The primary for attorney general may present Democrats with a choice about how they view progressive prosecutors.
Back in 2020, Henrico Commonwealth's Attorney Shannon Taylor was one of the founding members of a group that called itself the Progressive Prosecutors for Justice. She left the group two years later, but her role as a founding member may end up playing a part in her campaign for attorney general. Rob Poggenklass with Justice Forward Virginia says the progressive prosecutors scored some major victories.
"Things like abolishing the death penalty and sealing and expunging criminal records," Poggenklass says. "Those were two of the ideas that this group pushed and got accomplished."
But Republicans are already signaling that they would love to run against a Progressive Prosecutor for Justice, and incumbent Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares frequently talks about Democrats as having a criminals first, victims last mindset. Here's Shawn Weneta of the Humanization Project.
"The current attorney general wants to make it a controversial group. However, 40% of Virginians have continued to elect these 'progressive' prosecutors," says Shawn Weneta of the Humanization Project. "And we see dramatic drops in crime, we see increasingly better outcomes for victims of crime, we see increasingly better outcomes for people that have done harm and have gone and returned to the community."
Taylor's rival in the Democratic primary is former Delegate Jay Jones who does not have a background as a prosecutor, although he does have a progressive voting record from his time in the House of Delegates. Voters in the June primary will determine which candidate they want to challenge Miyares in November.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
