The Demonstration of Defunding the Police: On the Politics of Black Lives in the Era of Minority Inequality

I have never seen a slogan as destructive as defund the police. In fairness to my beloved Democrats, only a tiny slice of the activist left supports defunding. This election season, I can’t find any Democrats – actual Democratic candidates – running on that nonsense. Most black Americans and Democrats oppose defunding police. Still, the political damage from that slogan has been real.

The part was not unusual. Republicans in states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and others paint the Democrats as hostile to the police and cheerleaders for rioting. The tactic seems to be working in many races despite the mixed crime data.

The Begala Effect: Why Democrat Senators Don’t Wanna Talk About Crime, But Why Do They Want to Talk About It?

In 1992, Paul Begala was a political consultant for Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign and was a counselor to Clinton in the White House. His opinions are included in this commentary. There is more opinion on CNN.

Some Democrats don’t want to talk about crime. They hope most voters’ righteous outrage about the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade will overshadow crime as an issue. I don’t think they are correct. A lot of smart Democrats are embracing their strong crime record, not to be compared with the party whose leader, Donald Trump, described a January insurrection, in which scores of police officers were injured, and five later died as a “love fiesta between the Capitol Police and the people that walked down

Democrats “want crime,” Tuberville crowed to the MAGA folks at A Trump rally in Nevada “because they want to take over what you got. They want to control what you have.” He added that Democrats “want reparations” for Black Americans whose ancestors were enslaved people “because they think the people that do the crime are owed that.”

Rep. Catherine Cortez Masto versus Attorney General Adam Laxalt on a Crime-Free Senate Candidate: Why a Cop Can Go to the Senate?

My friend Bakari Sellers doubtless spoke for millions of folks when he said, “Tommy Tuberville can go to hell.” Bakari noted that as a college football coach, Tuberville made millions from the unpaid efforts of Black athletes. It is particularly galling to hear such racism from a former college coach who got rich because of African American men risking life and limb on the gridiron.

The facts on crime are on Democrats’ side. Democrats now have to move from defense to offense on the issue. What they now need is the courage to believe they can wrest from Republicans an issue that the GOP has long – and falsely – claimed as its own.

A great example is Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nevada). Cortez Masto – arguably the most endangered Democrat in the Senate – who is locked in a neck-and-neck race with Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt. Before Laxalt, Cortez Masto was attorney general and worked as a federal prosecutor. Her husband is a former law enforcement officer and she is running ads touting her support from law enforcement. She has even earned the support of the Republican police chief of Reno.

Cortez Masto was so effective as a crime-fighter that when Laxalt took over as AG, he called her “a role model,” and when he was running for attorney general he said she had done “an excellent job.” Will her strong crime record be enough to return her to the Senate? I don’t know what to think. But if she weren’t leaning in on crime, this race might already be over.

Another Democrat is unafraid of the crime issue is Rep. Val Demings. There’s a picture of Demings in a police uniform when you visit her campaign website.

The first Female police chief in Florida is Demings, who spent 27 years in that uniform. In one campaign ad, she strides purposefully across the screen, as if walking the beat, as images of her in uniform are projected behind her.

The candidate speaks about how she will protect Florida from bad ideas like defunding the police. That is just crazy. It is time to send a cop to the Senate, she said.

Demings trailed incumbent Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) by five points in a recent poll, but Rubio is either taking no chances or panicking. In a controversial ad, he accused Demings of supporting a “radical left agenda”, including “turning boys into girls.” WESH-TV in Altamonte Springs labeled his claim as false.

Both Cortez Masto’s and Demings’ election races are too close to call. But by standing strong against crime, both women are showing Democrats how to handle the issue.

Of course, many Democrats can’t point to decades as a cop or years as a prosecutor. They can read and promote a new study by the Third Way think tank. According to Third Way’s research, Democrats are actually doing a much better job in fighting crime than Republicans, at least in terms of looking at one key metric: homicide rates.

Third Way found that Three of the five states with the highest increase in murder rates were Trumpvoting Wyoming, South Dakota, and Nebraska. These states are rural and not as chaotic as the city.

“I don’t support it. I mean, I want to put people away, I don’t want to let them out,” Manchin said, addressing concerns that the DC law lowers sentencing requirements for some violent criminals. “I haven’t been briefed on it, but what I know about it, I would vote to rescind it.”

Manchin’s decision signals the legislation has a good chance of passing in the narrowly divided Senate, where Democrats hold a 51-49 majority. It passed earlier this month in the Republican-controlled House with the backing of 31 Democrats.

