Dem Rep. Yarmuth draws 'defund the police' primary challenger
White House 'backpedaling' on 'defund the police' movement: Heritage Action Exec Dir.
Heritage Action Executive Dir. Jessica Anderson discusses division within the Democratic party over police funding and the potential impact of crime policies on the 2022 midterm elections.
A defund the policeactivist in Louisville, Ky., has thrown down the primary gauntlet against the area’s sixth-term Democraticcongressman.
Democrat state Rep. Attica Scott has officially announced a primary challenge against the Kentucky congressional delegation’s only Democrat, Rep. John Yarmuth.
Scott, who dropped her first campaign ad with her announcement Wednesday morning, said Louisville "needs a leader who sees its true colors and understands the experiences of all of our neighbors."
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In the ad, the state representative gave her vocal support behind the highly criticized Green New Deal and the decriminalization of pot, and said she and her daughter were the victims of the "system of incarceration" after their arrest during a Breonna Taylor protest in September 2020.
Scott and her daughter were arrestedon felony rioting charges as well as charges of unlawful assembly and failure to disperse. The charges were later dropped.
The Kentucky progressive has been an outspoken advocate of defunding the police in the past, vocalizing her support of defunding law enforcement in an NPR interviewin September 2020 and claiming that justice is "hardly" ever served "when it's police officers murdering Black people."
"And so we are clear that our call to action is to continue to make sure that the city of Louisville understands that we will not go away, that we will continue to demand the defunding of police and the dismantling of this police department because it's corrupt from the inside out, from the bottom to the top," Scott said. "And it cannot continue to function in the way that it does."
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Scott reiteratedher calls to defund the police in an interview with Slate in March, saying she wants police funds reallocated "to meet the economic and social needs of our community."
"Policing is a third of the city of Louisville’s budget," she said. "And then we have to dismantle the system of policing."
"I do say that very often we have to dismantle the system of policing and then we have to reimagine what community safety looks like for those of us who’ve been on the front lines of justice," she continued.
Scott also defended her calls for defunding the police and said Democratic candidates affected by their progressive-wing colleagues’ calls to pull law enforcement funding didn’t have the "backbone" to win.
"You don’t lose campaigns because I, state Rep. Attica Scott, is talking about defunding police and making sure we’re fully funding public education," Scott said in an interview with Richard French. "You lose your race because of your inability to be effective as a candidate."
Scott has also vehemently supported defunding the police multiple times, including claiming that police officers are "murdering" Black Americans.
Louisville has the 35th-largest police force in the nation with almost 1,250 sworn officers, according to World Atlas.
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Additionally, Scott is an opponent of the filibuster and supports the abolition of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), demanding ICE’s erasure on social mediamultiple times, as well.
Neither Scott’s nor Yarmuth’s campaigns responded to Fox News’ requests for comment.
