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As Senate Republicans prepare to unveil their much slimmer infrastructure counter-proposal this week during meetings with President Joe Biden, roughly five dozen congressional Democrats are urging party leaders to ignore the GOPs demands for anarrow package and instead embrace progressives calls for rapidly making robust and comprehensive investments to improve life for working people in the U.S.

In a letter sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (DCalif.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (DN.Y.) on Monday, nearly 60 House Democratsled by Congressional Progressive Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal (DWash.) but including across section of the partywrote that the infrastructure framework unveiled last month by the Biden administration made acompelling case to the American people that government can and should be aforce for good in thiscountry.

Nonetheless, the Democratic lawmakers, who are currently developing Build Back Better legislation in the House, advocated for anational infrastructure plan that is bigger, broader, and enacted as quickly as possiblewith or without the support of congressionalRepublicans.

While bipartisan support is welcome, the pursuit of Republican votes cannot come at the expense of limiting the scope of popular investments, wrote thelawmakers.

Echoing points made last week by climate justice advocates who criticized Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer for engaging in performative negotiations with GOP leaders, the House Democrats stressed in their letter that widespread climate denial among Republican lawmakers poses athreat to bold, necessary action onclimate.

Moreover, they wrote, Republicans also enacted former President Donald Trumps massive tax giveaway80% of which accrued to the wealthy and large corporationsand will likely remain amajor obstacle to any opportunities to secure fair, progressive tax revenues to curb income and wealthinequality.

Indeed, as Common Dreams reported last month, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (RKy.) has already vowed to oppose Bidens $2.3 trillion American Jobs Plan and $1.8 trillion American Families Planthe White Houses framework for improving the nations physical and social infrastructureas long as the spending proposals include even modest tax hikes on the richest Americans and corporations, which they do.

Furthermore, the House Democrats wrote in their letter, Republicans have consistently opposed the high-road labor and equity standards that President Biden rightly included in the American Jobs Plan to ensure the creation of high-paying union jobs with benefits, equitable hiring for women [and] people of color, and investments in Indigenous and marginalized communities that have endured decades ofunderinvestment.

On ahost of priorities that can be delivered by this Congress, the trade-offs for Republican votes are stark, the lawmakers added. We ask that you work with the White House to prioritize transformative legislation that our voters were promised, which may require reforming or even eliminating the Senate filibuster as well as wielding the full powers available of the presidency, vice presidency, and relevant federal agencies to achieve thesegoals.

As ABC News, which first obtained the House Democrats letter, reported Tuesday, Biden also appears to be pursuing amulti-track strategy on infrastructure legislation that could involve amore measured initial compromise with Republicans on funding for roads, bridges, airports and broadband, followed by alarger package that Democrats could pass with 50 votes in the Senate using the budget reconciliationprocess.

Warning against this approachwhich is also favored by conservative Sen. Joe Manchin (DW.Va.)the House Democrats wrote that we believe that robust legislation comprising the American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan must be enacted as rapidly as possible, preferably as asingle, ambitious package combining physical and social investments hand inhand.

Physical and human infrastructure needs are inextricably linked, the lawmakers noted. Peopleespecially women and people of color, who have suffered disproportionate job losses during this recessioncannot get back to work without child care, long-term care, paid leave, or investments in education and job retraining. This human infrastructure cannot be secondary to the physical infrastructure needs or languish under Republicanobstructionism.

As for the size of the infrastructure package, the lawmakers pointed out that the presidents initial proposals pale in comparison to the $7 trillion figure put forward by Biden on the campaigntrail.

Bidens campaign proposal to invest approximately $7 trillion in health, clean energy, infrastructure, and child care, the lawmakers noted, is much closer in ambition to the roughly $10 trillion THRIVE Act, which seeks to create 15 million good-paying union jobs, reduce racial inequality, and cut climate pollution in half by 2030. Introduced last month, the THRIVE agenda is co-sponsored by more than 100 members of Congress and endorsed by over 250 labor, racial justice, and environmentalgroups.

