Maybe justice doesn’t want to be reformed!

Portland OR, once a caliphate of Antifa, has been mugged by reality. Voters in the Oregon metro region tossed its progressive district attorney this week in favor of a law ’n order guy, endorsed by the police. A former Republican! Portland is the third large West Coast city to quit Crazy, after Seattle and San Francisco.

Would that Madison WI follow suit. A boy can dream, can’t he?

The unseated incumbent had promised (or should we say “threatened”) to reform the criminal justice system. His successful opponent “campaigned on promises to improve the office’s relationship with police, address the city’s drug crisis and seek more prosecutions.” (Source here.)

Nathan Vasquez’s victory comes amid political upheaval in Oregon as the state grapples with worsening homelessness, a fentanyl crisis and growing public drug use. In April, Oregon effectively ended the state’s groundbreaking three-year decriminalization experiment. 

“I am committed to ending open air drug dealing and drug use …  and to ensuring that victims are the number one priority of my office,” — newly elected D.A. Nathan Vasquez. 

Voters in urban centers like San Francisco, Portland, Los Angeles and Oakland
now appear to have grown impatient with aspects of the progressive mantra
about restorative justice. — Politico.

 But not metro Madison!

Someone please update whoever is running Dane County these days that “reforming justice” is so passé. Dane County this week filled a position vacant these past two years — paying $160,000/year for someone to lead The Office of Criminal Justice Reform. The six-person shop is budgeted at $1.165 million a year. You want hubris? Dane County is hellbent on reforming justice.

Congratulations to Colleen Clark-Bernhardt. She must have satisfied the first qualification listed in the national search: “Have a strong knowledge and understanding of issues surrounding racial equity and the criminal justice system.”

Four years ago, the City of Madison created a Police Civilian Oversight function. Budgeted at $509,000 annually, it has yet to accomplish so much as posting a rudimentary complaint form. But it has settled its pronouns!

Dane County started reforming justice with a grant from Barack Obama’s administration. He said then: “If you are really concerned about how the criminal justice system treats African Americans, the best way to protest is to vote. Do what they just did in Philadelphia and Boston and elect state attorneys and district attorneys who are looking at issues in a new light.”

Portland Oregon, a decade later, saw the light.

 → How much more justice reform can we take? (Read & Weep!)

Blaska’s Bottom Line: progressive prosecutors in St. Louis, Chicago, and Northern Virginia have resigned, been replaced by critics, or lost re-election. Texas and Georgia have enacted laws allowing the removal district attorneys for refusing to prosecute. Progressives are also getting sudden religion on border security.

Is Madison frozen in a time warp?