A surprise turned an “accountability campaign” into a wide-open race

Krasner supporters celebrate at a victory party at the William Way LGBT Community Center in Philadelphia, PA on November 7, 2017. Courtesy of Cathie Berrey-Green/BG Productions Photos & Video

While they was committed to working together, it became a challenge to find an objective that the Table’s diverse organizations — from single issue immigrants’ rights advocates to public sector unions — could agree to.

As the US convulsed over the implementation of Trump's travel ban, the electorally-minded members of the Table zeroed in on the district attorney's election.

Months before, another collection of local progressive groups, some associated with members at the Table, had united with ACLU Pennsylvania, MMP, and Color of Change, a national civil rights advocacy organization, to sketch out a plan for the upcoming DA’s race.

Over the last several years, the push for criminal justice reform has centered around electing progressive DAs. It's an acknowledgement that DAs make the day-to-day decisions of what cases to pursue, what charges to press, and who gets a second chance.

Seth Williams, the incumbent, was widely expected to win the race, but challengers had begun emerging for the Democratic primary. The coalition, which became known as the Coalition For A Just DA, had been planning to run an "accountability campaign" to push Williams to center communities impacted by DA policies and embrace the reform that he had turned his back on since his first electoral victory in 2009.

Then a corruption scandal erupted involving Williams. The "accountability campaign" suddenly became a wide-open opportunity to elect a progressive committed to the coalition's goal of "decarceration," or reducing the number of people imprisoned in the city.

The coalition, and members at the Table like 215PA, Reclaim, and the Working Families Party, a minor progressive political party, picked up the search for their "true progressive." Krasner, the civil rights attorney who had spent his pro-bono work springing most of them from jail after one protest or another, fit the bill.

Krasner had been toying with a run after seeing the field of, in his words, "faux-progressive" assistant district attorneys emerge. When the Working Families Party told him they could help align a coalition of not only progressive organizations, but community and labor leaders, the 56-year-old attorney says he knew it was time to run for the first time in his life. The key was a shared commitment towards ending "mass incarceration," the constellation of state and federal policies that have put more than 2 million Americans behind bars.

Krasner announced his candidacy surrounded by local activists in February. Two days later, Williams dropped out of the race.

When the MLK DARE Table met for its monthly meeting after Krasner's announcement, the groups found found that most already had been working on their own toward either electing Krasner or educating their communities about the issues, like cash bail reform, which became important in the race.

It had found the campaign to unite around.