Election Wins Fuel Long Push to End Cash Bail

Read about how Louisville SURJ’s year-round organizing with working-class white people to end cash bail resulted in electing 7 new judges who are more aligned with their goals.

“Our goals are to grow a base of support, predominately in majority white poor and working-class neighborhoods where people are impacted by the inequity of wealth-based release from jail and have the deepest shared interest in the change we need,” said Carla Wallace, a SURJ co-founder and member of Louisville SURJ. “This also becomes the base for fights on other issues at the intersection of race and class,” she said.

Louisville voters supported a majority of the SURJ-endorsed candidates. In the highest-profile contest, Black progressive lawyer Tracy Davis edged out incumbent Judge Mary Shaw, who signed the no-knock warrant that led to Breonna Taylor’s death.”

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