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2 prosecutor races you didn't hear about were big wins for Black Lives Matter

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TheDemSocialist

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There were two little-known but stunning upsets during the Super Tuesday II electionson March 15: Anita Alvarez lost her bid for reelection for state's attorney of Cook County, Illinois, and Tim McGinty lost his reelection bid for county prosecutor in Cuyahoga, County.At face value, Alvarez's loss to Kim Foxx, a fellow Democrat, and McGinty's loss to Michael O'Malley, also a Democrat, may not seem like a huge deal. But both of the incumbents lost, in part, because the Black Lives Matter movement criticized them for mishandling and neglecting high-profile police shooting cases over the past few years.

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Moreover, it's very rare for an incumbent prosecutor to actually lose a bid for reelection. About 95 percent of incumbent prosecutors won reelection, and 85 percent ran unopposed in general elections, according to data from nearly 1,000 elections between 1996 and 2006 analyzed by Ronald Wright of Wake Forest University School of Law.
Yet prosecutors are enormously powerful in the criminal justice system. They decide which laws will actually be enforced, with almost no checks on that power outside of elections. For instance, in 2014, Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson announcedthat he will no longer enforce low-level marijuana arrests. Think about how this works: Pot is still very much illegal in New York, but the district attorney has flat-out said that he will ignore an aspect of the law — and it's completely within his discretion to do so.

But Alvarez and McGinty's failed reelection bids were also about an issue that's very much in the spotlight today: Black Lives Matter.
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Read more @: 2 prosecutor races you didn't hear about were big wins for Black Lives Matter

A huge win for the Black Lives Matter movement. I hope this is just the beginning. I hope that this movement will draw even more attention to DA races and elections. Local politics matter so much and im glad the Black Lives Matter movement is focusing on this. Congrats to them :applaud
 
TheDemSocialist said:
Read more @: 2 prosecutor races you didn't hear about were big wins for Black Lives Matter

A huge win for the Black Lives Matter movement. I hope this is just the beginning. I hope that this movement will draw even more attention to DA races and elections. Local politics matter so much and im glad the Black Lives Matter movement is focusing on this. Congrats to them :applaud[/FONT][/COLOR]
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Yes, good stuff but the Vox headline is a bit off; the Avarez dismissal was much discussed and forefront on CNN & MSNBC when speculating about Hillary's performance in IL, and the OH prosecutor also got mention.
 
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