How crime is igniting new conflicts between red states and blue cities | CNN Politics

From Florida and Mississippi to Georgia, red states are taking aggressive new steps to seize authority over local prosecutors, city policing policies, or both.

The GOP governors and state legislators pushing these preemption proposals mostly argue that they are necessary to combat high crime rates in municipalities under Democratic control.

Many of the red state moves to preempt local district attorneys have targeted the so-called “progressive prosecutors” elected in many large cities over recent years.

Julian Zelizer: Democrats may have muddled their message against preemption of local criminal justice authority.

He says national Democrats joined GOP effort to overturn a D.C. city council's criminal justice reform.

Zelizer says state moves to preempt local prosecutorial authority have followed success of 'progressive' prosecutors.

The push to seize more authority over criminal justice comes after a decade in which red states have dramatically expanded their efforts to tighten their control over blue states.

Some of those targeted by these efforts, such as Krasner and Warren, are White.

But in most cases, these efforts target Black local officials in heavily minority jurisdictions.