The idea of the ​“pro­gres­sive pros­e­cu­tor” has gained pop­u­lar­i­ty with the 2017 elec­tion of civ­il rights attor­ney Lar­ry Kras­ner as Philadel­phia dis­trict attor­ney, the 2018 elec­tion of Rachael Rollins as Suf­folk Coun­ty (Boston) dis­trict attor­ney, and the upcom­ing 2019 dis­trict attor­ney race in Queens, New York, in which all sev­en can­di­dates are tout­ing crim­i­nal jus­tice reform rather than ​“law and order.” This trend, a result of decades of orga­niz­ing that has increased the pop­u­lar­i­ty of crim­i­nal jus­tice reform, has for­mer pros­e­cu­tors rewrit­ing their own his­to­ries to rebrand them­selves as pro­gres­sives and obscure the real­i­ty that, in the not-too-dis­tant past, they upheld dra­con­ian poli­cies and did their utmost to not only put peo­ple in prison, but keep them there.

Given prosecutors’ tremendous institutional powers, we need to dig beneath their rhetoric to examine the actions of these supposedly progressive candidates.

First, remem­ber that the job of pros­e­cu­tors is to pros­e­cute — mean­ing that they charge peo­ple in crim­i­nal court and do their utmost to send them to prison. Attor­neys who want to defend people’s civ­il and per­son­al lib­er­ties typ­i­cal­ly take jobs as defense or civ­il rights attor­neys. But even pros­e­cu­tors can act in a way that doesn’t send peo­ple to prison — they have the dis­cre­tion in choos­ing which charges to bring against a per­son — or whether to bring any charges at all.

Giv­en pros­e­cu­tors’ tremen­dous insti­tu­tion­al pow­ers, we need to dig beneath their rhetoric to exam­ine the actions of these sup­pos­ed­ly pro­gres­sive candidates.

Before she became a Demo­c­ra­t­ic sen­a­tor for Cal­i­for­nia — and, now, pres­i­den­tial hope­ful — Kamala Har­ris served as California’s attor­ney gen­er­al and San Francisco’s dis­trict attor­ney. Both jobs revolve around pros­e­cut­ing and lock­ing peo­ple up, but Har­ris went the extra mile. As dis­trict attor­ney, she threat­ened to pros­e­cute par­ents whose chil­dren skipped school and, as state attor­ney gen­er­al, draft­ed a 2010 law allow­ing police to file charges against par­ents for their children’s truancy.

In a 2010 speech, Har­ris is seen laugh­ing about send­ing her office’s homi­cide and gang pros­e­cu­tors to schools to meet with the fam­i­lies of tru­ant stu­dents. ​“When you go over there, look real­ly mean,” she remem­bered telling them.

But now, with the Oval Office in her sights, she’s revised her moti­va­tions behind cre­at­ing this pro­gram, which still exists today. In her 2019 mem­oir, she wrote, ​“Even today, oth­ers don’t appre­ci­ate the inten­tion behind my approach; they assume that my moti­va­tion was to lock up par­ents, when of course that was nev­er the goal. Our effort was designed to con­nect par­ents to resources that could help them get their kids back into school, where they belonged. We were try­ing to sup­port par­ents, not pun­ish them — and in the vast major­i­ty of cas­es, we succeeded.”

Har­ris also fought both indi­vid­ual and leg­isla­tive efforts to free peo­ple from prison. As the state’s attor­ney gen­er­al, Har­ris fought the fed­er­al court super­vi­sion of California’s prison sys­tem, as well as court-ordered parole pro­grams, argu­ing that releas­ing pris­on­ers ear­ly would elim­i­nate an impor­tant labor source for the state, includ­ing wild­fire fire­fight­ers who work for $1 a day.

Har­ris has brand­ed her­self as a pro­po­nent of women’s rights, but some of her actions say oth­er­wise. In 2005, Kel­ly Sav­age, an abuse sur­vivor sen­tenced to life with­out parole after her hus­band killed her son, filed a writ of habeas cor­pus to allow her to present expert tes­ti­mo­ny about domes­tic vio­lence that had been miss­ing from her 1998 tri­al. Keep in mind that the peti­tion, even if grant­ed, is not a get-out-of-jail-free card: If the court had approved her writ, Sav­age would have been able to present that tes­ti­mo­ny; it would not nec­es­sar­i­ly have meant that she would have walked out of prison. Har­ris could have cho­sen to do noth­ing and allowed the court to decide whether to grant Sav­age that oppor­tu­ni­ty. Instead, Har­ris filed motions two times oppos­ing Savage’s peti­tion, accord­ing to Savage’s lawyer.

