Prosecutor Lobbying in the States, 2015-2018 The Prosecutors and Politics Project June 2021 Table of Contents About the Prosecutors and Politics Project ................................................................... 3 Executive Summary ............................................................................................................ 4 About the Study ................................................................................................................... 12 State Reports ....................................................................................................................... 14 Alabama .................................................................................................................... 15 Alaska ........................................................................................................................ 19 Arizona ..................................................................................................................... 24 Arkansas .................................................................................................................. 30 California .................................................................................................................. 35 Colorado................................................................................................................... 46 Connecticut .............................................................................................................. 51 Delaware .................................................................................................................. 59 Florida ...................................................................................................................... 62 Georgia ...................................................................................................................... 73 Hawaii ...................................................................................................................... 80 Idaho ......................................................................................................................... 85 Illinois ...................................................................................................................... 90 Indiana ..................................................................................................................... 96 Iowa ........................................................................................................................ 104 Kansas .................................................................................................................... 109 Kentucky ................................................................................................................. 116 Louisiana ................................................................................................................ 120 Maine ....................................................................................................................... 128 Maryland ................................................................................................................ 134 Massachusetts ....................................................................................................... 138 Michigan ................................................................................................................. 143 Minnesota ............................................................................................................. 149 Mississippi .............................................................................................................159 Missouri ..................................................................................................................162 1 Montana................................................................................................................. 168 Nebraska ................................................................................................................. 173 Nevada ..................................................................................................................... 177 New Hampshire ................................................................................................... 190 New Jersey ..............................................................................................................197 New Mexico ........................................................................................................... 198 New York ............................................................................................................... 203 North Carolina ...................................................................................................... 210 North Dakota ......................................................................................................... 214 Ohio ......................................................................................................................... 220 Oklahoma .............................................................................................................. 224 Oregon .................................................................................................................... 233 Pennsylvania ........................................................................................................ 239 Rhode Island ......................................................................................................... 245 South Carolina ...................................................................................................... 252 South Dakota ........................................................................................................ 255 Tennessee .............................................................................................................. 262 Texas ...................................................................................................................... 268 Utah ........................................................................................................................ 276 Vermont ................................................................................................................. 283 Virginia .................................................................................................................. 290 Washington ........................................................................................................... 293 West Virginia ........................................................................................................ 299 Wisconsin .............................................................................................................. 304 Wyoming .................................................................................................................311 Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................... 314 2 About the Prosecutors and Politics Project The Prosecutors and Politics Project is a research initiative at the University of North Carolina School of Law. Founded in 2018, the Project studies the role of prosecutors in the criminal justice system, focusing on both the political aspects of their selection and their political power. The Project endeavors to bring scholarly attention to the democratic accountability of elected prosecutors, to increase our understanding of the relationship between prosecutors and politics through empirical study, and to publicly share research in order to increase voters’ knowledge about their elected prosecutors and broader criminal justice issues. For more information about the Prosecutors and Politics Project, its mission, and its research, please visit https://law.unc.edu/academics/centers-and- programs/prosecutors-and-politics-project/ Questions about this report should be directed to the PPP director, Professor Carissa Byrne Hessick ([email protected]). 3 Executive Summary American prosecutors are active lobbyists who routinely support making the criminal law harsher. During the years 2015 to 2018, state and local prosecutors were involved in more than 25% of all criminal-justice-related bills introduced in the 50 state legislatures. Prosecutors were nearly twice as likely to lobby in favor of a law that created a new crime or otherwise increased the scope of criminal law than a law that would create a defense, decriminalize conduct, or otherwise narrow the scope of criminal law. And when state prosecutors lobbied in favor of a bill, it was more than twice as likely to pass than an average bill. Prosecutors appeared to have more success when they lobbied in favor of a bill than when they opposed a bill. Although bills with prosecutor support were twice as likely to pass, prosecutor opposition to a bill did not reduce its likelihood of passing. Notably, prosecutors were more successful when they supported criminal justice reform bills than when they supported traditional law-and-order bills. Approximately 60% of bills that narrowed the scope of criminal law and 55% of bills that decreased punishment passed when supported by prosecutors. In contrast, when prosecutors supported bills that increased the scope of criminal law, only 40% of those bills passed; and bills that increased punishments did not fare much better, passing only 42% of the time. Criminal Justice Bills Introduced More than 22,000 criminal law and criminal justice bills were