A candidate who has promised to dial back drug prosecutions tonight won the Democratic primary runoff for District Attorney, defeating the more conservative Democratic incumbent Margaret Moore.
José P. Garza is a former federal public defender and immigrant rights activist. During the campaign he won endorsements from Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, and he also secured the backing of the local chapter of Democratic Socialists.
Preliminary election night results from the Travis County Clerk show Garza with a 31,126 vote lead over Moore, with 86% of the votes Moore’s 32%. That tally includes mail votes and early voting, but doesn’t include actual election day results.
Still, the lead appeared insurmountable to Margaret Moore, who conceded the race in an election night statement. Bernie Sanders soon thereafter tweeted his congratulations to Garza, writing, “We need progressive leaders everywhere who will reform our broken and racist criminal justice system, and I look forward to seeing José bring change in Texas.”
In her concession statement, Moore said, “I want to thank the voters of Travis County for giving me the opportunity to serve our community over the last three years.”
During her time in office, she said that local prosecutors “made significant improvements to ensure police officers are being held accountable, to prioritize the prosecution of sexual assault cases, and establish new diversion programs for first-time offenders.”
If Garza goes on to win against a Republican opponent in November — a strong possibility given the heavy blue tilt of Travis County — then he’ll take over the District Attorney’s Office starting next year. He’ll have oversight of prosecutions of the most serious crimes in Austin, including felony charges like drug dealing.
The DA’s office doesn’t handle misdemeanors, which are prosecuted in county courts.
‘Fear-Mongering Around Substance Use’
During the campaign, Moore and Garza differed over felony drug prosecutions. The challenger accused local prosecutors of pursuing too many “low-level drug offenses,” which resulted in a disproportionate impact on minority communities.
In a televised debate, Moore responded to this criticism, saying, “I’ve got to get this across: It happens every day, somebody thinks we handle low-level marijuana cases. We do not. We are typically handling much more serious cases. And they involve drugs like methamphetamine, cocaine, crack, heroin — we have a big heroin problem.”
She insisted that the District Attorney’s Office has shifted resources away from lower-level drug cases but added, “We are also focusing on cases where there’s possession with intent to deliver, or there’s some sort of violence associated with it.”
“And what is happening in this county right now is an increase in violence related to narcotics trafficking. And we know we have to deal with that.”
Garza belittled this concern, saying, “It’s really time to end the fear-mongering around substance use. The data is overwhelmingly clear that for every day a person stays in custody who is struggling with substance use the likelihood that they will commit another crime goes up, continuing to spend our resources on these kinds of offenses makes us less safe.”
“Sitting in jail when you’re struggling with substance use doesn’t help you fight addiction. That’s not how addiction works… It is time to end the prosecution of low-level drug offenses here in Travis County.”
Garza’s experience includes clerking for Judge Richard W. Roberts in federal district court for the District of Columbia. He also worked along the texts border as an assistant public defender at Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid, and a public defender in the U.S. Western District of Texas.
Republican Challenger in November
Garza will now face Republican Martin Harry in the November election. Martin’s campaign site describes the criminal justice system in Travis County as “broken,” saying, “It fails to keep the community safe from dangerous criminals.”
His win could play into a broader law-and-order message being pushed by Austin area candidates, from down-ballot candidates like Texas House challenger Justin Berry, a police officer, on up the ticket to the governor and president, who pushed a law-and-order message during recent street protests over the killing of a Black man in Minneapolis in May.
Matt Mackowiak, Travis County GOP Chairman, told Honest Austin that “Garza’s victory is a big win for criminals and a big loss for law abiding citizens.”
He said that Garza favors “decriminalization of all kinds of things,” adding, “We just elected a prosecutor who won’t prosecute.”
Underdog Candidate
The challenger in the District Attorney’s raise won despite being outspent by the incumbent. From February 23 through July 4, Garza raised $57,329 to Margaret Moore’s $159,998, according to a financial disclosure filed with the county government.
Still, he was helped by celebrity endorsements, including Sanders and Warren, and John Roger Stephens, better known by his stage name John Legend.
He also relied on video advertisements that touched on timely topics, including migration (a campaign ad featured a sketch of migrants in cages), and the Black Lives Matter movement.
In the last days of the campaign Garza was helped by outside spending by Reform Justice PAC for communications consulting ($2,400), and Texas Freedom Network PAC for digital advertising ($2,874.60) and text messaging services ($2,042.37), according to a disclosure report.
One of his biggest supporters was Serena Connelly, a Dallas philanthropist who died in April and gave $10,526.63 to the campaign. Amy Fikes, a Dallas board member of Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas, gave $5,263.47, and Richard Hartgrove of Austin gave $5,000.
