If the scandal surrounding and testimony of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has not made it clear, voters across the country must take district attorney elections far more seriously than many of them have recently.
Willis is facing scrutiny for possibly financially benefitting from appointing special prosecutor Nathan Wade in the case against former President Donald Trump. Willis was in a relationship with Wade, who was married to another woman and whose testimony has shown that he and Willis had lied on legal documents. Even liberal media outlets recognize that Willis’s credibility is shot.
Meanwhile, Willis’s own testimony was marked by bizarre angry diatribes and reprimands from the judge. If nothing else, she proved herself unserious for someone whose chief job is to keep people safe by putting dangerous criminals behind bars. Fulton County, home to Atlanta, is one of the most populous counties in the country, and yet somehow Willis was the one chosen to fill this important position.
Atlanta voters are not the only ones who haven’t taken district attorney races seriously. Los Angeles and Alameda County, California, home to Oakland, are looking to recall their pro-criminal district attorneys. In San Francisco in 2019, a total of 193,196 people voted in the city’s district attorney election, resulting in the election of pro-criminal activist Chesa Boudin. When Boudin was recalled in 2022 as voters recognized how destructive his policies were, nearly 230,000 voters turned out, with 55% voting to send him packing.
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Other district attorneys have been forced out in Florida and Missouri for failing to do their jobs. In New York City, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has made targeting people defending themselves or others from violent criminals his top priority instead of those violent criminals. The damage terrible district attorneys do to public safety has been made clear in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and other cities.
Many voters do not treat down-ballot races seriously, but it could be argued that district attorney races are more important than almost any other ballot decision most voters face. They have more of a direct impact on their lives than presidential or congressional races. They are at least as important as mayoral races, and that is even more true in localities where the mayor position is mostly ceremonial. District attorney races are some of the most important ones voters must vote on, and the large number of failures ascending to that position is proof that voters should be treating those races as such.