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1 Jun, 4 tweets, 1 min read
Yet another election today, so another reminder: There's a big difference between **people trying to use tough-on-crime rhetoric** in their campaigns & **those attacks actually working.**

Ed Gillespie trying it in 2017 didn't mean he was right to expect it'd work (it didn't)...
...; Krasner facing a challenge to his reforms didn't mean he wouldn't win 67/33 (as he did); police union fighting Gascon didn't stop him from unseating an incumbent DA;NY GOP and police thinking bail reform would backfire on Dems who'd voted for it didn't mean they were right.
Mere existence of 'tough-on-crime' talk doesn't in and of itself mean there's a large backlash, that carceral policies are back, that "Willie Horton" will work again. In some instances, they have; in many, they haven't. Stop just assuming it's as it used to be, bc it hasn't been.
And let's not repeat the stuff from the week before Gillespie's faceplant or Philly's DA race, or during the NY's bail debate or Los Angeles's DA race, every time there's an election, as tho none of those happened — at least not until more examples a tide may have turned.

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More from @Taniel

Taniel Profile picture
6 Jun
RESULT: Republican Mattie Parker will be the next mayor of Fort Worth, keeping the city in GOP hands & winning today’s hotly contested runoff.

Fort Worth will remain the nation’s biggest city with a GOP mayor.
Some context on this election, in a city of more than 900K residents (but fewer than 100K ballots cast in this mayoral election:

politico.com/news/2021/06/0…
&
m.dailykos.com/stories/2021/6…
&
amp.star-telegram.com/news/politics-…
In neighboring conservative & much smaller Arlington (also in Tarrant County) the next mayor will be Jim Ross, a former police officer who thinks the police are doing well policing themselves & doesn’t seem to have concerns about housing. keranews.org/politics/2021-…
Read 5 tweets
Taniel Profile picture
22 May
people with reform/progressive politics (of a sort that'd never won DA races in recent history) have won DA races in the past few years in LA, much of suburban VA, Austin, NoLa, Boston suburban St Louis, huge Pima County, & have now won re-election races... & this is the takeaway
On the one hand, there's one of the defining electoral changes of recent years: in some of the most punitive places that have fueled mass incarceration, voters are just continually defying the expectation that tough-on-crime wins. And are winning in new sorts of races, too.
OTOH, a poll shows voters care about crime. And of course they do: What these activists & reform candidates have argued is that the conventional approaches to crim justice are harming safety & communities — and the "changing politics" has been that this point has won much more.
Read 6 tweets
Taniel Profile picture
19 May
not only did Larry Krasner win, but he swept in new allies with him today!

≈8 judicial candidates endorsed by the local progressive group @reclaimphila have won tonight in judge races, a big deal because judges have been obstacle for some of Krasner's reforms so far.
More broadly, this is a major demonstration of strenght for the Philadelphia left
Even more broadly, this is quite the narrative-challenging result.

That test on how a progressive incumbent could win re-election has morphed into an even bigger progressive hold on local offices.
Read 4 tweets
Taniel Profile picture
19 May
First Philadelphia votes are in!!

Larry Krasner leads 64% to 36% in the first batch of ballots (10K ballots, all mail).
We may have to wait a moment for more results... don’t hold your breath for now.  

But that means have no to not have the to peruse this thread: 
UPDATE: First *in-person* ballots have now reported (roughly 2,000 of them); they've *increased* Larry Krasner's lead: he is ahead 66% to 34% now.

Krasner won this batch of ballots 80/20.

(I won't report every small batch, but felt relevant to have both mail & in-person.)
Read 6 tweets
Taniel Profile picture
18 May
As Pennsylvania votes today, keep an eye on judicial races. Way down-ballot, but a lot is happening there.

And I'm very happy to be working somewhere where we get to take judges' powers seriously — and cover them accordingly. A brief thread on what that's looked like. ↓ ↓
1️⃣ In Pittsburgh/Allegheny County, local activists have recruited a "Slate of Eight" to run for the Court of Common Pleas on promises to curb evictions and mass incarceration. This has lit up usually quiet elections.

@SamMellins wrote: theappeal.org/politicalrepor…
2️⃣ One of those candidates has already been a judge! Mik Pappas (fueled by a local DSA endorsement) won another sort of judgeship in 2017. @Sentinel_Vaughn shows here how his record of decision-making is a window into the huge discretion judges have: theappeal.org/politicalrepor…
Read 6 tweets
Taniel Profile picture
18 May
Strange to see a wave of coverage treat Krasner’s race in Philly as part of a series of setbacks for progressives in DA races, as tho tide has already turned. Has it? First test since 2020, & its paradigm-changing reformer wins in LA, NoLa, Austin (incumbent lost 70/30), Portland
Also in 2020, prosecutors who’re associated with the national reform efforts — in Chicago & St Louis — both won re-election amid difficult attacks by the police union and ‘law and order’ type-criticism. Again, idea of a changing ‘tougher on crime’ tide hadn’t materialized there.
And on top of all that, let’s see what actually happens in Philly?! (And if law and order arguments win the day there, at least be precise about what else result is meant to be like.) We’re so used to convention that ‘tough on crime’ wins politically, it’s already fully baked in.
Read 4 tweets

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