Taniel Profile picture
5 Jan, 4 tweets, 2 min read
A BFD deal today: Charleston County, in SC, was long run by a very pro-ICE GOP sheriff, but he was ousted in 2020 by a Dem who pledged to cut ICE contracts.

She's keeping that promise today, her first day in office, by terminating the county's contract with ICE's 287(g) program.
The same thing happened Friday in Gwinnett County, GA, a notoriously pro-ICE county: The new sheriff ran on terminating 287(g), & he did so immediately upon taking office.

Context: In November, I wrote on the transformation in these 2 counties: theappeal.org/politicalrepor…
This is (part of) why sheriffs & sheriff elections matter! theappeal.org/politicalrepor…

In October, I did a list of the 12 most important elections for immigration & ICE cooperation. These two, of course, were on it. theappeal.org/politicalrepor…

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More from @Taniel

6 Jan
Fulton County (Atlanta) drops 95,000 mail-in ballots. They went 81/19 for Ossoff. (Fulton's mail-in ballots in the fall had gone 79/20 for Biden).

(Caution: It may be GOPers were even less likely to vote by mail in runoff after 2+ months of Trump attacks. We don't know yet.)
Gwinnett County just dropped 95,000 mail-in ballots as well. They went Ossoff 70/30. (Biden had won mail here by 66/33.)

(Please remember the same caution as before: Don't draw conclusions until we see more Election Day votes.)
Our first meaningful flavor of Northern Georgia: Murray County has counted its roughly 7,500 mail/early ballots, and it's roughly 82/18 for the GOP.

(Trump won early/mail here 83/16.)

(Again, again, again: we still need to see if GOP voters shifted Election Day.)
Read 6 tweets
2 Jan
New: in her first week in office, the new DA of Athens, GA, releases a new memo of big reforms.

Among them: she’ll never seek the death penalty. drive.google.com/file/d/1SHwcNe…
You know of this new DA, Deborah Gonzalez, if you’ve been following me: she won a runoff in a race that almost didn’t happen after Brian Kemp tried to cancel it.

You can catch up here if you missed it:
I reported last month Gonlazez was among a wave of new DAs who ran on never seeking the death penalty. (Hence why I focused on that in first tweet: memo says a lot else.) theappeal.org/politicalrepor…

George Gascon in LA has also confirmed this policy since taking office in December.
Read 4 tweets
31 Dec 20
2020 (even 2020) brought transformative local elections & big progressive wins.

Here's a year-end thread of some of the most 🔥 results that have stayed with me! #overlookedelectionstakes
Before I start, you can relive hundreds of 2020 local races (and why they mattered) at my what's on the ballot:

hundreds of primaries: whatsontheballot.com/2020-primaries/

hundreds of general elections: whatsontheballot.com/2020-general-e…

and for criminal justice-related races: theappeal.org/political-repo…
1️⃣ Voters in Missouri & Oklahoma voted in summer referendums to expand Medicaid: This'll grant public insurance to ≈500K people, a huge deal.

(This leaves a dozen states that have not expanded Medicaid, so keep your eyes on more battles going forward.)
Read 34 tweets
26 Dec 20
The big "gasp"-inducing allegation in this story is that... Gascon, LA's new DA, is communicating & "working with defense attorneys."

That some think of this as a bombshell really says a lot about how messed-up the metrics & conventions of the current criminal legal system.
This is the second story in as many weeks where a deputy prosecutor has been apopletic over collaboration between the prosecutor's office & a defender's office. See below.

(And here's the link to the new story: foxla.com/news/george-ga…)

Gascon RAN ON of upending status-quo of prosecution. That was his platform, his promise. Association of deputy DAs endorsed his opponent (incumbent).

That headline above is equivalent to interviewing a Trump supporter & headlining it "Biden loses confidence of his own troops."
Read 4 tweets
23 Dec 20
Local judges are key punitive cogs in mass incarceration. But in 2020 they were rumblings of change: activism, reform candidates, & then—big results!

But this remains neglected. We at @TheAppeal were intent on chronicling more of this "flip the bench" movement. A thread on 2020:
1️⃣ There was 🔥 in New Orleans: A group of 7 current & former public defenders ran for judge, with the stated goal of using the vast discretion of judicial offices to fight mass incarceration.

Two won (theappeal.org/politicalrepor…).

Full context: theappeal.org/politicalrepor….
2️⃣ New Orleans's Nov. elections came a few months after something of a "dress rehearsal": New Orleans husing activists used a summer judicial election to put heat on power of local judges to do something about the eviction crisis, & their powers.

theappeal.org/politicalrepor….
Read 8 tweets
13 Dec 20
A staff prosecutor in Los Angeles says prosecutors have come together to reject implementation of policies that the newly-elected DA ran on for a year, and then reiterated on his first day in office.

Much like DAs used to resist & sue reform iniatives & laws.
Eye-opening to what makes it toweringly difficult task to fight mass incarceration: many elections show voters reject tough-on-crime politics, over and over — but staff prosecutors (& police unions) retain a lot of power to stymie efforts, ignore results, threaten over new laws.
See also: how badly prosecutors & police unions misfired in NY this year; results of many DA & sheriff races in recent years; and the results of CA’s Prop 20, a rollback of sentencing reforms CA voters roundly rejected even as it had fearmongering support from many prosecutors.
Read 4 tweets

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