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2018 California Primary, American Politics, Bail Reform, California, California Democratic Party, California Democratic Primary, California elections, California Politics, Civil Rights, Contra Costa County Politics, Criminal Justice, Criminal Justice Reform, Democracy, Democratic Party, District Attorney, Elections, Electoral Cynicism, June 5th Election, Liberals, prisoner reform, Social Policy, Society, U.S. Government, US Domestic Policy, Voting

A Prosecutor and a Protector

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It is easy to be a cynical pessimist who believes that the state of our nation, our state, and our communities is awful and will never get any better. Cynicism asks so little of us; we can sit back and complain about how bad things are without even needing to stand up from our chairs, or put down our phones. It is harder to have faith in our ability to make things better, and to go out and work to improve our communities, but that does not mean that it is hard. In fact, there is one sure, easy thing that we can do to try to make things better for our neighbors, our friends, our families, ourselves, and our children: we can vote, and on June 5th people all across California will vote to decide who will represent us in Washington and in Sacramento, but we also get to choose who will defend us, define our values, and will seek justice on our behalf by voting for the District Attorney of Contra Costa County. And there is only one person who has a proven track record of siding with the powerless against the powerful, of a firm commitment to fairness, a decades-long dedication to and love of the law, and who has the vital experience that means that she will not have to learn on the job (because she already has the job), and that is Contra Costa District Attorney Diana Becton.

After 22-years of experience as a judge and with universal respect within the legal community, DA Becton was appointed to her position by the County Board of Supervisors last year and entrusted to turn around a DA’s office that had been plagued by corruption, incompetence, and low morale. DA Becton made history before she even set foot in her new office, as she took office last year as both the first woman and the first African American to serve as DA in the then-167-year history of Contra Costa County, but she did not simply rest on her historic achievement, instead she hit the ground running, creating a new culture in the office from day one, and working to restore public confidence in her office, and rebuilding the office’s reputation. She has made the position more transparent and accountable to the people, and showed that she is brave enough to admit mistakes, and humble enough to work to correct them, putting honesty above her own personal political gain.

As DA, Diana sets the priorities of her office, deciding which crimes to prosecute, and sentences to suggest. It means that DA Becton is in position to help address mass-incarceration by directing resources to deal with violent crimes over drug offenses, keeping our communities and our families safe while also addressing the fact that California currently has 160,000 people in our prison system, of which 75% are African American or Latino. This has led minority communities to view District Attorneys as, ‘the enemy,’ which is something that DA Becton is working to change by doing community outreach, prioritizing diversion programs, and countering immigrant-communities reluctance to report crimes committed against them to law enforcement because of fear of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. Diana is for fair, equal treatment for victims as well as for those accused of crimes, for dealing with the homeless and those who are mentally ill with compassion and respect, and for keeping families together by fighting against setting exorbitant, unaffordable bail amounts that keep many who have not been convicted of any crime in prison because they do not have the money to pay.

We have a real chance to grab this moment before us of promise, and hope, and to use it to build a fairer, safer, and more just Contra Costa County. We need simply to choose vote for and support Diana Becton, optimism and action over cynicism and apathy, and we can be the best possible version of our community. We don’t have the luxury to take this moment for granted and decide that we would indeed rather do nothing. We have a very rare opportunity here with DA Becton, and we need to vote her a full term as our District Attorney, and work with her to show that we don’t need to choose to be safe OR just, but that we can be both. We need a DA who understands that the role is both a prosecutor and a protector, and who won’t tells us that we’re incapable of being more than just one thing, and that we can only focus on negative, punitive measures and not on positive or preventative ones: Diana Becton is that DA. It took us 168-years to get to this moment, so let us choose action and vote for a prosecutor and a protector, because we could wait 168-more years and never see a chance this great or a candidate as qualified and skilled as DA Diana Becton.

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VOTE! Seriously, VOTE!

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Cynicism and apathy in American elections is like a disease. Americans look at congress and are disgusted (if the 8% approval rating is any guide), but too often it seems the response – especially among younger would-be voters – is not to work hard to ‘throw the bums out’ but instead to throw up one’s hands and walk away from elections entirely. Voting is one of the issues that I am most passionate about as, with my knowledge of history, I see it as a long battle to expand the franchise to as many people as possible, with a rearguard action always fighting to restrict access to the polls in order to hold onto power without actually serving the interests of the people. For those who want to restrict voting access, apathy and cynicism are their most deadly weapons and, no matter how many people I encourage to vote, and no matter how intelligent those people are, I often hear, “Why should I even vote, it doesn’t matter anyway!” Well, here are some reasons your vote does matter!

90,682,968 Americans voted in the last midterm elections in 2010. That’s out of an estimated 235 + million eligible American voters, or just under 38% of the eligible population. To contrast that, 53% of American voters cast a ballot in the 2012 presidential elections. The 2010 election cycle may not be a good guide as to what will happen tomorrow, but it is a good baseline because no midterm elections ever come close to matching the slice of the populace that votes in presidential elections. 2010 is also valuable as it was the first election after the Citizens United decision, and it is estimated that over $3.6 billion was spent on campaigns in that cycle, and it’s hard to believe that less has been spent in 2014 than in 2010 (numbers won’t come out until after the elections), and just in using the 2010 numbers, it means that even if YOU don’t value your vote, enough money was spent on the 2010 elections to equal over $40 for each vote cast. You may think your vote is meaningless, but obviously there are people and corporations with a LOT of money who believe otherwise and if they are so willing to part with at least $40 per voter, then they certainly think it has value.

Besides the congressional elections, there are also referendums, governorships, and state legislatures that will be decided tomorrow. Washington D.C, Oregon, and Alaska will all vote on whether to legalize and tax marijuana; Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota all have a raise in the state minimum wage on the ballot. Colorado and North Dakota have extremely strict anti-abortion “personhood” laws on the ballot, while here in California medical reform and prisoner reform will be voted on. And if you don’t think your governor matters, consider that in Texas, Rick Perry (for purely political reasons) chose not to expand Medicaid as part of Obamacare and therefore around 1 million Texans who would qualify for Medicaid have been left without any health care. It is very unlikely that Democrat Wendy Davis is going to win tomorrow, meaning that those 1 million Texans living in poverty will continue to struggle without the health care that is available to them, but in your state you might be able to make the difference because you never know how close the election will be. This brings me to another number you should consider when deciding whether to vote or not: 537. That’s the amount of votes that separated George W. Bush and Al Gore in Florida in the 2000 presidential election. Avoiding all conspiracy theories and comments about the election result being stolen for the moment, the fact remains that in an election that saw 105 million Americans cast a ballot, it was less than 550 votes that meant we had President Bush and not President Gore

You really need to go and vote tomorrow, and make sure everyone you know who is eligible votes too! Voting is too precious a right to waste when so many states around the country are making it harder for people to vote, and when so many nations around the world go even further than that. Voting doesn’t solve every problem and your vote tomorrow won’t change everything, but in a nation where Blacks once risked (and often lost) their lives to vote and where it took women over 130-years of struggle to get the franchise, it is not just cynical not to vote, it is cowardly. So get out there and vote, honor our proud democratic tradition, and make the choice to be an active participant in our society and not a spectator