Given the scale of our unemployment, caregiving, healthcare, climate, and inequality crises; the historically low cost to make the necessary investments our country needs; and the singular governing opportunity presented to us, we urge our colleagues in Congress to pursue alarger upfront investment that truly meets this historic moment, the lawmakers wrote in their letter to Pelosi and Schumer, suggesting that the THRIVE Act represents asolid infrastructureplan.

Emphasizing their eagerness to enhance their constituents daily lives and strengthen their faith in agovernment that works for working people, an economy that provides security and opportunity to all, and aplanet that their children and grandchildren can enjoy for generations to come, the House Democrats told Pelosi and Schumer that they hope to work with you and our committee chairs to develop arapid legislative timeline to enact an ambitious and comprehensive proposal before the Augustrecess.

This story first appeared at Common Dreams.

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House Progressives Are Urging Democrats to Ditch the GOP and Pass a Bold Infrastructure Plan - In These Times

History was made on May 18, 2021. Ed Gainey secured the Democratic nomination for Pittsburgh mayor, almost certain to become the citys first-ever Black mayor. He ran on progressive policies, and to the left of incumbent Mayor Bill Peduto on policing. He focused his campaign on racial and economic inequalities, promising to do more to address these glaring issues in the Steel City.

While this moment is truly historic for Pittsburgh a city and region that are overwhelmingly white, and have many documented instances of racism against Black people there are also several other impressive electoral wins that deserve recognition.

Allegheny County voters also approved a ballot initiative that would limit the use of solitary confinement at the Allegheny County Jail. A yes on that question received 69% of the vote.

Additionally, out of nine open seats for Allegheny County Common Pleas Court, voters selected five candidates who were endorsed by a coalition of criminal-justice reform groups. Common Pleas Judges are responsible for overseeing trials for criminal, civil, and family cases and delivering sentencing.

The coalition said back in March that electing these candidates would help move reforms like reducing the use of cash bail, increasing diversionary programs and alternatives to carceral punishment, and other mechanisms to combat mass incarceration and racial and other demographic disparities in the system.

There were also victories at the Magisterial District Judge level. The Magisterial District Judge court is directly below Common Pleas and is responsible for assigning bail conditions, deciding eviction cases, and is a defendant's first introduction to the states criminal judicial system. In Lawrenceville, candidate Xander Orenstein narrowly defeated incumbent Anthony Ceoffe on a platform of being more compassionate in eviction cases and limiting cash bail. Orenstein, if they were to win the general election, would become the states first nonbinary magistrate judge.

Jehosha Wright also won his race for Magisterial District Judge in the North Side, after receiving the backing of some criminal justice reform-minded politicians.

In Mount Oliver, JoAnna Taylor ousted Mount Oliver Mayor Frank Bernardini, a conservative Democratic incumbent who was seen last year with Democratic Mount Oliver council member Nick Viglione, who was sporting a MAGA hat at a Allegheny County Democratic Committee meeting. State Rep. Jessica Benham (D-South Side) also congratulated Lisa Pietrusza for winning a spot on Mount Oliver Council, and Jamie Piotrowski for winning her election for Pittsburgh Public Schools board member.

I am so thrilled about the progressive movement we are building in South Pittsburgh - JoAnna, Jamie, & Lisa represent the hard organizing work we are doing in areas that dont get much progressive political attention, tweeted Benham on May 19.

In Sharpsburg, progressive candidate Brittany Reno defeated councilor Joe Simbari in the boroughs mayoral race. Simbari was one of four councilors who initially opposed a LGBTQ nondiscrimination ordinance for the town. And at least two council candidates who were endorsed by an LGBTQ group won seats on the borough's council.

Abigail Gardner owns Scottie Public Affairs consultant group and has advised progressive candidates in the past. She says that this election is another sign that progressives are becoming attractive replacements to more typical conservative Democrats in the region.

In these smaller municipalities, there is a ton of progressive energy and candidates with the ability to knock doors and win, said Gardner. I think there is more than enough data points from across the county, that any long term incumbent might be vulnerable to challengers and new voices are very successful.