As sen­a­tor, Har­ris has been seen as a cham­pi­on of LGBTQ rights, co-spon­sor­ing the 2018 Cen­sus Equal­i­ty Act, requir­ing the cen­sus include ques­tions about gen­der iden­ti­ty and sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion. She also co-spon­sored the Equal­i­ty Act and a bill pro­hibit­ing peo­ple accused of mur­der or vio­lence from using gay or trans­gen­der pan­ic as a defense. (In oth­er words, a per­son can no longer jus­ti­fy their use of vio­lence against anoth­er per­son because they were afraid of gay or trans peo­ple.) These actions have been laud­ed by larg­er LGBTQ orga­ni­za­tions and media, which pro­claim her to have a ​“strong Pro-LGBT record.”

But as attor­ney gen­er­al, Har­ris also appealed a 2015 court deci­sion grant­i­ng sex reas­sign­ment surgery to Michelle-Lael Nor­swor­thy, an incar­cer­at­ed trans­gen­der woman, argu­ing that hor­mone ther­a­py and coun­sel­ing made surgery unnec­es­sary. ​“Nor­swor­thy has been treat­ed for gen­der dys­pho­ria for over 20 years, and there is no indi­ca­tion that her con­di­tion has some­how wors­ened to the point where she must obtain sex-reas­sign­ment surgery now rather than wait­ing until this case pro­duces a final judg­ment on the mer­its,” Har­ris wrote.

Since announc­ing her pres­i­den­tial bid, Har­ris has revised her stance, stat­ing that as attor­ney gen­er­al, ​“I couldn’t fire my clients, and there were unfor­tu­nate­ly sit­u­a­tions that occurred where my clients took posi­tions that were con­trary to my beliefs.” But that’s not exact­ly true. Just as dis­trict attor­neys have the dis­cre­tion to decide whether to pros­e­cute, as attor­ney gen­er­al, she had the pow­er not to defend a state law that she found prob­lem­at­ic. And she did at anoth­er point, declin­ing to defend the state’s ban on equal mar­riage rights.

Har­ris now says that she sup­ports the decrim­i­nal­iza­tion of sex work, a stance that is increas­ing in pop­u­lar­i­ty among (some) pro­gres­sive politi­cians. But she opposed a 2008 bal­lot mea­sure (brought by sex work­ers) to end pros­ti­tu­tion arrests in San Fran­cis­co. She also attempt­ed to shut down Back​page​.com, a clas­si­fieds web­site that includ­ed list­ings for sex work, which allowed sex work­ers to screen their clients before meet­ing them. As attor­ney gen­er­al, she sought to pros­e­cute the site’s own­ers in 2016, and as sen­a­tor in 2018, she helped craft Stop Enabling Child Traf­fick­ers Act/​Allow States and Vic­tims to Fight Online Sex Traf­fick­ing Act (SESTA/FOSTA), which make it a fed­er­al crime to oper­ate a web­site ​“with the intent to pro­mote and facil­i­tate the pros­ti­tu­tion of anoth­er per­son” and allow state attor­neys to bring civ­il actions against web­site operators.

Some might argue that Har­ris’ posi­tions were sim­ply a reflec­tion of dif­fer­ent times. While crim­i­nal jus­tice reform was as pop­u­lar as it is today, it had cer­tain­ly become an increas­ing­ly dis­cussed bipar­ti­san issue by the 2000s. Again, Har­ris could have used her dis­cre­tion as she did with the gay mar­riage ban and sim­ply decid­ed not to oppose efforts like Kel­ly Savage’s writ, Norworthy’s surgery or increased parole efforts.

Har­ris isn’t the only for­mer pros­e­cu­tor to rebrand her­self as a pro­gres­sive as she seeks polit­i­cal office. In Chica­go, for­mer chair of Chica­go Police Board Lori Light­foot has also recast her­self. Her web­site touts her as an ​“advo­cate and reform expert,” and she has adver­tised her­self as the can­di­date run­ning against ​“machine” pol­i­tics. She brands her­self as a pro­gres­sive ​“that lis­tens to and pri­or­i­tizes the needs of low-income and mid­dle-class fam­i­lies.” If elect­ed in Chicago’s April 2 runoff elec­tion, she would be the city’s first Black woman may­or and first open­ly gay mayor.

Like Har­ris, Light­foot began her pub­lic career as a pros­e­cu­tor, but this time a fed­er­al one for the North­ern Dis­trict of Illi­nois. Unlike Har­ris, her career as a pros­e­cu­tor was not dis­tin­guished by trail­blaz­ing law-and-order reforms. But she also did not dis­tin­guish her­self as a pro­gres­sive dur­ing her time as a pros­e­cu­tor. As she told The Chica­go Read­er, ​“I was a fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor enforc­ing exist­ing fed­er­al law.” Most pris­on­ers’ rights activists would argue that any fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor who upholds the sta­tus quo is, by def­i­n­i­tion, lock­ing a lot of peo­ple up and per­pe­trat­ing injustice.

