Since being elected Cook County State’s Attorney in 2016, Foxx has chipped away at the traditional „law and order“ system that progressives find excessive, expensive and unnecessarily punitive. Foxx has expunged criminal records related to marijuana convictions, steered her office away from non-violent crimes such as shoplifting, pushed for cannabis legalization nationally, and argued for mental health and addiction services.
„Kim Foxx losing the primary election would be a real blow, especially to the local organizers and activists who worked so hard to create the environment that led to a reform-minded prosecutor like Kim Foxx triumphing in 2016,“ said Taylor Pendergrass, senior campaign strategist for the American Civil Liberties Union.
Foxx, the rare black woman elected as a DA, is among the first in the movement to unapologetically execute on the progressive philosophy from a position of power, spurring others to run for office.
“She’s connecting public health to public safety and she’s been getting results,” said Tiffany Cabán, a public defender who credits Foxx with inspiring her to run for district attorney in Queens against an establishment figure, only to lose by a mere 55 votes. “It’s not enough to say we want to decrease incarceration, but she brings to the table an understanding of the instability, public health, generational trauma and public safety problems.”
Local Democratic heavy-hitters are backing Foxx, including Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth. Even Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle — fierce opponents in the Windy City’s mayoral constest last year — have found common ground here.
Still, the Smollett case haunts Foxx.
It has dominated political debates, and exacerbated Chicago’s longstanding racial divisions. Foxx’s office dropped charges against the TV actor, who allegedly staged a hate crime against himself in an effort to bolster his Hollywood career, an accusation Smollett denies.
Foxx has focused on clearing the air with voters long enough to best her three primary challengers, especially Conway, whose father has bankrolled his campaign to the tune of $10.5 million. Internal polling by Foxx and Conway has shown she’s consistently up or neck-and-neck in the race. The big takeaway from those polls? The number of undecided voters is large enough to swing the race either way.
In line with the movement’s philosophy, Foxx’s office had decided Smollett’s non-violent, first-time, low-level offense didn’t warrant attention when thousands of felonies await prosecution. But dismissing the charges prompted an outcry from some who believe Smollett got special treatment because his family is close to Tina Tchen, a former aide to Michelle Obama. To prove the point, Conway took on the case of Candice Clark, whose situation mirrors Smollett’s but who was hit with a $2,500 fine and made to jump through hoops such as court hearings and obtaining a GED.
„With Jussie Smollett, the State’s Attorney showed that the politically connected get better deals than other people,“ Conway wrote in a questionnaire to the Chicago Sun-Times. Conway, and fellow challengers Donna More and Bob Fioretti, also charge that Foxx is soft on corruption and part of the local political machine.
Opposition to Foxx’s work like raising the threshold of prosecuting felony retail theft from $300 to $1,000 has sparked street protests by the police union and white nationalists, and put her on the receiving-end of death threats. Her team has also vacated numerous wrongful convictions, most notably those involving misconduct by corrupt former police officers.
“Nobody at FOP buys the criminal justice reform rhetoric,” Martin Preib, the No. 2 at the local Fraternal Order of Police, said in an interview. “We think it’s an attack on the criminal justice system, plain and simple. It’s chilling that prosecutors are turning into activists and it spells catastrophe.”
Foxx, who grew up in Chicago’s Cabrini Green housing projects, says much the heat is part of being the first African American woman to run the Cook County State’s Attorney office. And to reenergize, she turns to other black women DAs around the country for moral support through a group text.
„They understand what it feels like to be so horribly attacked while you’re just trying to do the right thing… It’s about keeping your head up in the darkest times. It helps you keep going,“ Foxx told POLITICO, describing the late-night and early-morning counsel she gets from contemporaries like Baltimore DA Marilyn Mosby, St. Louis Chief Prosecutor Kim Gardner and Orange-Osceola State Attorney Aramis Ayala, in Florida, among others.
“The level of scrutiny is different, and the criticism is different for those that look like me and Kim,” Mosby said in an interview. “Your credibility, your qualifications… they attack you personally. They attack you professionally.”
Mosby has also relied on the texting support group: “We laugh, we cry, we vent, and we support one another. As African American women in these roles, we have to be there for one another. It’s an experience that only we go through.“
Harris, a former Los Angeles district attorney, isn’t part of the texting group with Foxx and the others but she lauded the camaraderie. „As a young prosecutor way back in 2004 I wish there would’ve been a community of progressive prosecutors working alongside me to implement reforms,“ she said in a statement to POLITICO. „I’ve been proud to stand by her…I’m proud of the work she’s doing.“
Reform activists swerve around the Smollett case and lament that media attention has focused on the actor while their efforts for justice go unnoticed. Yet, in November, Foxx acknowledged her office „should have done better“ and been more transparent on the case. Just five weeks before the primary, a grand jury returned with new charges against Smollett, and a special prosecutor reminded voters that Foxx’s office is still under scrutiny for how it handled the original case — timing she slammed as a „further politicization of the justice system.“
Foxx won her 2016 election by ousting incumbent Anita Alvarez, who was in the hot seat for her handling of the police-involved shooting of Laquan McDonald, a black teen whose death cops tried to cover-up. But she’s been talking about criminal justice reform since before she was elected.
Marilyn Katz, a Chicago public policy adviser and longtime progressive activist in Chicago, said Foxx’s loss would be „a throwback to the bad old days for women and reformers. It would be a declaration of war for advocates of reform who have no intention of losing — just doubling our efforts.“
Source: politico.com
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