The Los Angeles County district attorney’s race is shaping up as the highest-profile 2020 local election in the nation with a criminal justice reform crusader resigning as San Francisco’s DA so he can run against the Los Angeles DA who has been a much more conventional prosecutor in her seven years on the job.

George Gascon, a former L.A. beat cop and assistant police chief, has relocated to Los Angeles in anticipation of the March primary. Gascon has supported reforms that have reduced penalties for many crimes and made it easier for prisoners to win parole and convicts to expunge their records. He is expected to get millions from George Soros, the billionaire progressive who has backed reformers in DA races in San Diego, Queens and Pittsburgh in recent years, winning in only the latter city.

Jackie Lacey, a former L.A. beat cop, has supported some reforms, such as the recent decision to throw out tickets given to poor homeless people that essentially make them go to jail when they seek government help. She has the backing of police unions and virtually the entire California Democratic establishment – including San Francisco Mayor London Breed.

But Lacey has repeatedly upset some minority leaders and civil rights activists by declining to ever seek criminal charges when law enforcement officers are credibly accused of abusive behavior.

A 2015 case in which an officer fatally shot an unarmed African-American homeless man in the back in Venice continues to anger activists and baffle even some in law enforcement. Surveillance video showed Officer Leonard Proctor, who is also black, had lied about victim Brendon Glenn reaching for his partner’s gun.

Lacey rejected police chief’s call to charge own officer

The details of the case were so egregious that then-Police Chief Charlie Beck urged that Proctor face manslaughter charges – the first time he had ever called for the DA to prosecute anyone at LAPD. But no charges of any kind were brought by Lacey, who in 2018 said she didn’t believe she had a provable case against Proctor.

But as Breed’s endorsement of Lacey suggests, Gascon remains a controversial figure in San Francisco. A front-page story in the Oct. 31 Chronicle looked at how a progressive prosecutor could make so many enemies in such a progressive city. The newspaper noted that he had faced criticism from both sides of the police conduct debate – bashed by police unions when he investigated police shootings, but also bashed by activists for failing to prosecute officers for some high-profile fatal shootings.

And Breed was only one of many San Franciscans who believed that Gascon’s tolerant policies toward street crime had both fueled homelessness and led to San Francisco becoming the large city with highest property-crime rate in the U.S. The Chronicle has reported that there are arrests in only 2 percent or less of car break-ins.

San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera has also endorsed Lacey. In a statement, Herrera described Lacey as “the only candidate for L.A. County District Attorney who has the background, proven track record, and vision needed to continue creating positive change.”

Gascon is not the only DA candidate challenging Lacey from the left. Prosecutors Richard Ceballos and Joseph Iniguez are also running. Ceballos has hired the same political consultant who helped the poorly funded campaign of Sheriff’s Lt. Alex Villanueva stun incumbent Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell in November 2018.

Yee was not the initial target of what has been described as a “massive sting operation” launched by the Justice Department centering on Bay Area politics. Instead, he was only ensnared in a bribery probe involving a fake, FBI-created software firm seeking government contracts, which led to the discovery of his other crimes.

Meanwhile, San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon is building off the FBI’s probe with his own prosecutions. In late January, he announced that two former employees with the city’s Human Rights Commission had been arrested for allegedly trying to sell access to Mayor Ed Lee. Nazly Mohajer, a former agency commissioner, and Zula Jones, a former staffer, allegedly took $20,000 from an undercover agent.

Although he met with the undercover agent, Mayor Lee has strenuously denied any role in the alleged bribery and money-laundering. But the fact that Mohajer and Jones were taped discussing how to break the money into smaller amounts to surreptitiously pay off Lee’s 2011 campaign debts has added to the loud whispering campaign that suggests the San Francisco mayor may be the FBI’s — and/or Gascon’s — ultimate target.

The FBI’s initial target was Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, a leader of a San Francisco-based gang that had ties to Chinese business groups and politicians, including Lee. Chow was convicted in January on federal racketeering charges after his defense — claiming to be a reformed ex-criminal turned humanitarian and businessman — fell short.

It is not clear what sort of arrangement that the FBI and Gascon have — whether certain crimes will be prosecuted by the Justice Department and others by the San Francisco DA. But the most intense focus of the past month has been on Gascon’s attempts to keep a file of evidence related to the charges announced in January from being disclosed. He has so far persuaded a federal judge to keep it under wraps, arguing that its disclosure would reveal undercover agents and ruin promising corruption investigations.

“The evidence is a time bomb waiting to explode,” declared city Public Defender Jeff Adachi, who speculated that Lee or a member of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors might be implicated.

Lee appears to think he’s the target, or a target, of the investigations. According to campaign records, he spent $19,000 of his political funds last year on criminal defense attorneys. This year, he’s used allies to depict Gascon as launching a politically motivated smear effort.

Democratic strategist Nathan Ballard described Gascon as a craven publicity hound in a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times.

“If the DA has the goods on Mayor Lee, he already would have come out with it. There has never been one credibly sourced allegation of pay-to-play being brought forward,” Ballard told the Times.

But Gascon is winning plaudits from San Francisco’s alternative media, which has long seen the city as a hotbed of corruption and phony progressives.

The SF Weekly recently praised the Cuban-American DA for blasting Police Chief Greg Suhr — and Mayor Lee — for allegedly blocking attempts to reduce misconduct within San Francisco police ranks. The department has drawn sharp criticism since the Dec. 2 shooting death of stabbing suspect Mario Woods.

Though police had credible reason to believe Woods was armed and dangerous, cellphone video of him being shot as he walked away from officers has generated raucous protests.