There were also some progressive win in McKees Rocks, West View, and elsewhere, but not all progressive candidates came up victorious. Bethani Cameron lost her race for Pittsburgh City Council, and Steve Singer lost his race for Allegheny County Council. Both ran to the left of incumbents who are more conservative.

Gardner says that some progressive losses show that not all districts are moving to the left, and that they still prefer conservative politicians, whether Democrat or Republicans. For instance, County Councilor Bob Macey (D-West Mifflin) held on in his Mon Valley district, which was actually carried by Donald Trump in 2020. And Pittsburgh City Councilor Anthony Coghill (D-Beechview) represents arguably the citys most conservative district in the South Hills.

Black women won three of the nine open spots on the Allegheny County Common Pleas Court, which are elected countywide. Women, both white and Black, were the top five vote getters for Common Pleas elections. Out of the nine seats available, only two white men were elected to a body that has historically been composed of white men.

Leah Williams Duncan won her Magisterial District Judge race and will become the countys first Black woman Magisterial District Judge.

Municipal races and judicial races, that show the strength of women and people of color, that were always the base of the Democratic party, they are flexing their muscle, says Gardner. And are showing how to better represent the face of the voters.

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Criminal justice reforms, progressive victories, and other takeaways from a historic 2021 Pittsburgh primary election - PGH City Paper

SFist has noted in the past that columnist Heather Knight has emerged, in at least some ways, a spiritual successor to C.W. Nevius at the Chronicle. While not as stridently critical as Nevius was of SF progressives on topics like homelessness, Knight has been taking on the Board of Supervisors on various issues, and things have been escalating in recent weeks.

Critiques of the Supes from Knight are by no means new, but she has some particularly notable bones to pick with the likes of Aaron Peskin and Dean Preston lately, and it's basically get-out-the-popcorn time as Peskin has started lashing back, referencing Knight's column during public meetings.

Let's start back in March, when Knight delighted in an effort by Supervisor Myrna Melgar to track the number of times that male supervisors spoke during meetings versus women, and the number of times they interrupted. Whose picture tops the column about the results of Melgar's data study? Peskin's! And Knight points to the fact that Melgar is the lone female on the Land Use and Transportation Committee with Peskin and Preston, and she barely gets a word in edgewise. "Those men make up two-thirds of the committee, but talked a combined 84% of the time," Knight notes, from Melgar's data.

Knight's April 21 column was a Nevius-esque salvo against the evils of SF bureaucracy for small businesses, focusing on ice cream shop owner and SF native Jason Yu. He reportedly spent 16 months and $200,000 trying to open his shop, Matcha n More at 20th and Valencia streets, and he was blocked essentially, as Knight frames it, over objections from a nearby competitor, Garden Creamery. Yu abandoned his plans rather than lose more money on the project, and Knight pointed out that Yu didn't get to benefit from the streamlined approvals process that is now possible under Mayor Breed's Prop H.

Then two weeks ago, on May 5, Knight wrote a column that got the hackles up of many SF progressives, running with the headline, "Is San Francisco more conservative than Moscow? Top San Francisco official says yes." That top official was SFTMA Director Jeffrey Tumlin, and she quoted him as saying, having worked on transit projects in Moscow himself, that San Francisco is "definitely" more conservative than Moscow.

"San Franciscans, on a national political metric, we are far to the left," Tumlin said. "But when it comes to our own city, we are so resistant to change that the result is a lot of conservatism."

Many critics of SF politics and the development and planning process here have noted this contradiction. One article that got a lot of attention in the last decade was this 2014 piece for TechCrunch by Kim-Mai Cutler that focused on how SF's resistance to change over five decades was responsible for the present-day housing crisis.

But when Knight took Tumlin's comments and wrote "the idea holds true on a host of major issues including housing, climate change, small business reform and addressing our drug crisis," essentially accusing the Board of Supervisors for embracing the status quo, you know that's a declaration of war.

Tim Redmond, the editor of 48 Hills one of the last bastions of capital-P Progressive commentary in SF came out swinging a few days later with his own column.

