Voters are heading to the polls in Austin, Texas, on Tuesday to weigh in on a primary race between the county’s George Soros-backed progressive District Attorney Jose Garza and his Democrat challenger Jeremy Sylestine, in a race where public safety and crime have been at the forefront.
Garza, who took office in deep blue Travis County in 2021 after a campaign backed by progressive billionaire Soros, pledging to "reimagine" criminal justice and prosecute police officers, has defended his record as district attorney saying that he is "doing exactly what Travis County voters elected him to do, fixing our broken criminal justice system by standing with survivors, working to end the excessive use of force by police, and prioritizing treatment over incarceration for nonviolent drug offenses."
Garza’s critics, including Sylestine, who previously worked in Garza’s office before starting his own practice, have made the argument that Garza’s office has not advocated for victims of crime and has promoted policies that make the city less safe.
"It seems like every day, there's a new story that comes out where someone has been left holding the bag and disrespected by the DA's office," Sylestine told Fox News Digital last month. "I know from being a prosecutor that there are tough decisions you have to make, but the cases that I'm seeing in terms of domestic violence and sexual assault are just very incongruent with what my experience was and what I want to do is return that power to the victim because the system isn't designed to protect their rights."
Fox News Digital has spoken to numerous family members of crime victims in Austin who have all expressed similar sentiments that Garza’s office has put their wishes on the "back burner" in order to pursue a political agenda that does not align with strong prison sentences.
Several of those family members held a press conference on Monday, including Conny Branham, whose son Christopher was murdered in 2020 in a mob-style attack in a case where the Branham family says Garza ignored their wishes at every turn as he negotiated plea deals with the suspects.
"We had no say in anything," Branham said. "We don’t matter to him."
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"Our heart breaks for them and for their loss, and we work hard every single day with law enforcement to win justice for those families," Garza said earlier in the day.
Additionally, Garza has been under fire for the backlog of cases in his office, his claims that he has a higher conviction rate than his predecessor, which was contradicted by a recent KXAN-TV report, and high profile examples of his office letting violent criminals facing serious charges out of jail while certain crimes have surged.
"DA José Garza might spin crime statistics for political purposes, but Travis County residents know better," Sylestine recently told CBS Austin. "The reality is under Garza’s leadership, our communities have experienced a significant rise in violent crime - especially homicide, aggravated assault, and motor vehicle theft."
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Garza has also faced scrutiny for his aggressive prosecution of police officers in a climate where the relationship between city officials and the police department was already fractured from the city council's move to defund the police in 2020.
That tense relationship came to a head last year, when Garza sparked outrage for showing up at the funeral of a fallen police officer in what some called a "slap in the face."
Sylestine, who calls himself a "proud Democrat" and a "progressive," says he intends to improve the relationship with the police department.
"I grew up as a prosecutor and as a young lawyer in the system, so a lot of the officers and detectives that were making up my cases when I was a younger lawyer are now in commanding positions," Sylestine said.
"So in terms of the relationship that I have, those men and women of the force, they know my brand and they know that I'm not an APD or law enforcement apologist either. If there's something that's been done wrong, they know that Jeremy Sylestine will hold them accountable. But they also know that it takes good communication and trust to make those relationships work and right now, that's fractured, and it doesn't have to be."
Sylestine continued, "Mr. Garza came in and had a political bullseye painted right on the chart on the backs of APD officers. They advertised for prosecutors who wanted to come in specifically to do that and if we did that with any other group, there would be an uproar over what sort of fixed mindset we were having, coming into our cases."
Sylestine has raised significantly more money than Garza, which the Garza campaign has blamed on Republicans crossing over into the Democratic primary and pushing a message with "false Republican talking points."
"I think what you're seeing in my campaign is not any sort of Republican or GOP or right-leaning message," Sylestine told KUT News. "I'm really throwing right down the middle here. This is a campaign about criminal justice and what it means to people — and having someone in the office who's going to do the job."
The winner of Tuesday's primary will move on to the November general election against Republican Daniel Betts. Polls in Travis County open at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m.
