallinan's low conviction rate drives that home (and includes several claims that are inaccurate. See Campaign Watch, page 12).

But Hallinan's more conservative supporters claim those accusations are misleading. The conviction rate is low, some legal experts (including Public Defender and Hallinan supporter Jeff Adachi) say, because Hallinan diverts the cases of so many drug and nonviolent, low-level offenders to rehabilitative programs. Those are officially counted against Hallinan's conviction rate.

According to Tim Silard, a statistician in Hallinan's office who used numbers from the state attorney general's Criminal Justice Statistics Center, Hallinan refers cases to diversion programs at 13 times the rate of his counterpart in Los Angeles County. And Hallinan's programs are much more successful than those of most other D.A.s. He has a 12 percent recidivism rate for those in drug-related diversion programs, compared with 60 percent statewide, and a 3.5 percent rate in prostitution-related programs, compared with 58 percent statewide.

His acquittal rate – the rate at which prosecutors lose trials – is a better measure of the effectiveness of the office, Silard says, and that's 0.13 percent – nearly half the rate of Alameda County.

Harris spent most of her 10 years as a prosecutor in Alameda County and often cites that office as far superior to Hallinan's.

"With statistics showing recidivism rates of 60 to 70 percent among offenders sent to prison or jail, San Francisco's more sensible approach clearly yields the greatest public benefit," Dan Macallair, Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice executive director and San Francisco State University Criminal Justice Department lecturer, wrote in an Oct. 30 opinion piece in the Chronicle. "By diverting large numbers of low-level offenders, San Francisco sharply reduced its prosecution levels and reduced recidivism rates."

Macallair noted the policy also saves taxpayers' money. Based on the cost of imprisoning an offender versus sending him or her to a diversion program, Macallair wrote that had the 1,400 felony cases resolved through diversion programs in San Francisco last year been handled by incarcerating those offenders, the county would have shelled out an additional $20 million. If you throw in the 3,000 who completed diversion programs for misdemeanors, the number grows considerably. (A Nov. 10 article in the New York Times suggests Hallinan has been way ahead of the curve. It notes state legislatures all over the country are considering making more use of diversion programs to cut back on prison costs during tough budget times.)

Hallinan supporter Warren Hinckle, whose columns in the San Francisco Independent are popular on the west side, trumpeted in an Oct. 28 piece that Harris is off base with her charges and that Hallinan's programs have saved the taxpayers considerable dough – some $50 million a year. That's a message Hallinan's meager campaign is hoping to get out to Fazio voters.

Will Harris prosecute corruption?

Besides opposing Harris's bid based on issues of accountability, some Fazio supporters say the level at which she's benefited from Brown's political patronage system makes her unacceptable as well. For several years starting in 1994, Harris pulled in roughly $100,000 a year serving on two highly lucrative but not terribly demanding state commissions (thanks to her appointment by Brown), while holding down taxpayer-funded jobs in the Alameda County and San Francisco County District Attorney's Offices. Of the nearly $690,000 she's amassed for her campaign with the help of fundraisers close to Brown, more than a third has come from the power elite of San Francisco and machine-friendly sources.

West-side voters aren't known for liking those who've fed eagerly at the public trough.

And given Brown has helped her candidacy tremendously, it's highly unlikely she'll prosecute government corruption cases arising from his administration. (Hallinan, on the other hand, has gone after Brown's cronies in the school district and on the Planning Commission). Indeed, in an interview with the Bay Guardian, Harris could not identify one example of questionable activity in the Mayor's Office (see "Endorsements," date 10/15/03). And she told the Recorder in an interview published Oct. 1 that she wouldn't actively seek out government corruption cases.

"I never thought I would be in this position. But it's actually been an easy choice," Levitan said. "When you look at her list of professional accomplishments – so many point to her connection with Mayor Willie Brown. And I have a problem with that.

"She says she's not going to go after corruption or at least she won't seek out those kind of cases. Say what you want about the difference between Hallinan and my politics, but he's independent. And that I can totally respect."

District Seven Advisory Council chair Bud Wilson, a longtime Hallinan supporter and former president of the Greater West Portal Neighborhood Association, told us there are good reasons for voters on the west side of town to back the incumbent. "He's honest, and you can trust him," Wilson said. "The thing with Kamala is, does she really have the dedication? Does she really come without all that baggage?"

E-mail Savannah Blackwell