Bexar County voters are selecting from an extended record of little-known candidates to be their subsequent district lawyer — a place that’s been beneath rising scrutiny from each the left and proper in years.
The position oversees roughly 600 staff and has vital discretion over how crimes are charged which circumstances are prioritized.
In consequence, nationwide progressive teams have spent large cash turning Texas’ giant counties into laboratories for justice reform, whereas the state’s Republican leaders have made it simpler to take away DAs they really feel aren’t being powerful sufficient on crime.
This yr bigger-name candidates took a cross on the race to exchange retiring District Legal professional Joe Gonzales, who was helped into workplace in 2018 by liberal billionaire George Soros’ Texas Justice and Public Security PAC, and later criticized for permitting an Austin-based justice reform group to have uncommon entry to his workplace’s work.
Up to now no such exterior cash has appeared within the race to fill Gonzales’ seat, the place the best-known candidates are a former appellate court docket decide with no prosecutorial expertise, and a longtime protection lawyer recognized for his TikTok movies.
The winner of an eight-way Democratic main would be the odds-on favourite to hold the blue county in November. They’ll be up in opposition to Ashley Foster, the lone Republican working, plus a possible impartial candidate, who should accumulate signatures to qualify for the final election poll.
Early voting for the March 3 main begins on Feb. 17.
Watch the candidates current their {qualifications} and concepts for the workplace on the San Antonio Report’s Feb. 3 debate, or get good fast with our roundup under.
Candidates are listed within the order they’ll seem on the Democratic main poll.
Jane Davis
Jane Davis, 78, is the chief of the juvenile part of the Bexar County District Legal professional’s Workplace, and has the longest expertise as a prosecutor. She’s labored in all 15 sections of the DA’s workplace, and served beneath seven district attorneys.
At a time when the workplace as a complete is struggling from an absence of prosecutors, Davis stated folks wish to work in her part as a result of “it’s productive, it’s enjoyable, and the one on the high must make it that manner.”
Davis stated she hadn’t deliberate to run for DA, however was underwhelmed by the opposite candidates who filed. Now she’s loaned her marketing campaign $100,000, making her one of many greatest spenders within the race.
Earlier than working on the DA’s workplace, she was a public faculty instructor, knowledgeable mediator, and he or she as soon as interned on the U.S. Legal professional’s workplace.
“I’ve the expertise, I’ve the maturity and I’ve the temperament to guide this workplace,” she stated on the San Antonio Report’s debate. “I’m a commissioned pastor, so I perceive mercy, and I’m additionally a rancher and a beekeeper, so I perceive being powerful.”
Meli Carrión Powers
Angelica “Meli” Carrión Powers, 50, serves as chief of the District Legal professional’s Household Violence Division. She beforehand labored as an assistant lawyer for the Metropolis of San Antonio and as a regional lawyer for the Texas Division of Household and Protecting Companies.
Opponents wish to level out that Powers presently holds one of many greatest management roles in an workplace that’s been criticized for case backlogs and insufficient staffing.
However Powers says that her division has been a mannequin of discovering inventive options to issues exterior of their management — like utilizing a high-risk consumption program to pay prosecutors extra money — and eliminating a case backlog they inherited in 2019.
“The arduous work that we have now performed over the previous seven years is vital, as a result of management on this workplace is essential,” she stated at Tuesday’s debate. “… For those who evaluate Bexar County to the ten largest counties in Texas … Now we have the fourth-best dismissal charge, the place lots of our neighboring buddies are far, far, far above us and dismissing many, many extra [family violence] circumstances.”
Shannon Locke
Shannon Locke, 52, labored on the DA’s workplace within the early 2000s and went on to open two regulation corporations centered on prison protection.
He’s billed himself as a high-energy chief with the expertise wanted to coach younger prosecutors and switch round a “poisonous” tradition on the DA’s workplace.
“The district lawyer’s workplace must be checked out as a coaching hospital … You’re not getting paid in addition to you must … however you’re getting extra expertise,” he stated on the Democratic Occasion’s discussion board in January. “Proper now, the district lawyer’s workplace has such a low conviction charge after they go to trial that they’re not getting good expertise. They’re solely studying the best way to lose.”
He brings among the most expertise, having tried greater than 200 jury trials.
