Type Of Reformer At Center Of Arlington Commonwealth's Attorney Democratic Primary

ARLINGTON, VA — With early voting in the Democratic primary starting Friday, the race for commonwealth’s attorney in Arlington and Falls Church is growing more contentious as Josh Katcher seeks to unseat incumbent Parisa Dehghani-Tafti.

The two candidates for commonwealth's attorney, plus candidates for other offices on the June 20 Democratic primary election ballot in Arlington, participated in a speed-campaigning event on Sunday at the Walter Reed Community Center in Arlington, where voters got a chance to move from table to table every few minutes to learn about each candidate's stance on the issues.

Early voting in the Democratic primary begins on Friday, May 5 at Courthouse Plaza. Early voting will also take place on Saturday, June 10 and Saturday, June 17, plus extra hours on Tuesday, June 13 and Thursday, June 15, at the Madison Community Center and the Walter Reed Community Center. All Arlington voters are eligible to vote at any of the three locations.

In their campaigns, both Dehghani-Tafti and Katcher are running as reform-oriented prosecutors, vowing not to return to the days when "law-and-order" commonwealth's attorneys held office in Arlington and neighboring jurisdictions in Northern Virginia.

Dehghani-Tafti, who entered office in 2020 as a champion of criminal justice reform, has focused on prosecuting serious crimes while prioritizing counseling and treatment for teens and adults in need of substance abuse and mental health treatment.

On the campaign trail, Dehghani-Tafti tells residents that she has kept the promises that she ran on when she defeated incumbent Theo Stamos in the Democratic primary for commonwealth's attorney of Arlington and Falls Church in 2019.

"We’ve centered prosecutions on violent crimes, gun crimes, sexual offenses, and crimes against children, and we’ve obtained convictions in unresolved homicide and rape cases left behind from the prior administration," her campaign website says.

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As commonwealth's attorney, Dehghani-Tafti made modernizing the office a top priority. Criminal defense attorneys are now provided with prompt electronic discovery instead of being required to come to a room to take notes, her campaign says.

Katcher, whose campaign theme is “real reform, real justice,” vows to be aggressive with certain cases while other cases — ones involving the mentally ill, the unhoused, people dealing with addiction and kids "doing dumb kids things" — will be prime candidates for getting diverted out of the criminal justice system.

But Katcher, who resigned as deputy commonwealth's attorney for Arlington last summer to run for commonwealth's attorney, said he worries that reform prosecutors are being caricatured by Republicans as caring only about leniency for criminal suspects. The criminal justice reform movement may lose its momentum in a few years, he warned, if the debate continues to focus on who is tough on crime and who is soft on crime.

"I hate that spectrum," Katcher said in an interview with Patch at Sunday's campaign event. "Democrats should be smart on crime. I think we have an opportunity to own this issue because we're the only ones pushing out into this evolution of prosecution in the 21st century."

Katcher also emphasized that reform prosecution has never been about leniency for people who commit serious crimes. "It’s about precision with how we apply the tools," he said. "It’s the difference between a first generation reformer and a second generation reformer."

Katcher said he expects other types of prosecutors with his approach to reform are going to emerge and win elections across the country.

"I see first generation reform prosecutors as having done extremely meaningful work in shifting the way we view the justice system. But many of them came from an appellate attorney background, or they're professors, or policy think tank folk," he said. "They don't have the practical experience of getting the train moving down the tracks."

Staff Openings In Commonwealth's Attorney Office

Another reason why Katcher says Arlington voters should pick him in the June 20 Democratic primary is that attorneys will want to work for him.

At an April 12 debate sponsored by the Arlington Committee of 100, Katcher argued that Dehghani-Tafti has struggled to fill positions during her more than three years in office. In response to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by his campaign in early March, Katcher found that the commonwealth’s attorney’s office had seven fully funded vacant attorney positions as of late March.

Last Thursday, Dehghani-Tafti’s campaign said in a statement that her office has only two permanent full-time attorney positions that are open.

“Unfortunately, my opponent is cherry-picking old numbers to mislead the public. This is dishonest, and this is harmful," Deghhani-Tafti said. "Real leaders don’t incite false panic for political gain; we are honest about issues and work to solve them.”

Dehghani-Tafti said her office has not been immune to the staffing issues that have affected nearly every industry over the last few years, including police departments and other prosecutors’ offices across the United States.

“This is a nationwide issue, and not one that is specific to Arlington or our office,” she said. “Rest assured, despite the staffing challenges, justice has not been delayed in Arlington.”

Some of the attorney positions that have appeared vacant are frozen because the office is being reorganized to provide more paralegal support. Some are temporary, and information on funding is uncertain. Others have been filled in the weeks since Katcher's campaign filed the FOIA request on March 6, according to Dehghani-Tafti's campaign.

"Despite my opponent panicking, the issues have not interfered with my office's functioning, as we are achieving significantly higher trial conviction rates than my predecessor," she said in a statement. "My opponent's attempt to politicize a nationwide issue and turn it into a personal attack, calling me 'unlikeable' and 'uninspiring' demonstrates his unwillingness to engage on substantive policy. I will, as I always have, focus on the real issues that impact our community."

In response to the accusation of inciting "false panic," Katcher said in a statement that "despite my opponent wishing otherwise — on this subject and elsewhere — saying a thing does not make it true."

"We have provided evidence in the form of a FOIA to Arlington County on March 6th with a response date of March 24th. She had her campaign create a graphic," Katcher said, referring to a chart released by Dehghani-Tafti's campaign showing the number of positions open in her office.