"If you know the history of post-War San Francisco, you know that 'progress' and 'change' in [the] local economy has been driven almost entirely by a small number of powerful people, mostly white men, who sought to redesign the city for their own profit," Redmond writes. "They destroyed light industry and blue-collar jobs to build financial-services and tech offices... They encouraged the gentrification of neighborhoods all over the city... They wiped out Black and Brown communities... So: Communities resisted. People fought back against unchecked development... Some of us would like to say: Slow down. Protect existing vulnerable communities first. Save historic and environmentally sensitive areas. Use government to regulate these changes so that they dont overwhelm what is frankly a pretty fragile city and tax the people who get rich from them to protect the people who the late-capitalist idea of progress leaves behind."

But now, Knight has come back with a new column, and it's focused squarely on Peskin and Preston, stemming from a Monday meeting of the above-mentioned land-use committee on which Melgar also sits. There was a proposal up for discussion that Knight highlighted back in November, backed by Mayor Breed and Supervisor Matt Haney, they would end the ability of a single SF citizen to appeal any project they care to appeal that comes up for city approval.

The proposal would require anyone looking to file an appeal at the city to gather 50 signatures or the sign-off of five supervisors in order to get an appeal hearing scheduled. The proposal came after two gadflies had caused an estimated 100 hours of work for aides and supervisors by filing multiple appeals between them last year of various emergency measures by the SFMTA and city making it a "pandemic hobby" to complain that everything requires CEQA review, even in a pandemic. The Board of Supervisors unanimously rejected every appeal.

At Monday's meeting, Peskin and Preston tabled the proposal, and Knight is fuming. Peskin even called out Knight, though not quite directly, saying during the meeting, "Fundamentally, this is a solution looking for a problem," and noting that the ordinance was tied to "the subject of however many articles in one Chronicle columnists thing, column."

Knight got a quote from the mayor's office, from spokesperson Jeff Cretan, who said, "Its really challenging when we talk about changing the status quo in San Francisco, and we cant even get these tailored solutions to get rid of bureaucracy approved."

That column prompted another foe of Knight's, the blog District 5 Diary, to pen its own response today, calling Knight a "status quo megaphone" for City Hall/the mayor.

Anyway, the war goes on. Yes, the Chronicle has been more on the business-friendly, centrist end of the media spectrum for the past two decades, and they've never really employed a progressive counterpoint columnist to the likes of Nevius or Knight. But doesn't anyone see the absurdities at work here?

As Peskin himself said during the absurd debate over that Ferris Wheel, the "bright side" to moving into post-pandemic normalcy is that they get to have "these kinds of squabbles again between the Board and the executive branch."

Read more here:
Chronicle Columnist Heather Knight Is Basically at War With Progressive Supervisors - SFist

Tony Blair has long claimed to know what is necessary for progressives to become, in his term, change- makers. His recent essay for the New Statesman, in which he prescribes how the Labour Party can be resurrected as a progressive force, is no exception. His opponents are always small c conservatives, unable to grasp what the future demands.

Once, it was globalisation that defined the progressive task. Now, it is the 21st century technological revolution. This, Blair says, represents the most far-reaching upheaval since the 19th-century Industrial Revolution; progressives will succeed if they are the ones who understand this revolution, [and] show how it can be mastered for the benefit of the people.

Whatever the structural force for change Blair identifies, the world is always fast-forwarding to the future at unprecedented speed, where opportunities only go to those swift to adapt, as he told the Labour Party conference in 2005. This is how he believes time works: of course, history has a direction, he insisted to Jason Cowley in an interview in 2016. To be a progressive, for Blair, is simply to hitch ones political commitments to the ride.

In reality, Blairs rhetoric is an unreliable guide to how New Labour governed during his premiership between 1997 and 2007. New Labour did not succeed by mastering globalisation. Only in finance was Britain aligned with economic globalisation, and here the party merely encouraged the City to continue what it had already been doing since the 1960s. It did not reskill British workers to make them more competitive. While it presided over an expansion of university education, the system failed to produce a vanguard of a new knowledge economy. If a central feature of globalisation in the 2000s was the creation of integrated Atlantic-Eurasian supply chains, British manufacturing firms were a sideshow. Unlike their counterparts in Berlin, for example, Blairs governments lacked a strategy to build export markets in China. Instead, the growth in UK employment during the New Labour years depended on the domestically focused service sector.

