The Tartan

Did you register to vote? Probably not; voting is for old people. Besides, who cares about the primary when the presidential part is already decided? You probably do not care about the Senate, but if you do — the Senate primaries are decided as well. (Going forward, I shall be assuming that you are registered in Carnegie Mellon’s district.) If you’re a Republican, you also have a single candidate to choose from in the House of Representatives — though it hardly matters, because Republicans are not winning this district any time soon. (If you’re registered as third-party or independent, why would you do this to yourself? By the way, did you know that there’s no ideological purity test involved in party registration, and you can change your registration as many times as you like? It’s too late to re-register for this primary, but keep this in mind any time you live in a solid blue or red area.)

Although it’s not the only other race you have to think about, I will only be discussing the attorney general election from here, since it has the most candidates. 

Although attorneys general are supposed to be fairly neutral, this doesn’t stop them from getting political in important ways — former attorney general Kathleen Kane famously refused to defend Pennsylvania’s ban on same-sex marriage. On the other hand, maybe these candidates shouldn’t be taking cues from Kane, who was later imprisoned and disbarred for perjury. At the time of Kane refusing to defend the state, the Pa. Republican Party chairman criticized her for politicizing the office of attorney general. Now, both Republican candidates and Democratic candidates promise to utilize their power to politicize the office of attorney general. (In this election, it largely has to do with abortion.) 

If you’re registered to vote as a Republican, the attorney general is the only position for which you get to make a choice. The two candidates are: York County district attorney Dave Sunday, and 160th district Pa. House representative Craig Williams. Sunday is endorsed by the Pa. Republican Party. He has more experience at the actual position of District Attorney, whereas Williams has more experience in statewide politics. As York County district attorney, Sunday has dealt with crime in an effective manner. He is running on the basic aspects of the job — dealing with crime, especially violent and drug crime — rather than other social issues. He has been a political figure during his time in office rather than someone who simply performs their job, although he does perform his job for the most part. Sunday instructed officers in York County not to issue citations to businesses that chose to remain open during the pandemic.

  Williams was appointed to lead the impeachment trial of Larry Krasner, the Philadelphia district attorney. Sunday wasn’t alone in choosing which cases to ignore; Krasner did a great deal of this sort of thing, including dropping all marijuana possession charges and not charging prostitutes with fewer than three convictions. When Krasner came into office, he immediately purged all those who would stand in the way of his political goals. The Pa. House of Representatives voted to impeach him for dereliction of duty and other reasons related to his unwillingness to charge criminals.

Democrats are also choosing an attorney general candidate — they have several choices. Eugene DePasquale is the Pa. auditor general, during which time he uncovered issues like a massive backlog of untested rape kits. He is running as a pro-choice candidate, so presumably he would avoid enforcing any anti-abortion laws. Joe Khan, solicitor of Buck County, is similarly adamant about abortion and other social issues, and would avoid enforcing laws he sees as illegitimate. Keir Bradford-Grey is the former chief public defender of Philadelphia and, before that, the chief defender of Montgomery County. Bradford-Grey isn’t a clone of all the other progressive public defenders running for attorney general around the nation. She describes one of her top priorities as “consumer protection.” (DePasquale also describes this as a priority, but it is lower down on his list.) She seems more focused on lawsuits against businesses than some of the other candidates, who are generally more focused on social issues. Similarly, Jared Solomon seems to have a particular focus on eliminating “special interests.” Delaware County district attorney Jack Stollsteiner, who has experience and success in the district attorney job, is the most anti-crime of the candidates, with a 68 percent reduction in violent crime to his name. He does not have a particular focus on social issues other than violent and drug crime.

If you’ve registered to vote, even if you don’t feel very well-educated on politics, you should still vote — this is one election where your vote does matter, even if it may not seem like it at first. Every one of these district attorney candidates would play a major role in shaping the future of Pennsylvania, for better or for worse.