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Pittsburgh's longtime district attorney will face challenge from left in May's Democratic primary [1]

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Date: 2023-01-19

Dugan also took issue with the district attorney’s bad relationship with Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey, a former state House member whom Zappala claimed had represented a district that is “routinely considered to be some of the most violent neighborhoods in Western Pennsylvania.” Dugan said Thursday that Zappala’s words were “extremely unhelpful [and] very uninformed. Mayor Gainey takes seriously the rise in crime. He wears it on his sleeve.”

Zappala himself turned back a primary challenge from his left in 2019 by a 59-41 margin, but he's only attracted more criticism from progressives since then. In 2021, for instance, he earned national attention when he forbade his prosecutors from offering any plea deals to clients represented by a prominent Black attorney who called the district attorney's office "systematically racist."

Several local elected officials responded by calling for Zappala to leave office: Then-state Rep. Summer Lee, who now represents about half of the county in Congress, tweeted, "Stephen Zappala must be removed immediately. Pass it along." The district attorney did away with that policy after the backlash, but his critics have continued to fault his record.

Zappala himself launched his reelection campaign last month by declaring, “[W]hen other areas of the country are failing, this area has not stepped backward at all.” He also said around that same time that progressive policing has “failed miserably,” arguing, “We’ve been undermining the relationship the police need with the community.”

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/19/2148102/-Pittsburgh-s-longtime-district-attorney-will-face-challenge-from-left-in-May-s-Democratic-primary

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