As the Democratic primary for Cook County’s top prosecutor heats up, musical superstar and political activist John Legend announced Wednesday he’s backing Kim Foxx’s reelection.
A critic of Republican President Donald Trump — and famously targeted on Twitter last fall by the commander in chief — Legend has backed Democratic candidates, including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s bid for the Democratic presidential nomination this year. Legend also has spoken out about the need for criminal justice reform, one of the reasons he said he was backing Foxx as he did when she won the seat four years ago.
“Kim Foxx heads our country’s second-largest prosecutor’s office with ambition, compassion, and grace,” Legend said in a news release. “I was thrilled to endorse Kim as State Attorney in 2016, and am thrilled once again to endorse her. Then and now, Kim’s background makes her the kind of prosecutor that America needs to help radically transform the justice system.”
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The Color Of Change, a political action committee focused on backing prosecutors who embrace racial justice, also is endorsing Foxx in the March 17 primary, a spokesman said in a joint statement with Legend.
Color of Change PAC spokesman Rashad Robinson said: “The stakes are high in this election for the people of Chicago and all of Cook County. Since her election in 2016, Kim Foxx has become a national leader in the movement to end mass incarceration. She accomplished a historic repair of injustice by moving to expunge over 1,000 marijuana convictions from the criminal record in a single hearing. Her office has led the nation in clearing the names of the wrongfully convicted and freeing those still imprisoned. But the police union, the former mayor, and other supporters of the old status quo are threatened by Foxx’s power.”
The Fraternal Order of Police has been a vocal critic of Foxx, accusing her of being soft on crime and even holding a public protest to call for her resignation after her office unexpectedly dropped a 16-count indictment that accused onetime “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett of orchestrating a racist and homophobic attack on himself on a downtown Chicago street.
Also vying for the Democratic nod in the state’s attorney’s race: Bill Conway, a former assistant state’s attorney, former Chicago Ald. Bob Fioretti and former county and federal prosecutor Donna More.
Lisa Donovan is the host of The Spin, the Tribune’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to have it delivered to your inbox weekday afternoons.
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