Leon's "silent majority"

The hard right position Cannizzaro has staked out ahead of next year's DA election might be surprising given the context. The conversation on criminal justice policy has shifted in recent years enough to allow for the success of a few mild sentencing reforms, an end to the state's non-unanimous jury law, and popular sympathy for the ongoing legal effort to end so-called "debtor's prisons." 

But Leon insists that a "silent majority" of New Orleanians are laying in wait to push back against this, again, rather weak tide of cautious reform. When we noticed this ramping up last month it laid to rest our doubts that Cannizzaro would even seek reelection.  He's already in campaign mode.

Actually he's already in the second phase of  campaign mode. When the Lens caught up with him his spokesperson this week, they already found him playing to both sides a little bit.

In a statement, Cannizzaro’s spokesman Ken Daley said it would be “premature” to comment on an election that is nearly two years away. But he defended Cannizzaro’s record, saying the DA supported criminal justice reform programs when he believed they would work.

“The DA makes no apologies for aggressively prosecuting violent criminals,” Daley said. “That does not mean he opposes reform efforts, if they are rooted in common sense and not simply a grab for grant dollars.”

That's pretty clever.  New Orleanians are so gaslighted by a cycle of violent crime met with decades of "lock em up" rhetoric that they have readily embraced mass surveillance as well as gentrifying efforts such as crackdowns on bars and corner stores and music venues. So it's reasonable to assume a wariness of criminal justice reform from a significant slice of the electorate. Maybe this doesn't constitute a "silent majority" but it probably does mean Cannizzaro has a solid base from which to reach out.  Any opposition campaign will have a lot more work to do than he has.