Darren Bailey's racist attack on Chicago and the Safe-T act bail reform.
“Sedona” All my drawings and watercolors are on Instagram @klonskyart
The GOP campaign for offices up and down the state of Illinois, including Darren Bailey’s campaign for governor, have taken a page from the famously ugly and racist Willie Horton ads of George H. W. Bush.
Bailey and the Republicans have made the city of Chicago their opponent.
It’s racist and it’s not even subtle.
What they’re telling white folks downstate and close-in white Chicago suburbs is that Chicago violence (read Black people) are coming to get you if Bailey isn’t elected.
Chicago’s Black mayor Lori Lightfoot is featured prominently in their ads.
Chicago violent crimes are down this year after spiking during the pandemic, as they did nationally.
Not on the ballot but also figuring in the Republican campaign is bail reform and what is known as the Safe-T Act.
Sponsored by the Illinois legislative Black Caucus and passed by the General Assembly, the Safe-T Act takes important, if first steps, towards bail reform.
Starting Jan. 1, the SAFE-T Act will abolish cash bail across the state. Then a defendant can only be detained in jail pretrial if they’re charged with specific types of felonies, such as murder and sexual assault.
Plus prosecutors must prove to a judge that a defendant is a flight risk or poses a specific, real, and present threat to any person or the community.
The impact of cash bail on poor folks is well known. In 2021 more than one-third of felony cases in Cook County were dropped or ended in acquittal. Yet those who are unable to meet bail may spend days, weeks, months in jail even if they are eventually acquitted.
Now the law has been placed front and center in GOP election campaigns. They have come to calling it the "purge law," likening it to the horror film "The Purge," in which criminal activity of all kinds is allowed for 12 hours. Others have claimed it will lead to "non-detainable offenses," which is a blatant lie.
Go to Injustice Watch for a point by point debunking of GOP lies about the Safe-T Act.