Recent com­ments of hers sug­gest that she con­tin­ues to iden­ti­fy with law enforce­ment in a city fraught with police abuse. On March 13, the same day that the City Coun­cil approved Emanuel’s con­tro­ver­sial police train­ing acad­e­my, Lori Light­foot announced that she would also turn 38 of Chicago’s shut­tered pub­lic schools into police train­ing acad­e­mies. But this isn’t the first time that she’s caused out­rage with her stance on the city’s police force.

In one of her ear­ly cam­paign ads, Light­foot states that she’s held ​“police account­able.” In real­i­ty, her record is mixed. In 2002, then-may­or Daley appoint­ed her head of the police department’s Office of Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards. Before Light­foot became head, OPS inves­ti­ga­tors had con­clud­ed that the offi­cer, Phyl­lis Clinkscales, lied about her fatal shoot­ing of 17-year-old Robert Wash­ing­ton. Lightfoot’s pre­de­ces­sor, Cal­lie Baired, approved fir­ing the offi­cer for fil­ing a false report. Under pres­sure from the police super­in­ten­dent, how­ev­er, Baird down­grad­ed her rec­om­men­da­tion to a sus­pen­sion. One year lat­er, when Light­foot was appoint­ed, she reversed the inves­ti­ga­tors’ find­ings and ruled the shoot­ing jus­ti­fied though she upheld the suspension.

In 2015, then-may­or Rahm Emanuel appoint­ed her head of the city’s police board, which was estab­lished to engage the com­mu­ni­ty around cer­tain police mis­con­duct and decide police dis­ci­pli­nary cas­es. Accord­ing to Light­foot, her three years on the police board pro­found­ly affect­ed her. ​“Lis­ten­ing to the daugh­ters of Bet­tie Jones come before the Police Board at a time when they were still deeply griev­ing the loss of their moth­er. Rekia Boyd’s broth­er was a fre­quent pres­ence. … It’s impos­si­ble not to be moved by that,” she told the Chica­go Sun-Times.

But when Rekia Boyd’s broth­er Mar­tinez Sut­ton gave a heart­felt tes­ti­mo­ny at a police board hear­ing on August 21, 2015, demand­ing the fir­ing of Dante Servin, the offi­cer who had shot and killed his sis­ter, Light­foot inter­rupt­ed his heart­felt pleas. ​“I know you feel a lot of emo­tion,” she is heard say­ing before being drowned out by orga­niz­ers, wear­ing yel­low t‑shirts embla­zoned with ​“Fire Police Offi­cer Dante Servin.” Less than sev­en min­utes lat­er, Light­foot and the oth­er board mem­bers filed out of the room through a back door with­out speak­ing with or meet­ing any of the orga­niz­ers. At anoth­er hear­ing, orga­niz­ers not­ed that, instead of offer­ing con­do­lences for the mur­der of their fam­i­ly mem­bers, Light­foot and her col­leagues rep­ri­mand­ed orga­niz­ers for their lan­guage and threat­ened to have them removed from the room by force.

In Decem­ber 2015, Emanuel also appoint­ed Light­foot to head the Police Account­abil­i­ty Task Force. Four months lat­er, in April 2016, the task force released a report sharply crit­i­ciz­ing the Chica­go Police Depart­ment for its ​“his­to­ry of racial dis­par­i­ty and dis­crim­i­na­tion” and rec­om­mend­ing dozens of changes.

Its find­ings were echoed in a 2017 Depart­ment of Jus­tice report not­ing that police offi­cers rou­tine­ly engage racial­ly dis­crim­i­na­to­ry con­duct as well as use of vio­lence, includ­ing dead­ly vio­lence and that the depart­ment often fails to hold them account­able. Light­foot has tak­en cred­it for these find­ings, telling the Chica­go Tri­bune that ​“there’s a straight line” lead­ing from the task force to the Jus­tice Depart­ment report and sub­se­quent con­sent decree.