[See also:Labours loss of Hartlepool is the final death rattle of a movement that has abandoned its heartlands]

For all his man-of-the-world presentation, Blairs rhetoric never really attempts to explain real-world change. In his 2005 conference speech, he claimed that to stop and debate globalisation was as pointless as discussing whether autumn should follow summer. But whether globalisation is defined as the internationalisation of economic activity that began in the 1970s, or the increase in the movement of people around the globe, it is obviously not a physical force beyond human agency. Before the breakneck ascent that began in the 1990s, a period of globalisation had already risen and fallen between the 1870s and the early 1930s.

In thrall to the idea that the future makes the times faster, more exciting, Blair is selective about what change progressives must understand in order to win power. The second age of globalisation is now giving way to trade wars, national industrial strategies that break up international supply chains, and tighter borders. The only sign that Blair acknowledges this is by dropping the word globalisation from his vocabulary. Instead, he now insists that it is the technological revolution that divides the world into those who are equipped to adjust and those who, stuck in the past, will fail.

Change that appears, as Blair sees it, historically misdirected does not attract his attention. While Brexit has profoundly altered British politics over the past seven years, his latest intervention on Labours mortality crisis bypasses it. This conveniently allows him to ignore the fact that by casting the EU as a symbol of political and economic modernity, Blair and his acolytes downplayed the scenario in which Labours anti-EU voters would adjust to the changing times by simply deserting the party.

[See also:Politics is turning on its axis and the one politician who gets this is Boris Johnson]

Blairs present story about real-world change is so high on the abstract idea of a new-tech future that it is insensitive to the most monumental specific change now under way. We may be living through something comparable to the start of the Industrial Revolution. But if we are, it is because governments across the world profess a commitment to replacing the energy-basis of most economic activity by 2050 or 2060. Clean energy is not one more instance of upheaval, as Blair classes it, in a list that also includes nutrition, gaming, financial payments, [and] satellite imagery. Nor does it, where public services are concerned, demand an overhaul of health and education; Blair has been calling for those since he became Labour leader in 1994.

Rather, the principal political question the future is now asking all politicians is whether another energy revolution can be realised without jettisoning the idea of economic and technological progress on which Blairs world-view depends. In material terms, radically curtailing the use of fossil-fuel energy is not an instance of linear history. Absent an unprecedented expansion of nuclear power, it is a project to reverse the shift from low-density biomass energy to high-density fossil-fuel energy that began the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century, by moving back to lower-density energy in the form of renewables. It aims to reset time so that our present civilisation does not meet the same ecological reckoning that has helped end every other civilisation that has existed, including the Roman world.

If this energy revolution is to succeed, it will indeed require a huge technological leap. But it takes an impressive amount of faith that history is unidirectional a view that is now being put to the test to think that such an uncertain future is tailor-made for any political project, especially a political project like Blairs: one so ideologically fixed that it is unable to confront the world as it really is.

The rest is here:
In Blair-world, tech is the bright new progressive cause. But he ignores the real reasons for change - New Statesman

Members of the National Organization for Women protest outside the Manhattan DA's office on October 13, 2017, after District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. made the decision not to pursue sexual abuse charges against movie producer Harvey Weinstein. (Spencer Platt / Getty Images)

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New York CityOne of the more consequential political races in America will be decided here on June 22. And it has nothing to do with Andrew Yang.

On the day Democrats in New York City will choose the candidate who will probably become the next mayor, Manhattanites will be effectively electing their next district attorney. Its the sort of race that will have far more of a seismic impact on the city and nation than the attention its been paid would indicate; the winner will be setting a criminal justice agenda that will inevitably ripple outward to DAs across the country.

