Progressive activists are challenging “tough on crime” judges in a place they have long avoided: the voting booth.
of prosecutors’ efforts to dismiss low-level nonviolent charges during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I think we’re at the beginning of a wave, just like 2017 was the beginning of the wave of progressive prosecutor reform,” said Amanda McIllmurray, the political director of Reclaim Philadelphia. “I think this cycle is really the beginning of a progressive judicial reform.” Facing the dearth of public information about judicial candidates, organizers are devising novel ways to collect and disseminate information to voters. In 2018, for example, a coalition of criminal justice reform groups based in Philadelphia joined forces to organize the, an organization dedicated to educating Philadelphians about candidates in the city’s judicial races.
“This work is all year round, not election per election,” Fisher said. “You have to keep people engaged all year round, and you have to keep people educated all year round.” “There’s definitely been pushback from the Democratic establishment,” Perez said. “There is a lot of [pressure] to continue to do politics the same way they’ve been done in Philly … but the problem with that is that the system prioritizes ‘How many favors have been done?’ and ‘When do I get my payback for the favors that I’ve done?’”