George Soros has been using his wealth in a number of ways to make America's criminal justice system better for the criminals and less effective for the protection of law-abiding people. One of the ways is dumping big money into district attorney elections to oust effective DAs (or in-house candidates to succeed retiring ones) and replace them with Politically Correct disasters. We noted previously his success in Orlando and Philadelphia here and here.
This week we have some good news from Washington County, Oregon. (Hillsboro and vicinity, west of Portland.) Noelle Crombie reports for the Oregonian:
Washington County voters on Tuesday elected a longtime child abuse prosecutor as district attorney, the culmination of a race that saw an unprecedented influx of cash, questions about outside funding, a proliferation of TV ads and a debate about criminal justice in Oregon.
Kevin Barton, 40, a chief deputy district attorney in the county, defeated former Polk County prosecutor and Beaverton criminal defense attorney Max Wall, 40, in a decisive vote. Barton captured 70 percent of the vote in early returns compared to Wall's 30 percent.* * *Combined, the candidates raised about $892,300, according to the latest campaign finance filings. Wall has raised $541,832, with $375,000 from the Oregon Law and Justice political action committee run by a woman with ties to billionaire philanthropist George Soros.
Whether Soros or someone else funded the campaign remains unclear. A political consultant for Wall said she was told Soros is not behind the PAC but she did not know who was. Wall refused to answer questions from reporters about who provided the money.* * *The race was historic by Oregon standards. District attorney races are typically sleepy affairs often involving a candidate who has risen through the ranks of the office. But advocates eager to reshape Oregon's approach to criminal justice saw the Washington County race as an opportunity to elect a prosecutor friendly to their agenda.
So we can't say for certain that this was Soros money, but it seems likely, and it is also likely he is covering his tracks to prevent that information from coming out until after the election.
The Oregonian requires us to do a little math here. If the candidates combined raised $892,300 and Wall raised $541,832 of that, then Barton raised $350,468. That is a 1.5 ratio, a serious disadvantage, but not crushing. If $375,000 came from the PAC with Soros ties, then only a little over a third of Wall's money, at most, came from the kind of local donors who normally fund DAs races.
Three cheers for the people of Washington County for not allowing their DA's office to be bought.
Are the signs from Philadelphia as bad as we have feared?