Part of this has to do with the offices sheer size: The outgoing DA, Cyrus Vance Jr., presides over 500 prosecutors and a budget that nears $170 million. Manhattan is the beating heart of the real estate industry, Wall Street, and the white-collar crimes that seize headlines. Vance has crossed paths with the likes of Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein, and Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

His failures, to most of the public, have been of the high-profile variety: not prosecuting Weinstein much sooner, not prosecuting the Trump children at all, and bungling the Strauss-Kahn case.

Regular watchers of Law and Order and other police procedurals are acquainted with another version of the office: a tough but fair institution wrangling with a procession of criminals that hard-bitten, if well-meaning, prosecutors and cops must lock up.

But a darker reality pulses belowthe office, under Vance and his predecessors, has been overly punitive and even predatory, according to legal observers and public defenders who have battled it on a daily basis. It is a place, they say, where the progressive reforms that have swept up offices around the nation have been, at best, begrudgingly or belatedly acknowledged.

Where do we start with how repressive, how predatory, that prosecutors office has been for communities of color in Manhattan? asked Rigodis Appling, a member of Black Attorneys of Legal Aid and a longtime public defender. I really think they think its their job to simply protect property and they charge things as such. When you value property more than human life, thats where it becomes disturbing and youre not doing justice.Current Issue

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There are eight Democrats running to replace Vance, who faced mounting pressure not to seek reelection. With scant polling available and a number of contenders who have raised north of $1 million, no single front-runner appears to be dominating the field. Unlike the mayoral race, this is technically not a municipal contest, which means no ranked-choice voting: Progressives do run the real risk here of splitting votes and allowing a more moderate candidate to triumph.

The winner would only be the fourth Manhattan DA since 1942. Before Vance won election in 2009, Robert Morgenthau and Frank Hogan each held the post for decades.

Danny Frost, a spokesman for Vance, argued that the DA had made great strides beyond his predecessor, Morgenthau, cutting prosecutions in half and investing forfeiture funds into various reform initiatives, including the Manhattan Family Justice Center.

Many of the candidates running espouse the principles of reform that have come into vogue in the last four years, as progressive prosecutors like Larry Krasner in Philadelphia, Chesa Boudin in San Francisco, and Kim Foxx in Chicago have taken power. The contenders fall into various camps: the former prosecutors, a civil rights attorney, a public defender, and an elected official. Some are traditionalists, wary of the left flank; others race headfirst into reform.

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All are reckoning with two competing currents: the demands to radically overhaul a system that has imprisoned too many people of color and growing calls, from conservatives and law enforcement, to hunt for a solution to New Yorks spike in shootings and murders.

Im running against a bunch of former prosecutors who have been complicit in and propped up and perpetuated this system, said Eliza Orlins, a longtime Manhattan public defender who has also been a television personality. Ive been in the trenches fighting this office.

Under Vance, certain reforms popular with progressives have been implemented, including a decision to no longer prosecute those who jump subway turnstilesbut public defenders view of the office is particularly dim. Orlins, who served as a public defender with Legal Aid, and other progressives describe Vance as a prosecutor relentlessly committed to going to trial to win cases against poorer, nonwhite defendants. In Manhattan, juries tend to be whiter and wealthier and more favorable to law enforcement than the more working-class, diverse juries in the outer boroughs.

Appling described troubling trends: Vances prosecutors charging people who steal packages from building lobbies with burglary, a violent felony, which can carry years in prison, as opposed to petit larceny, a lesser charge. The office is willing to charge defendants who are caught up in predatory NYPD practices like Operation Lucky Bag, in which police planted a bag, usually with money or other valuables inside, in a public place and waited for someone to take it, arresting them on the spot.

Before New York state reformed its outdated discovery laws, public defenders said Vances office was notorious for withholding information from the defense until right before trial, creating undue pressure on terrified defendants to plead guilty to inflated charges.

The discovery practices of the Manhattan DA were the impetus behind changing the discovery laws, said Nick Encalada-Malinowski, the civil rights campaign director at VOCAL-NY, a reform group. There are a certain set of candidates who are interested in shrinking that system.

