It’s an admittedly small sample size, but all of the actual prosecutors that I’ve talked to say that Kamala Harris was a progressive prosecutor.
It’s the folks who aren’t prosecutors who insist she wasn’t.
It’s the folks who aren’t prosecutors who insist she wasn’t.
Lots of non-prosecutors are responding to this tweet by insisting that Harris was not a progressive prosecutor.
Others are insisting that prosecutors, as a group, aren’t to be trusted to determine who is a progressive prosecutor and who is not.
Others are insisting that prosecutors, as a group, aren’t to be trusted to determine who is a progressive prosecutor and who is not.
I don’t have a good answer for the question of how we know who’s a progressive prosecutor and who is not.
Part of the difficulty, I think, lies in the murkiness of that label. Aside from listing particular people, it’s not clear who qualifies and who does not.
Part of the difficulty, I think, lies in the murkiness of that label. Aside from listing particular people, it’s not clear who qualifies and who does not.
To the extent that the label “progressive prosecutor”is a relative one—namely, a prosecutor who is progressive as compared to other prosecutors—then I think the views of other prosecutors can be very helpful.
But if you think that the “progressive prosecutor” label is a general and absolute political judgement about a person’s policies and actions, then you probably won’t think the views of other prosecutors are particularly helpful.
.@AndrewMCrespo made a good point further down the thread: Don’t the progressive records of the prosecutors matter in assessing their views about Harris. For example, if a hard core law & order prosecutor called her a progressive, that wouldn’t be particularly helpful.
For comparison, if Elizabeth Warren called someone a progressive, that would have a different meaning than if Tom Cotton called someone a progressive. (I mean, Cotton would probably mean it as an insult.)
I’m not in a position to say who I’ve talked to. But I’ve been looking...
I’m not in a position to say who I’ve talked to. But I’ve been looking...
Here’s the Boston DA, widely recognized as progressive. She seems to like Harris:
Here’s Houston DA Kim Ogg, who is sometimes called a progressive, who is specifically praising Harris’s work as a prosecutor:
Lots of progressive DAs don’t have anything up on their Twitter accounts right now. And so it’s certainly possible that others will be less positive (or even negative) about Harris’s record. It’s something that I’ll be interested to watch over the next few days.
Commenters have been pointing me to more progressive prosecutors who are saying positive things about Harris. Here’s Chicago DA Kim Foxx
Here is the DA in Baltimore. (Many thanks to @Gutsy_kdh for the tweets!)
And Mosby herself has responded to this thread with a lengthy list of progressive prosecutors who support Harris.