However he’s come beneath hearth from opponents who say his guarantees to analyze ICE officers are deceptive the general public to achieve benefit in a Democratic main, the place Locke has picked up endorsements from organized labor and different progressive teams.
He reiterated the concept practically each time he had the microphone in Tuesday’s debate, saying Bexar County must be doing every thing it may well to struggle again in opposition to illegal immigration enforcement techniques — even because the very progressive incumbent has known as his concepts a “regarding” misinterpretation of the position.
“Eleven district attorneys throughout this nation have joined me in calling for native investigations into ICE brokers after they commit crimes whereas conducting their duties — two of these district attorneys are in Texas,” Locke stated at Tuesday’s debate. “We are able to do that, however we’re selecting to not.”
Veronica Legarreta
Veronica Legarreta, 51, began as a prosecutor within the District Legal professional’s workplace, and is now a prison protection lawyer along with her personal agency, specializing in DWIs. She’s additionally a part-time Justice of the Peace decide for the Metropolis of San Antonio.
By way of these roles, she says she’s been uncovered to the numerous issues plaguing the DA’s workplace that she’s now working to guide.
“I signify people on the lowest instances of their lives. I’ve seen circumstances that haven’t been effectively balanced. I’ve seen folks wrongfully accused,” Legarreta stated at a January discussion board hosted by the Bexar County Democratic Occasion. “Now we have to alter our system now.”
Outdoors of that work, Legarreta chairs the Hispanic Ladies’s Community of Texas and serves because the chair-elect for the Hispanic Attorneys Part of the State Bar of Texas, the place she says she’s been on the frontlines of attempting to diversify Bexar County’s courtrooms.
Bexar County has by no means had a Latina for its District Legal professional, and he or she’s amongst a number of candidates working this yr who could possibly be the primary.
“I’ve been discriminated in opposition to in court docket by white males telling me, ‘Mija, what are you doing right here?’” she stated on the January discussion board. “I’m combating for my shopper. That’s what I’m doing, and that’s what I’m going to do for Bexar County.”
Luz Elena Chapa
Luz Elena Chapa, 52, was elected twice as a justice on the 32-county Fourth Court docket of Appeals, giving her essentially the most political expertise within the race. However her opponents level out she’d be an uncommon selection for DA, having by no means served as a lead prosecutor earlier than.
Chapa disregarded that criticism at Tuesday’s debate, saying that as an appellate decide she’s “graded all of their papers,” and is aware of the best way to “work a case from the bottom up.”
She’s framed her lack of expertise within the DA’s workplace as a uniquely contemporary perspective, and received over allies in regulation enforcement by lobbing among the hardest criticisms of the workplace’s present administration.
“We do have an enormous challenge of repeat offenders, particularly routine repeat offenders … who’ve truly been let go after which they re-offend,” she stated Tuesday. “We haven’t been powerful on crime in our group. We have to make critical adjustments to enhance public security.”
Chapa labored as a visiting decide after shedding her seat on the Fourth Court docket of Appeals in 2024, when Republicans spent large cash to wipe out Democratic appellate judges throughout the state.
She resigned that position to run for DA, loaned her marketing campaign $100,000 to begin, and has since raised about $100,000 extra, placing her on the high of the fundraising charts.
At debates she’s leaned on a compelling private narrative, recalling how she hung out in courtrooms as a toddler whereas her immigrant mom fought an alcoholic father for custody. However she’s struggled to current a transparent imaginative and prescient for the way she’d rise up to hurry on the position, one thing she acknowledged within the face of criticism from different candidates on Tuesday night time.
“I admit, I’m not the world’s greatest debater, however I can definitely climate political assaults fairly effectively,” she stated on the San Antonio Report’s debate. “Extra importantly, I’m the one candidate who can carry actual change to the DA’s workplace, as a result of I’m the one one on this stage who hasn’t been part of the issues and the dysfunction.”
Meredith Chacon
Meredith Chacon, 51, grew up dreaming of being the District Legal professional, and spent most of her profession there earlier than Gonzales was elected in 2018.
She dealt with circumstances involving home violence and human trafficking, and finally oversaw the division dealing with baby safety circumstances, the place she says she gained a status as an revolutionary prosecutor.
