Conservatives are right to often lament the degradation of the criminal justice system at the hands of woke, "progressive" soft-on-crime prosecutors whose actions treat criminals as victims. With limited success, those who believe actions should have consequences and penalties should be proportional to the crime committed have recalled the likes of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin. But a recall effort, even if it's successful, is often too late to prevent the release of and kid-glove handling of such woke prosecutors that endanger communities.
Enter Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares who was elected in 2021 and is now the national chairman of the Protecting Americans Action Fund — taking the fight to uphold law and order to its origin: local elections for prosecutors.
Speaking with Townhall this week, Miyares explained that — just three days after being elected — he was approached by the nascent Protecting Americans Action Fund and "immediately recognized the need" for such an organization. "We have the Republican Governors Association, the Republican Senatorial Committee, the Republican Attorneys General Association, but there was no entity that helps elect Republican or pro-law enforcement district attorneys nationwide."
On the left, figures such as George Soros — called "the most visible" by Miyares who emphasized "it's not just him" seeking to get woke DAs elected —have been "funding and dumping an enormous amount of money into the district attorney races" to elect people "that did not view themselves as prosecutors, they view themselves as social workers."
The reason for funders such as Soros focusing on local prosecutor races is something of a path of least resistance to achieve their soft-on-crime agenda, Miyares told Townhall. "They didn't have to do the hard work of actually going to the public and trying to sell them on these criminal-first, victim-last politics," he said. "They can go into large jurisdictions, and they could change them overnight." This easier method, Miyares explained, meant Soros and his ilk "didn't have to get control of the governor's mansion, they didn't have to control their state house or the state senate to actually change the law."
Rather than having to convince a majority of a state legislature to back a soft-on-crime bill and get the governor to sign the lenient code, they're able to elect one local official who can decide not to prosecute entire categories of crime. That means of achieving such an agenda has "had an enormous impact on the quality of life in so many cities," Miyares emphasized. "I would say that crime out of control, coupled with a weak left-wing prosecutor that refuses to do their job can have a greater impact, and a more rapid impact, on a decline in quality of life than almost anything else."
The left-wing radicals pushing such an agenda, added Miyares, "hurt the very communities they claim they want to represent." Rather than conceding ground to soft-on-crime "progressives," Miyares and the Protecting Americans Action Fund launched an answer to their attempts to enact swift and devastating change through prosecutor elections. In 2022, the group played in 13 races, winning nine according to Miyares. "We don't have the resources as some of these big left-wing groups, so we were very, very targeted." In 2023, the group saw "two huge wins" in Allegheny County outside Pittsburgh and in Northern Virginia's Loudoun County.
In the Allegheny race, Soros made a $2 million investment while Protecting Americans Action Fund only made a five-figure investment. In Loudoun, left-wing groups spent more than $750,000 while Miyares' group again put just five figures into the race. Protecting Americans Action Fund won both. "What that tells you is that our message is effective," Miyares concluded. "Once voters hear that this is a criminal-first, victim-last prosecutor, once they hear this is a so-called 'social justice warrior,' they are quickly recognizing they cannot trust them with power."
The successes so far mean that Protecting Americans Action Fund is gearing up for 2024 in a bid to continue exposing and defeating leftist soft-on-crime prosecutors. Saying he's "proud of the work" the organization has done already, the money that's been raised, and the targeted strategy they've used to win even when they're "outspent nine- or ten-to-one," Miyares told Townhall he's "excited about the future" and continuing to grow "this important endeavor."
Along with Miyares, the Protecting Americans Action Fund board includes "fantastic folks" and "fantastic minds" working to continue winning critical elections that have an almost immediate impact on the quality of life and whether law and order is upheld in American communities. Among them are former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, U.S. Senator Mike Braun, and former New York Congressman Lee Zeldin.