…In which District Attorney Larry Krasner filed a lawsuit against the Commonwealth and Attorney Gen. Michelle Henry remains confused.
If I’m still working at 9:30pm, it’s
usually because I have a deadline I forgot about, I was asked to do a favor for a friend, or I had an idea that just needed to get out and I wasn’t going to be able to relax until it did.
So, I almost didn’t see the text message I got from Philadelphia’s District Attorney Larry Krasner on Monday night. Generally, if I’m getting a text message at 9:30pm, it’s because I’m waiting for an order from GrubHub.
But I’m glad I noticed it because it turned out to be the next step in Krasner’s ongoing battle with the Pennsylvania Legislature in general, and the Republicans that appear to have prioritized messing with him over things like dedicated funding for SEPTA in particular.
At a press conference held on Thursday, Krasner announced that he’s filed an injunction against Act 40, one of the many pieces of legislation that Harrisburg has passed over the years designed to take over a function of Philadelphia’s government over the objections of, well, Philadelphians.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about Act 40, which requires Attorney Gen. Michelle Henry to appoint a Special Prosecutor to handle crimes that have occurred anywhere near SEPTA here in Philadelphia. Since there are more than 8,000 SEPTA stops in the City of Philadelphia, that covers a lot of ground, said John Summers, the attorney representing Krasner.
“Ask yourself this question, how big is SEPTA in Philadelphia?” he said. “There are 8,175 stops. Bus stops. Train stops. And when you read the bill, and you ask yourself the question, well, what is the scope of the authority of this special counsel that’s going to step in and prosecute the crime? Well, it’s not defined in the statute. And because the statute doesn’t define that, it looks like if you’re within 500 yards of any of those 8,175 stops, that special prosecutor can come in and displace District Attorney Krasner and this entire office and prosecute the crime. Now, how much of someone else is left for this office?”
In other words, whoever takes this job is going to berunning around like a chicken with his or her head cut off.
Now, for the 31 years that I’ve been a journalist, especially here in Philadelphia, I’ve been able to figure out what tone a press conference is going to take based on who’s in the room and where it’s located.
Kids at a rec center? It’s usually happy news unless it’s a funding request. Police station? I’m probably going to see a lot of guns, and maybe a little weed.
But if I walk into the room and see a bunch of members of the city’s Black Clergy, I know it’s about disenfranchising Philadelphia’s voters. And if I’m Gov. Josh Shapiro, who signed Act 40 into law as part of a bunch of budget bills, and I see Bishop Dwayne Royster, executive director of POWER Interfaith, or the Rev. Mark Kelly Tyler, pastor of Mother Bethel AME Church, or the Rev. Nicholas O’Rourke, the newly minted Councilman from the Working Families Party on my caller ID, I’m letting it go to voice mail.
That’s because they’re not calling me to set up a lunch date. They’re calling to set up a trip to the woodshed. Especially since they see your signing this bill as yetanother example of the votes of Philadelphians in general, and Black and Brown Philadelphians in particular, being erased.
“What I ultimately believe is that every Philadelphia citizen has been betrayed by the state legislature,” Royster said. “We have been betrayed by the Democrats and Republicans that have voted for this legislation. We have been betrayed by the political leadership that signed this bill into law from both the House and the Senate and the governor’s office. And what they have essentially said to every Philadelphian who was a voter and every Philadelphian that lives in the city of Philadelphia, is that you’re not smart enough to make the right decisions about criminal prosecution in the city of Philadelphia. This is a political attack against Larry Krasner. But it’s also an act of voter suppression against the City of Philadelphia. In a very real way, it is making a statement that we don’t want your votes, we don’t need your votes, and we can live without your votes.”
(Now anyone who has studied voting patterns in Philadelphia knows that as the five-county Philadelphia area goes, so goes the state. You still have a lot of folks that are more than a little miffed that the center of that area, the City of Philadelphia, didn’t come out to the polls the way it should have during the 2016 Presidential Election because it gave us the Trump Administration. But I digress…)
The deadline for Henry to appoint this special prosecutor is this coming Saturday. But if a statement we received here at Hall Monitor is any indication, I don’t think she’s going to be able to meet it.
While it’s not a responsibility the office ever asked for, and it’s not the job of the Attorney General to decide whether or not Act 40 meets constitutional muster, the Attorney General’s office is required by law to do what it says, according to the statement.
What’s going to keep the AG from meeting the deadline, however, is the law itself, according to the statement.
“Our office has worked hard to meet the mandate to appoint a special prosecutor, but given the narrow requirements set by the legislature, we have been unable to do so. We will respond to Mr. Krasner’s complaint as required by court rules,” the statement said.
This is going to be interesting. Stay tuned.
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