Who's running for District Attorney?
*Anne Marie Schubert pictured below
The District Attorney or D.A.'s job is to keep the community safe. Now how a D.A. defines safety or approaches safety is super important. They control a lot of decisions that impact our lives...
During the upcoming election cycle, Sacramento County will choose a new District Attorney (current D.A. Anne Marie Schubert is running for California Attorney General). Schubert, is well known for choosing not to file charges against the 2 police officers that killed Stephon Clark. She’s also a big fan of capital punishment, and now apparently has a true crime podcast that “ isn’t intended to be political” (her words) despite the fact that it is funded by her campaign committee. So that’s not great.
There are two candidates in the race to replace Schubert, Thien Ho and Alana Matthews.
*Thien Ho pictured below
Thien Ho came to the United States as a refugee from Vietnam, and he is most well known for prosecuting Joseph DeAngelo, also known as the “Golden State Killer/East Area Rapist.” Like Schubert, Ho is in support of the death penalty, and he has also stated that he would have come to the same conclusion as Schubert in regards to the decision to not file charges against the murderers of Stephon Clark.
*Alana Matthews pictured below
Alana Matthews is running her campaign as a reform-minded prosecutor. She is the first in her family to graduate college, and if elected she would be the first African American to serve as D.A. in Sacramento County. She has made statements calling for increased police accountability, and for fairness in the justice system. She also has a history of supporting the California state government with issues surrounding climate change and environmental justice.
On October 25th Thien Ho and Alana Matthews sat down for a debate, which was moderated by Lonnie Wong and hosted by a collection of non-profit organizations.
One of our community friends reported back with some notes, you can find some highlights below!
They came away from the debate having noticed some serious red flags, stating that this race is NOT a race between two “generally progressive” candidates
They noticed a lot of fear-mongering from Thien Ho, and criticized the fact that Ho appeared to warp his refugee story and use it as a means of supporting “an ultraconservative law enforcement ideology”
Our community partner also identifies with coming from a refugee background, but felt that Ho was using his platform and story to “reinforce more of the same disconnect and in support of those that have caused so much harm to Southeast Asian communities”
If you missed it, check out a recording of the Debate here to see how these candidates define safety and how they would approach safety as D.A.