Tennessee Republican Sen. Bill Hagerty, the chief sponsor of the legislation to repeal the local law – as Congress is allowed to do in the federal district – called it a “common sense” approach in a city where many violent crimes are up. Politically, he compared it to the “defund the police” issue and said for centrist Democrats, “I don’t think that’s going to be very popular in their states and this falls right in that lane.”

A lot of the American people feel that way. They look at the cities today and they say they’re not safe places. The problem for Democrats is that they oppose something that makes some of our larger population centers more safe. “My expectation is that some Democrats here in the Senate would vote for it. Then it would be up to Biden about what he wants to do.”

The Home Rule Act grants the DC Council the right to self-govern, the council wrote last week, in a letter opposing congressional involvement.

The Fate of the Law: Dem Demography in Los Angeles with a Progressor on Crime and the Case Against Mayor Edwin Johnson

Adding to Democrats’ difficulties is the hospitalization of Sen. John Fetterman, a democrat from Pennsylvania, which is complicating their efforts to keep the bill from being passed.

Progressives have had trouble with a persuasive response. Some have suggested that the crime increase is mostly a right-wing talking point, but the statistics say otherwise. And voters evidently agree with the statistics:

In New York City, Eric Adams won the mayor’s race in 2021 by focusing his campaign on crime. In the Democratic primary, he lost only one of the city’s five boroughs: Manhattan, the wealthiest.

The largest city in Oregon is Portland, which has become synonymous with post-pandemic disorder. Between 2019 and 2022, murders nearly tripled, vandalism incidents nearly doubled and car thefts rose 69 percent.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has developed a progressive message on crime. A former community organizer who spent 12 years in the House of Representatives, Bass defeated a more conservative candidate not by downplaying crime concerns but by talking about them frequently. Bass had been a victim of a break in last year.

She wanted to hire hundreds of additional police officers, but also called for harsher punishments for abusive officers. “We must stop crimes in progress and hold people accountable,” she said in her inaugural address. It is so bold to add that we can prevent crime and community violence by addressing the social, health and the economic conditions that compromise a safe environment.

The next test will be whether the progressive message on crime can win in the overwhelmingly Democratic city of Chicago. As was the case in Los Angeles, the more progressive candidate — Johnson — is Black, while the more conservative one — Vallas — is white.

Johnson supported calls to defund the police in the past but he has avoided this topic during the mayoral campaign. He has instead emphasized his plans to build more housing, expand pre-K and increase funding for social services. Vallas is likely to be portrayed as being out of touch with Chicago. Vallas has received the endorsement of the local police union, which supports Donald Trump.

“No matter where you live, no matter what you look like, you deserve to have a better, stronger, safer Chicago,” Johnson said at his election night party last night.

CNN: Why Biden and Bowser Can’t Revisit the DC Statehood & Home-Rule Laws, Even if the U.S. Senate Votes

A CNN senior political analyst is named John Avlon. He is the author of “Lincoln and the Fight for Peace.” The views expressed in this commentary are his own. CNN has more opinion.

President Joe Biden knows what it’s like. Being seen as soft on crime is a problem for Democrats, because they are seen as having a negative association with the criminal justice system.

That was one of the reasons why Mayor Muriel Bowser vetoed the bill — but she was overridden by the City Council. Because of DC’s limited home rule status, Congress reviews all legislation passed by the City Council before it becomes law. The House of Representatives rejected the city’s new criminal code in a vote last month, and the Senate is on track this week to block it.

Biden had earlier surprised some Democrats by tweeting, “I support D.C. Statehood and home-rule — but I don’t support some of the changes D.C. Council put forward over the Mayor’s objections — such as lowering penalties for carjackings. if the Senate overturns the D.C. Council’s actions, I will sign it.

Members of the progressive caucus criticized the president’s position because it violated the premise of home rule. The complaint misses the bigger point.

Biden is right on politics and policy, but Democrats have a reason to be frustrated on purely procedural grounds. It was an unforced error for the Biden White House to say initially it was for the bill, before it was against it. That caused a lot of confusion.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/06/opinions/dc-crime-bill-biden-democrats-avlon/index.html

Is What Happening in DC Happening Tonight? When Happening is What Happens In DC Happens Tonight, And What Does It Happen To You?

But what happens in DC doesn’t stay in DC. It becomes a symbol of urban success or decay that members of Congress take back home to their constituents. DC home rule advocates should know that soft-on-crime policies in the city are the fastest way to ensure that the goals are never achieved.