Incumbent Laura Conover swept into a second term as Pima County Attorney Tuesday night, unofficial primary election results show.
On Wednesday, Conover said her office has two immediate goals.
The first is to expand the collaborative “think tank” approach it uses for violent crime into the property and neighborhood crimes units.
“We are motivated by the results we’re getting in the intense collaboration, the think tank approach on violent crime with law enforcement, and we’re getting these great results (from the Homicide Panel) and are trying to use that experience and moving it into our property, neighborhood crimes units, to see if we can move that success into that arena, and we’re very excited about building that out,” she told the Star Wednesday. “Because when you have precious resources, you have to prioritize the needs of the day and shift, so we’re in the middle of that, and that’s (with a heavy public safety emphasis).”
The second goal is to continue the progress in piloting its restorative justice programs.
“We are looking to safely move (cases), where victims choose to move their cases into restorative justice. We know that across the nation, and in time immemorial, with our tribal brothers and sisters, these are profound results, because people who go successfully go through restorative justice tend to never re-enter the criminal justice system again. They tend to never re-offend,” she said. “So we’re very excited, that’s just off the ground, and (the office is) looking to further educate the community about what it is and to see where we can go with that.”
In general, restorative justice focuses on the rehabilitation rather than incarceration.
Through Conover’s first term in office, she focused on a “responsible reform” of the office. After three-and-a-half years of “sweeping reforms,” she said, her office is producing results.
“Not only did we get the reforms, but every marker of violent crime is down, and so we’re seeing public safety results … we are safer and healthier,” she told the Star late Tuesday. “I think that’s what the voters asked for four years ago and I think we really delivering, particularly in the third year, after COVID started to wain, and I think it’s another clear mandate to drive these policies forward.”
Heading into her second term, Conover told the Star Wednesday, she plans to be “reaching across the aisle” to voters that her campaign couldn’t reach during the primary, “to make sure that I’m just constantly informed of what the concerns and needs are, because the justice system flies at the speed of light.”
But long-term, Conover says that a second term in-office will allow her team to further push the county into implement the policies she set forth through her first term.
“The policies that we had implemented, especially considering that we really didn’t get (them) off the ground until the third year, there was a sense of fragility, that they could so easily be turned back and undone, with a stroke of a pen,” she said. “A second term gives us the chance to not only continue to test the results of our efforts, but where we are successfully to solidify the gains to normalize healthy reforms.”
“In Pima County, when heroin hit, and then when crack hit, and when meth arrived, we did the same thing every time. We just went after it with a tough on crime, war on drugs mentality … and it meant trying to jail our way out of illness,” she said. “And for the very first time, we held the line during fentanyl, when there was extraordinary pressure to just give up and try to take the shortcut …. And instead, we emphasized Narcan treatment and intervention, and mobile access teams for street-side intervention. And right now, we’re seeing a small-but-steady decline in the population of open-air homelessness, and we’re getting a market decline on overdose fatalities, and that’s a massive success … that’s going to benefit our neighborhoods for decades to come.”
Conover said it’s important to her office to have “a sense of” equity, fairness, access and transparency for all county residents. She plans to go on “a huge listening tour” for residents’ concerns.
“The concerns change so fast, and it’s always good to be just constantly informed. The question now is, will you sit down with me? And those who refuse to sit down with me for four years, it wasn’t productive, and I hope many will change their mind … because this is not a game. Public safety is not a game. We’re here for real solutions for real families here in our community,” she said. “I’m going to be engaging in what what I did four years ago during this same exact time period … everyday Republican voters did not participate in in the election, and I am most certainly aware that I am southern Arizona’s top law enforcement officer for everyone, not just some.”
Conover took nearly 67% of the vote, according to unofficial results from the Pima County Elections Department as of Wednesday afternoon. She defeated Mike Jette, a career criminal prosecutor with nearly two decades of experience at the county, state and federal levels, who gained about 33% of the vote, unofficial results show.
As the winner of the Democratic primary, Conover will remain the county’s top prosecutor since no Republican or third-party candidates filed in the November general election.
Conover told the Star on Wednesday that that it was a “fair concern” that the race could have been closer than it actually was. But “it’s not all close, it’s a mandate.”
“I’m impressed by the voters, and I’m certainly impressed with (my) team, who led a county-wide, grassroots effort,” Conover said. “Four years ago it was a really clear mandate, that Pima County was done with spending the most-possible money on the most-expensive system, with a tough-on-crime regime that wasn’t producing results and costing taxpayers a fortune, and destroying neighborhoods, and families.”
Late Tuesday, Conover said the election results showed her that voters chose the county’s top prosecutor “on the priorities,” and not on the massive amounts money spent on “misleading articles and advertisements.”
“And it’s the same mandate we had four years ago, and I’m conscious of that, and so is the community. It should mean that the waters should calm now, a bit, so that we all start working together towards public safety policies that the community clearly wants, and we can be done with the loud, but small, voice suggesting we should go back to the days of tough-on-crime,” she said.
Jette could not be reached for comment on Tuesday night or Wednesday afternoon. But Jette spoke to a gathering outside Union Public House after results began rolling in late Tuesday, the Tucson Sentinel reported.
“I’d like to see something different but (Conover) is the presumptive Democratic nominee,” Jette said, the Sentinel reported late Tuesday. “I have a heartfelt appreciation for my team and wish (Conover) the best of luck.”
Conover was first elected to become the Pima County Attorney in November 2020 and will remain in office through 2028. She was previously a criminal defense attorney who worked in superior and federal courts for over a decade. Prior to her first term, Conover founded her own law firm in 2016, and in 2018 she was appointed by federal judges to manage nearly 400 federal contract lawyers statewide.
Ahead of her re-election, the incumbent said they would commit to fight for reproductive rights, continuing her office’s environmental unit to protect groundwater here, pushing preventative measures against violent crime and confronting the fentanyl crisis.
The Pima County Attorney race was a contentious one, and saw more money flow into the respective campaigns than any other county race, over half a million dollars combined. On Tuesday night, Conover wished her challenger “and the former administration” well, and said she hopes “they go forward and find joy.”
“I am so incredibly proud of my team, that despite a brutal, negative campaign, we held our heads high and we stayed on the high road, and the high road took us home. We kept our very souls, our core values and our moral compass, despite a shockingly-negative personal campaign,” she said. “The former administration couldn’t win on the issues … working reforms and public safety outcomes, so they went personally after me. I withstood it, and I kept my promise to go high, when they went low.”
