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.