VICTOR JOECKS: Ford, Cannizzaro run from soft-on-crime records

There’s one issue Aaron Ford hasn’t flip-flopped on — his affinity for criminals.

Last month, Attorney General and Democrat gubernatorial candidate Ford sponsored the clemency bid of Norman Smith. In 2015, Smith shot and killed a visibly pregnant woman, Tinesha Antovia Adams, outside a North Las Vegas Applebee’s restaurant.

As the Review-Journal described the scene, a friend saw Smith trying to shove Adams out of a car.

“What are you doing?” the friend said. “She’s pregnant.”

That didn’t stop Smith from pulling out a .40-caliber handgun and firing the shot that killed Adams and the 20-week-old preborn baby boy she was carrying.

At the time, Smith was out on $160,000 bail. He was due in court two days after the shooting. As the Review-Journal reported, he was facing charges for “attempted murder, robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, burglary and conspiracy” connected to robberies and attacks on the Strip.

This isn’t someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and stumbled into a terrible mistake. This is someone who was a danger to those around him.

And Ford wanted the Pardons Board to consider commuting his sentence. Unlike the president who can issue pardons unilaterally, Nevada has a Board of Pardons.

As attorney general, Ford is a member, along with the governor and state Supreme Court justices. Smith didn’t receive a commutation. Ford didn’t even attend the meeting where it was considered. This was so indefensible that Ford’s campaign now claims that sponsoring the clemency bid didn’t mean he would have supported it.

Gov. Joe Lombardo wisely has turned this into a major campaign issue. In a brutal ad, Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson, a Democrat, says, “Ford cares more about criminals than victims.”

Ford is far from the only soft-on-crime Democrat seeking office. In 2018, Democrats gained a trifecta in Carson City. In the 2019 legislative session, they gutted criminal penalties by passing Assembly Bill 236. The expressed purpose of that law was to reduce the number of criminals in jail. It did so by reducing penalties for crimes. That included raising the threshold for felony theft to $1,200. In California, the threshold is $950.

The results are evident in every Walmart, grocery store and drugstore. An increasing number of products are behind lock and key — inconveniencing law-abiding citizens so criminals can avoid jail. It’s amazing how big-government liberals bemoan the cost of putting criminals behind bars.

There are numerous legislative Democrats on the ballot this cycle who voted for that bill. But the one who deserves more scrutiny is Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro, who’s running for attorney general. She held the same position in 2019, which means that she had the power to kill this bill. She didn’t. She even voted for it.

But now that she’s running for attorney general, Cannizzaro acts as if she’s strong on public safety. Her record shows otherwise. Notice she’s not touting her role in passing that terrible bill. If voters want someone who will lock up criminals and not deodorant, they should vote for Adriana Guzmán Fralick.

Soft-on-crime policies aren’t popular, but those policies will remain in place if voters keep electing soft-on-crime politicians such as Ford and Cannizzaro.

Contact Victor Joecks at vjoecks@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4698. Follow @victorjoecks on X.