In California, wealthy donors are spending millions of dollars to back would-be prosecutors who want to reduce incarceration, crack down on police misconduct and revamp a bail system that may unfairly imprison poor people before trial, reports the Los Angeles Times and The Marshall Project. The effort is part of a years-long campaign by liberal groups to reshape the justice system. Billionaire George Soros headlines a consortium of private funders, the American Civil Liberties Union, other social justice groups and Democratic activists targeting four of the 56 DA jobs up for election on June 5. The challengers have matched or surpassed the millions of dollars, largely from police, prosecutors and local business, flowing to incumbents.
“For decades, the only real question about prosecutor elections was: Are they pernicious or are they just irrelevant?” said Stanford Law Prof. David Sklansky. “For years, the races tended to focus on character issues rather than policies…. So it’s really quite a change.” In San Diego, the groups back a public defender who spent her career trying to keep the accused out of jail. In Sacramento and Alameda, they finance candidates taking on entrenched incumbents. In Contra Costa, they support an ex-judge appointed district attorney who faces a challenge from a career prosecutor. Soros, whose California spending has topped $2.7 million, has spent $16 million in 17 races in other states since 2014. His favored candidates won in 13. The changes invoke outrage from police and prosecutors. Michele Hanisee, head of Los Angeles County prosecutors union, issued a call for donations to counter Soros’ money in San Diego. She said Soros and the ACLU ask prosecutors to “pick and choose” which laws they enforce. “It is a very, very slippery slope when you are asking the elected official to ignore laws they have sworn to uphold,” she said.