Orlins is one of two candidates, along with civil rights attorney Tahanie Aboushi, who have said theyd slash the DAs budget by 50 percent if elected. Both are heartened that Krasner, a former public defender, beat back a law-and-order challenger on Tuesday.

We can restructure the office where we are trimming the fat, said Aboushi, who is endorsed by the Working Families Party and successfully sued the Fire Department for discrimination against Black firefighters. We should be focusing on serious crimes.

In their voting guide, Five Boro Defenders, a collective of public defenders and civil rights attorneys in New York, graded all the contenders on their ability to do the least amount of harm with an office that has traditionally had a carceral mission.

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Orlins was one candidate rated the highest. The other was not Aboushi but Dan Quart, a State Assembly member who has a long legislative record of pushing criminal justice reforms in Albany, including ending the ban on gravity knives, which are often carried by blue-collar workers but used to be illegal, allowing Vance and other DAs to rack up more prosecutions.

Im the only one with a real record of achieving results on decarceration, says Quart.

Another top contender in the progressive lane, Alvin Bragg, has won the backing of Preet Bharara, Charlie Rangel, Jerry Nadler, and several large labor unions. Bragg, who grew up in Harlem and served as the chief deputy attorney general in New York, made a name for himself seeking full transparency into how the NYPD handled Eric Garners death. He speaks often about his experience as a Black man being repeatedly stopped by police.

All of my policies have emerged from my really having experienced almost every part of the criminal justice system, Bragg said. My brother in-law living with me after getting out of incarceration. Me having been stopped three times at gunpoint growing up.

Among the four candidates competing for the left lane in the primary, there are some clear differences. In a voter guide assembled by the Brooklyn Community Bail Fund, Bragg said he would not reduce the budget of the DAs office at all. Only Aboushi and Orlins would eliminate pretrial detention altogether. Quart was the only candidate to say he would request only supervision on a defendant, not electronic monitoring. All but Bragg said theyd try to reduce the number of people in jail pretrial by at least 80 percent.

In addition to two former prosecutors with lower levels of name recognition and endorsements, Liz Crotty and Diana Florence, Lucy Lang, a Vance ally, is campaigning on the premise that someone who has worked as a prosecutor in the Manhattan DAs office can also fix it. The former head of the Institute for Innovation in Prosecution at John Jay College, Lang has won the backing of several reform-oriented prosecutors across America, including Kim Gardner in St. Louis.

My candidacy is informed by and supported by people most directly impacted by the system, said Lang, who has said shed beef up the sex crimes unit in the DAs office. People who have been incarcerated, people who have been impacted by violent crime.

However, if there is a single candidate looming over the rest, its the primarys most prolific fundraiser: Tali Farhadian Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor. Married to Boaz Weinstein, a multimillionaire hedge fund manager, Farhadian Weinstein has raised more than $2 million by aggressively targeting Wall Street megadonors. She veers to the right of several Democrats in the race, speaking more on the campaign stump about rising crime rates and gun violence, and is viewed as a candidate who would not greatly depart from Vances traditionalist approach. She is also one of the only candidates who will not rule out entering into information sharing agreements with federal agencies like ICE and Homeland Security Investigation. Expected to advertise far more heavily than most of the Democrats, Farhadian Weinstein took a measured view of Vance as her rivals pounced on her fundraising. The office has done some things well, some things less well, she said.

For Farhadian Weinstein, a key focus would be gender-based violence. We will be taking on violence against women, she said.

Her prominent progressive rivals, with time ticking down in the primary, are not holding back against her. Her ties to Wall Street are very problematic, Aboushi said, pointing to donations as large as $35,000 sent to Farhadian Weinsteins coffers. For some people, thats an annual salary.

Farhadian Weinstein, dismissing these criticisms, pointed to the large amounts of money her rivals have raised, including those whove taken cash from law firms that might have business in front of the DA.

I really caution others to not put out purity tests they cant pass, she said.

Read more:
Will New York Join the List of Cities With Progressive DAs? - The Nation