In a recent cam­paign com­mer­cial, Light­foot called for ​“an inde­pen­dent, account­able City Hall that serves the peo­ple, not the polit­i­cal machine.” But even in pri­vate prac­tice, Light­foot has defend­ed the polit­i­cal machine. In 2012, she became the lead attor­ney defend­ing the city against a police neglect law­suit. Six years ear­li­er, Christi­na Eil­man, a 21-year-old for­mer UCLA stu­dent, was arrest­ed dur­ing a bipo­lar episode, held overnight by the police, and, despite a police supervisor’s order that she be brought to a hos­pi­tal for psy­chi­atric eval­u­a­tion, released with no fur­ther assis­tance or resources. She was abduct­ed and sex­u­al­ly assault­ed, then was pushed or fell from the sev­enth-floor win­dow of a high-rise, caus­ing per­ma­nent brain dam­age and oth­er injuries. (In 2013, the city set­tled with Eilman’s fam­i­ly for $22.5 mil­lion.) Light­foot also defend­ed the Chica­go Police Depart­ment in a law­suit by four men whose 2006 beat­ing by six off-duty police offi­cers was cap­tured by secu­ri­ty footage. While four of the six offi­cers were found to be at fault, the depart­ment itself was cleared, thanks to Lightfoot.

Giv­en that all of this infor­ma­tion is avail­able to any­one who cares to dig past the sound­bites, why then are Har­ris and Light­foot laud­ed as pro­gres­sives? For that, we might look at Sal­ly Yates, for­mer fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor and deputy attor­ney gen­er­al under Oba­ma, for how a sin­gle act of resis­tance can recast a person’s legacy.

In Jan­u­ary 2017, as act­ing attor­ney gen­er­al to the new­ly-inau­gu­rat­ed Don­ald Trump, she ordered the Depart­ment of Jus­tice not to defend his Exec­u­tive Order 13769 (pop­u­lar­ly known as the Mus­lim Ban). She was dis­missed and returned to pri­vate prac­tice. In sub­se­quent months, her time at the Depart­ment of Jus­tice was hon­ored by the NAACP and Geor­gia state senators.

But her time at the Depart­ment of Jus­tice was marked by efforts to keep peo­ple in prison.

As deputy attor­ney gen­er­al, she was respon­si­ble for mak­ing final rec­om­men­da­tions on the peti­tions flood­ing the Oval Office in response to Obama’s clemen­cy ini­tia­tive. Yates dashed thou­sands of hopes, approv­ing only 1,715 of the 33,149 com­mu­ta­tion peti­tions for the president’s sig­na­ture while deny­ing near­ly 19,000 oth­ers. Par­don attor­ney Deb­o­rah Leff resigned in protest, charg­ing that Yates not only reversed many of her rec­om­men­da­tions, but also blocked her access to the White House so that Oba­ma remained unaware of her opin­ions regard­ing the mer­its of many cases.

One of those cas­es was that of Alice Marie John­son, an Alaba­ma moth­er who had been sen­tenced to life in prison for pass­ing on phone mes­sages for drug deals. In 1993, she and 15 oth­ers were arrest­ed by fed­er­al author­i­ties. Her co-defen­dants, fac­ing lengthy prison sen­tences, tes­ti­fied against her. John­son was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to life in prison. Dur­ing Obama’s pres­i­den­cy, John­son was denied clemen­cy three times. The last time was when Yates was deputy attor­ney gen­er­al. No expla­na­tion was giv­en about denials so John­son, like thou­sands of oth­ers, was left in the dark about how to pro­ceed. (After 21.5 years in prison, John­son, by then a 63-year-old grand­moth­er, was grant­ed clemen­cy by Trump in June 2018.)

Yates also opposed retroac­tive sen­tenc­ing reduc­tions for fed­er­al drug offens­es under a Sen­tenc­ing Com­mis­sion reform known as ​“drugs minus two” that would bring past sen­tences in line with cur­rent (less harsh) law.

But with that sin­gu­lar act of resis­tance to Trump’s Mus­lim Ban, Yates’ past oppo­si­tion to crim­i­nal jus­tice reform seems to have been for­got­ten. This rewrit­ing hap­pens because few keep track of issues like clemen­cy denials for Black, Brown and poor peo­ple. That’s not to say that no one does: CAN-DO Clemen­cy, an orga­ni­za­tion found­ed by for­mer pres­i­den­tial clemen­cy recip­i­ents, has long kept track of these dis­may­ing sta­tis­tics. But the larg­er orga­ni­za­tions and media out­lets have not, leav­ing a void in which her lega­cy can be rewritten.

The same holds true for Light­foot and Har­ris. While grass­roots groups have con­tin­u­al­ly called them out for their puni­tive prac­tices and regres­sive actions, their crit­i­cisms have not been echoed by larg­er, more well-fund­ed orga­ni­za­tions. Crim­i­nal jus­tice reform may now be in vogue, but the larg­er pub­lic still remains indif­fer­ent to the details about the mass pros­e­cu­tions, impris­on­ment and police vio­lence against Black, brown and mar­gin­al­ized com­mu­ni­ties. But if we want elect­ed offi­cials who are tru­ly pro­gres­sive, we need to look past their rhetoric and exam­ine what they real­ly did for the most mar­gin­al­ized and crim­i­nal­ized communities.