As pundits compete to explain the results of this year's presidential election, a familiar narrative has emerged about local election results: the notion that voters have delivered a wholesale rejection of criminal justice reform and ended the era of prosecution reform. This narrative fundamentally misreads what is happening in the offices of forward-thinking prosecutors across the United States, where criminal justice reform is thriving. And it misses the biggest threat to reform: the coordinated efforts, in state after state, to undermine or even abolish prosecutorial discretion.

Following Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón's defeat, the recall of Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, and the overwhelming passage of California's Prop 36—which reversed a decade of progress in charging some low-level crimes as misdemeanors rather than felonies—the media seems primed to project the California election results onto the entire country. Predictable headlines emerged within hours, declaring the death of criminal justice reform and the end of the reform prosecution movement.

True, these electoral defeats are setbacks to the progress of criminal justice reform. But California—where an influx of money from tech leaders and special interests has impacted local elections for years—does not tell the whole story. Voters reelected reform-minded District Attorney José Garza in Travis County, Texas despite the coordinated opposition of state legislators and police unions. Orlando, Florida State Attorney........

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