Washington, D.C. – Wisconsin Senate candidate Mandela Barnes, who refuses to oppose defunding the police, continues to prove that he is weak on crime.
It was recently revealed that when Barnes was a state legislator in 2016, he introduced legislation to eliminate “monetary bail as a condition of release for a defendant charged with” a crime, no matter the severity of the crime. Yes, you read that correctly – a proposal to eliminate prosecutors’ ability to keep dangerous people in custody.
This bill died in committee but came after current Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm supported similar views in his inaugural campaign. Those views came back to light last month after Chisholm set what he later called an “inappropriately low” bail amount ($1,000) in the case of Darrell Brooks, who allegedly killed six people in a Waukesha, WI Christmas parade rampage just weeks after a domestic violence arrest.
If the Barnes bill passed in 2016, Brooks, along with many other criminals, would have been freely walking the streets of Wisconsin for the past 5 years. Is that what Wisconsin families want?
Statement from NRSC Spokeswoman Lizzie Litzow: “Mandela Barnes is weak on crime and wants to put Wisconsin families in danger. To allow criminals to freely walk the streets before their trials and bar courts from considering the severity of a defendant’s crime is simply reckless. Barnes needs to start putting Wisconsinites’ safety before his own radical political agenda and the interests of his radical brigade.”
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