Legacy lap: Kim Foxx reflects on growing up in Cabrini, leading 'difficult conversations’ with no ‘simple answers’

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx has stayed mostly quiet about the race to succeed her — but on Thursday she spoke up, arguing that the tight margin between the two Democratic candidates shows there is “not a mandate, if you will, to roll things back.”

Foxx is stepping down after eight years of being praised by some and vilified by others. But the suburban Democrat rejected the notion that the race to succeed her was a referendum on her.

“Is this a referendum on something?” she asked. “I don’t think it’s a referendum on an individual.

“I think we have, over the last eight years, begun a really robust conversation around what criminal justice reform looks like in Cook County. And I think the electorate, even the small electorate that voted, are engaged in that discussion.”

Ashlee Rezin and Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Speaking to reporters, Foxx took a few minutes to talk about the contest and her legacy, even as votes were still being counted in the Democratic primary battle between Clayton Harris III and Eileen O’Neill Burke.

Burke is leading Harris by about 8,100 votes, but potentially tens of thousands of mail-in votes remain to be counted in the coming days, so neither candidate has declared victory nor conceded defeat.

Burke did better in the suburbs, but Harris has held a slight lead in Chicago, particularly in wards on the South and West sides.

“I’ve not seen an election for state’s attorney this close in my lifetime,” Foxx said. “I think the reason that this race is so close is because there are people who are impatient with the way things have been.”

Foxx conceded she found some of the campaign rhetoric “disheartening,” but she did not single out either candidate.

Harris was backed by the same Democratic organization that supported Foxx, led by Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, for whom Foxx served as chief of staff before her election as the county’s top prosecutor.

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

Harris said he supported Foxx’s agenda and wouldn’t make significant changes.

Burke said she would take a harder line on detaining people charged with crimes, but she didn’t propose any significant changes to Foxx’s policies and supported restorative justice courts and diversion programs favored by Foxx.

Both candidates essentially ran on progressive platforms. And Foxx took credit for that.

“I think what we’ve seen in this race, again, are ideas that were not dissimilar on many aspects, and voters having to make a choice about what they want to see in their next state’s attorney,” she said.

Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times

Foxx insisted that “I have no concerns about whomever comes in and does this work” because she believes part of her legacy is that “we are no longer questioning whether or not our system was broken, and instead we’re actively working to fix it.

“I hope my legacy is that we have really difficult conversations that sometimes don’t have really simple answers,” she said. “And that we stop politicizing death and pain and real legitimate fear and work collectively on long term lasting solutions.”

Foxx told reporters that she found Tuesday’s historically low turnout — just 22.9% of registered voters in the city and 17.7% in suburban Cook — “deeply concerning,” saying it “tells me that we have an electorate that has not been engaged and that’s very troubling, not just for the state’s attorney’s race, but for our democracy as a whole.”

Foxx became a national figure during her time in office, though a polarizing one who has had a significant impact on criminal justice in Cook County.

Under Foxx, the office overturned hundreds of convictions of people who were victims of alleged police misconduct and undertook efforts to vacate convictions for low-level marijuana offenses after the state legalized recreational marijuana. She also was an important supporter of the SAFE-T Act, which made Illinois the first state in the nation to eliminate cash bail.

But Foxx also faced criticism from the Chicago police union and former Mayor Rahm Emanuel, particularly over her handling of the Jussie Smollett case. The actor ultimately was found guilty of lying to police about being the victim of a hate crime attack that prosecutors said he staged. Foxx dropped the initial charges against Smollett, though the actor was later charged again. Earlier this month, Smollett asked the Illinois Supreme Court to overturn his conviction.

Foxx also clashed with Emanuel’s successor, Lori Lightfoot, and her police superintendent, David Brown, on cases in which her office declined to approve felony charges.

Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times

The primary race between Harris and Burke was expected to be a referendum on Foxx, who was part of the first wave of so-called progressive prosecutors to be elected across the country. Foxx announced last year she would not seek a third term, despite winning her races handily both times.

While she insists the race has not been a referendum on her, she proudly suggests she is her own legacy.

“I grew up in Cabrini, “ Foxx told reporters Thursday. “My legacy is a girl from 624 West Division, the child of a single mom, who grew up in this city in one of the toughest neighborhoods, who got an opportunity to go to college, law school, become a prosecutor and the top prosecutor.

“What I know is when I see little Black girls and Black boys and people who live in neighborhoods like the one I grew up in, they know that it is possible to come from an environment like the one I came from and not be a statistic. That legacy that cannot be undone.”

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times