Portland, Oregon voters oust Leftist District Attorney Mike Schmidt, opting for law and order over soft-on-crime policies.
By Eileen Griffin
Voters in Multnomah County, Oregon ousted their progressive District Attorney in favor of a career prosecutor.
In Multnomah County, where the city of Portland is located, the May primary election pitted incumbent Mike Schmidt against a prosecutor from his office, The Oregonian reports.
Career prosecutor Nathan Vasquez challenged Schmidt campaigning on a commitment to bring law and order back to the unruly streets of Portland.
Throughout Multnomah County, 67 percent of the votes were cast by Democrats while 12 percent came from registered Republicans. Vasquez was previously registered as a Republican, although he now is unaffiliated.
Vasquez was endorsed by the police union and supported by business leaders such as the co-founder of Nike. Schmidt received large donations from Leftist billionaire George Soros.
The contest between Vasquez and Schmidt was considered a referendum on the public’s tolerance for progressive soft-on-crime policies that have led to career criminals roaming the streets freely.
The crime surge led to many businesses leaving Portland, as Heartland Daily News previously reported. Several stores reported being robbed multiple times.
Criminals who are arrested often are not prosecuted when the case lands in the District Attorney’s office in Multnomah County under D.A. Mike Schmidt.
Schmidt took over the D.A.’s office in August of 2020, in the middle of the George Floyd protests, the New York Post editorial board reports. He was funded by George Soros and other and other soft-on-crime progressive groups.
Once in office, he quickly decriminalized most riot-related crimes that occurred in and around Portland throughout 2020.
After months of anarchy and rioting in Portland, Schmidt refused to prosecute half of the cases brought to his office, The Daily Signal reported at the time.
“By refusing to uphold the law, Schmidt’s perverse sense of ‘justice’ can only encourage rioters in Portland to continue their criminal activity night after night,” Lora Ries wrote for The Daily Signal.
At the end of 2020, Schmidt decriminalized all drug use. In 2022 homicides hit a record high. A police shortage from resignations as well as defund-the-police efforts compounded the crime crisis.
Rejecting Schmidt and the Left-wing policies of the Progressive movement is expected to significantly change the situation in Portland.
This (the change in D.A.s) is an important change for law enforcement even for those outside of Multnomah County, KGW reports. As the top local law enforcement for the most populated county in Oregon, the role the D.A. plays is significant and can have impact on all Oregon residents.
“It looks like voters have had enough,” KGW reporter Pat Dooris said.
“I think this very much locally is a situation where the voters are saying that they expect and demand more out of their public safety system,” Vasquez told KGW. “They want a functioning system. One that they can count on when they call 911.”
“All the way through the process into police responses, going into the courts that their public safety system is going to serve them. I have heard that repeatedly in the community, they want more than what they are getting right now.”
Even people who identified as politically Left were receptive to Vasquez as he knocked on doors campaigning.
“They just felt like as a community we had lost our way in a lot of different areas but particularly where it came to a lack of accountability in the community and the open-air drug use and open-air drug dealing.”
“I think our community as a whole demands and expects that our children are safe,” Vasquez said.
“Uber-progressive Portland, Oregon, just kicked its soft-on-crime, cop-hating district attorney to the curb: Manhattan, take note,” the New York Post editorial board writes. “Prosecutors who won’t prosecute deserve the boot.”
“Prosecutors have an obligation to enforce the law,” Ries wrote. “That’s their job. Cases should not be rejected based on whether or not the prosecutor believes in ‘the cause.’ His (Schmidt’s) dereliction of duty has caused the violence to continue, to spread, and to escalate. His approach is neither smart nor in the interest of justice.”
For more great content from Budget & Tax News.