Kim Foxx airs TV ad touting work fighting ‘violence and injustice’ as challenger Bill Conway vows a ‘public corruption reckoning’

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx released her first TV ad for the election cycle on Thursday, painting herself as a progressive prosecutor whose upbringing prepared her to battle both “violence and injustice.”

But Democratic primary challenger Bill Conway did his best to portray her as a protector of the powerful as he released an ethics plan aimed at “removing the influence of politics from the State’s Attorney’s Office.”

Foxx’s TV ad promotes her record and personalizes her work as the county’s top prosecutor.

“The tower I grew up in wasn’t made of ivory, and poverty and gun violence weren’t just on the news,” Foxx says in the ad, over grainy images of Cabrini Green, where Foxx grew up and photos of her as a child.

Foxx has referenced growing up in the high-rises. She previously told the Sun-Times her mother’s sisters all raised families at Cabrini, and on Foxx’s floor there was a “sense of community.”

It’s because of that upbringing that Foxx’s work has taken on “violence and injustice,” she says in the ad, and it’s why she’s devoted resources to “prosecute violent crime, and guns,” why she’s taken on the National Rifle Association and “prioritized justice reform, not jail time for minor offenses.”

Earlier Thursday, Conway, one of Foxx’s opponents in the March primary, released his ethics plan, which not taking money from property tax attorneys and promising a “public corruption reckoning” if he’s elected.

Conway also pointed to the Jussie Smollett case as one where a “connected celebrity got a special deal that others” wouldn’t have received.

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Smollett was accused of making a false report to Chicago police and was indicted in March on 16 counts of disorderly conduct for allegedly lying about being attacked in a hate crime. Weeks later, the state’s attorney’s office abruptly dropped the charges, sparking outrage as well as confusion.

Foxx’s television spot hit the airwaves Thursday. Her campaign reported raising nearly $600,000 last quarter. The campaign began 2020 with over $1.1M in cash on hand, raising nearly five times as much in the fourth quarter as it did in the first half of 2019, according to a release with the ad.

“These numbers show that the public believes in the progress that State’s Attorney Foxx is making, and they know her work has just begun,” part of the release said.

Late last year, Foxx acknowledged that she didn’t handle the Smollett case well and stressed her mistakes had more to do with not informing the public with the ins-and-outs of her office, not the investigation itself.

“And I own that,” she said at the time. “I should’ve done better at that. It didn’t meet the standards that we set for ourselves at the office.”

In the ad released Thursday, Foxx didn’t mention Smollett, focusing instead on the work she’s done.

“For so many, it’s crucial we get this work done,” Foxx says at the close of the ad. “For me, it’s personal we get it right.”