In the contest for county executive, a number of leading African-American political figures rejected the Democratic nominee backed by McCulloch and endorsed the Republican, who attracted substantial African-American support and lost by just 1 percent of the vote. The Republican, veteran state legislator Rick Stream, was not a progressive by any means. But he reached out to the African-American community in suburban St. Louis, listened and made commitments. In return, he was backed by a number of African-American Democrats, led by State Senator Maria Chapelle-Nadal, St. Louis County Council Chair Hazel Erby and the Fannie Lou Hamer Democratic Coalition.
In announcing the endorsement, Erby specifically criticized Democrat Steve Stenger's "unbreakable alignment with Bob McCulloch."
For his part, Republican Stream declared, "Mr. McCulloch had a chance to step aside and frankly it would have removed all doubt about having a fair and independent investigation." The Republican went further, endorsing a proposal to name special prosecutors to handle all cases of officer-involved shootings. He also campaigned in the African-American community and promised to promote diversity in his appointments.
That wasn't enough to reverse voting patterns altogether. But it shook the process up; for instance, the Democratic vote for county executive in Ferguson dropped twenty points, from 2010 to 2014. "There was a significant falling off of Democratic performance at the top of the ticket," said Mike Jones, an ally of the coalition effort. "And you have to argue that didn't happen by accident."
Elections for local positions should not happen by accident. And that goes double for key law-enforcement posts.
It is good that prosecutors are elected. Prosecutors have immense authority over the lives of citizens, and citizens should be able to hold prosecutors to account. But for that political process to work, it is important to move beyond simplistic assumptions about Democrats and Republicans, and to make demands of candidates from both parties.
It is important to take primary elections seriously. And it is important to recognize the value of independent and third-party challenges to the two-party status quo.
There is a good argument to be made for electing prosecutors on a nonpartisan bais. But there is an even better argument to be made that elections for prosecutor positions -- be they partisan or nonpartisan, be their primaries or general elections -- must be recognized as some of the most vital contests on our ballots.
Media and political elites tend to focus on top-of-the-ballot races for president and governor and senator. But, if the experience of Ferguson and St. Louis County teach us anything, it is that at the bottom of the ballot, in races for local law-enforcement posts, the most fundamental choices are made.
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