Back during the Summer of Love in 2020, Portland, Oregon was among many cities experiencing nightly "mostly peaceful riots" featuring arson, property damage, and cop-free protest encampments. In fact, Portland was arguably among the worst at the time. While many were horrified, some saw the tumultuous era as presenting opportunities. One of those was Mike Schmidt, who ran for District Attorney on a platform of "justice reform," defunding the police, and emptying the jails. He made good on his campaign promises and the results have been uniformly disastrous, as we have reported here many times in the past. Now a new election cycle is underway, however, and change may be in the air. Schmidt is facing a challenge for his office from someone who is vowing to get tough on crime and it's not coming from some right-wing conservative. The challenger is one of Schmidt's own deputies. (AP)

In Oregon’s Multnomah County, home to Portland, the progressive district attorney who took office during the social justice movement of 2020 is being challenged by a candidate vowing to be tough on crime, highlighting the growing pressure on liberal prosecutors across the U.S. amid voter concerns over public drug use and disorder.

District Attorney Mike Schmidt’s term began as the death of George Floyd at the hands of police sparked nightly protests in Portland and a larger national conversation about criminal justice reform. But in the past four years, progressive DAs and candidates in liberal bastions ranging from the San Francisco Bay Area to Seattle have faced setbacks as frustrations over public safety and homelessness have increased.

The deputy's name is Nathan Vasquez and he's not some outsider lacking in experience. He's been a prosecutor for more than twenty years. Vasquez has been endorsed by the police unions and appears to be drawing enough support to mount an aggressive ad campaign. 

This isn't some new position for Vasquez to take, either. He has reportedly been vocal on the subject of crime, publicly opposing the new "progressive" enforcement policies since 2020. It's rather remarkable that he's even been allowed to keep his office. When Schmidt took office, he announced that he would not be pressing charges against any of the rioters unless they had engaged in physical violence. He declined to prosecute charges of interfering with police officers or criminal trespass. He supported a ballot measure decriminalizing most illegal drugs. He told the public that any charges of assaulting a police officer would be “subjected to the highest level of scrutiny.”

Vasquez took the opposite position when it came to each and every one of those policies. But as a deputy in an office where Schmidt was making all of the calls, there was only so much he could do. Now we've all seen what more than three years of Schmidt's policies have done to the city of Portland, and so has Nathan Vasquez. He says he can restore order.

The only question now is whether or not the citizens of Portland are finally fed up with all of the destruction and the way their city has become a dangerous, filthy, laughing stock. Oregon already moved to recriminalize drugs, suggesting that more and more people are waking up to the reality of this horribly failed experiment. But changing the rules doesn't make much of a difference if you don't have someone who is willing to enforce the laws and send a clear message to the lawbreakers. They now have the opportunity to correct that error. Will they seize it? If they don't and the streets continue to be filled with crime and littered with dying drug addicts, the voters should not place the blame on Nathan Vasqez or even Mike Schmidt. They should blame themselves.