Moderate Democrats in Congress, like Virginia representative Abigail Spanberger and Oregon representative Kurt Schrader, have publicly blamed the Black Lives Matter movement and calls to “defund the police” for recent Democratic losses in the House of Representatives. But, looking a bit further down the ballot, in the elections most relevant to criminal justice, progressive reformers won and won big. Reform-minded District Attorney candidates in Orlando, Colorado, Detroit, Austin, Los Angeles and Chicago won on campaigns to hold police accountable, end cash bail and reduce incarceration. Caren Myers Morrison is a Professor of Law at Georgia State University and she argues these election results are a sign that the American public is moving away from traditional ideas of “law and order.”