“I’ve solely ever needed this job, I’ve felt known as to it since I used to be very younger,” she stated on the Democratic Occasion’s debate in January. “I wish to defend victims and I’ve at all times performed that … at the same time as a toddler. I don’t undergo bullies.”
However Chacon discovered herself at odds with the brand new progressive DA, and left to enter personal apply earlier than he took workplace. She later tried to run in opposition to Gonzales in 2022, however didn’t advance from the GOP main.
“I’m a lady of precept, and I didn’t wish to work for the present administration,” she stated of that call. “I noticed what issues had been coming while you put political benefit and political acquire in entrance of what’s greatest for victims.”
Chacon stated she’s nonetheless a sounding board for each prosecutors and regulation enforcement officers, who continuously name in search of her assistance on circumstances.
She’s additionally educated prosecutors throughout the state with the Texas District & County Attorneys Affiliation, in addition to sufferer advocates with the kids’s advocacy heart — expertise she stated has earned her allies amongst these she’d be managing on the DA’s workplace.
“I had a prosecutor strategy me the morning I filed, and he stated, ‘I used to be going to show in my discover, however I heard you filed, and I’m hanging on as a result of I’m hoping you’re going to win,’” Chacon advised the gang Tuesday night time. “I do know that they need me, I do know that they respect me. If you would like somebody to show you ways to enter battle, you want somebody who’s been within the battle themselves.”
James “Jim” Bethke
Jim Bethke, 52, is a U.S. Military veteran and longtime government director of the Texas Indigent Protection Fee, a state company that oversees public protection for individuals who can’t afford it.
Since leaving that position in 2017, he’s traveled the state organising public protection applications in Lubbock and Harris County, and Choose Ron Rangel recruited him to run the Bexar County’s Managed Assigned Counsel Workplace in 2021.
“I’m the one candidate with expertise and {qualifications} to guide this district lawyer’s workplace into the twenty first century,” Bethke stated at Tuesday’s debate. “For greater than 30 years I’ve constructed from scratch three main justice applications … I do know what works. I do know what doesn’t. I understand how to repair it.”
Although new to San Antonio, Bethke picked up the endorsement of the Texas Organizing Mission, a deep-pocketed bail reform group that’s formidable in Democratic primaries, however has come beneath criticism after posting bond for a person who went on to kill six folks in Bexar County in 2023.
On the January discussion board, Bethke stated he caught the eye of progressive teams as a result of his life’s work has been about offering “equal justice for all,” one thing he’s even suggested on on the The Hague, a court docket within the Netherlands that handles worldwide conflict crimes.
Whereas that will not be the identical mission as a district lawyer, he continued, the DA’s workplace lacks a strategic imaginative and prescient, and must get higher at advocating for itself in entrance of the lawmakers holding the purse strings.
“For those who’re going to run a significant group or main county, there’s sure rules that you just’ve obtained to use,” he stated. “What separates me from the opposite candidates … [I’m] anyone that’s obtained each critical native [and] critical state-level legislative expertise.”
Oscar Salinas
Oscar Salinas, 38, is a Brownsville native who has been a prosecutor in Bexar County for greater than a decade, most just lately working within the Household Violence Division.
“I at all times needed to be an lawyer as a result of my grandmother used to look at Matlock and Perry Mason,” he stated on the Democratic Occasion’s debate in January. “I used to be the primary one in my household to go to school, so I didn’t suppose it was a chance, however someplace alongside the best way, I gained that confidence.”
Although the youngest of the candidates, Salinas careworn his expertise placing away critical criminals.
“I’ve prosecuted a person who bragged about killing a toddler and telling me that I’d by no means discover her physique,” he stated at Tuesday’s debate. “Now he’s doing 75 years for a special case.”
In comparison with candidates who labored on the DA’s workplace a few years in the past, Salinas stated he’s nearer to the bottom on the problems difficult at present’s prosecutors, who receives a commission lower than their counterparts in rural counties, and should sift by way of much more digital proof than prosecutors did a number of a long time in the past.
“If you would like somebody that’s going to let you know what you wish to hear, then don’t vote for me,” he stated at Tuesday’s debate. “However if you would like somebody who’s going to offer you sensible options and have an open dialogue about what our limitations are, what we are able to truly do, then I’m that particular person.”
