One of the big winners in the recent primary elections was a group known as the Progressive Prosecutors for Justice.
The idea that prosecutors might advocate for things like expungement of criminal records and ending mandatory minimum sentences would have been unthinkable a few years ago. But now, Virginia has a group calling itself Progressive Prosecutors for Justice, and three of their highest profile and most controversial members were on the ballot in the primary election, and all three won.
Here's Carl Tobias at the University of Richmond Law School.
"Certainly after George Floyd's death and other incidents around the country, we have seen a change in people's approach to some of those issues," says Tobias. "And that may be part of what we’re seeing in these elections."
Critics of Progressive Prosecutors for Justice have called attention to money from political action committees tied to billionaire George Soros, and all three incumbent progressive prosecutors on the ballot this year raised more money than their challengers.
David Ramadan at George Mason University's Schar School points out that the challenger in Loudoun County didn't really make much of an effort.
"It takes two things to win elections," Ramadan says. "It needs an actual grassroots organization, knocking on doors, getting the votes out. And it takes money to get your message out, and she only raised something like, what was it? $15,000? That's not a race. That’s somebody who put their name on a ballot and that was it."
One quirk of Virginia politics is that county prosecutors are on a different election cycle than city prosecutors. So, two years from now, voters will consider progressive prosecutors in Norfolk, Newport News, Alexandria, Hampton and Portsmouth.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
