For years, Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig cultivated the image of a middle-of-the-road prosecutor—data-driven, reform-minded, willing to evolve. He talked about diversion programs, implemented a race-blind charging system, and touted second chances. In a 2021 Sacramento Bee profile, he was framed as “threading the needle” between public safety and reform—a kind of Goldilocks prosecutor for a divided age.
But let’s drop the pretense. That Jeff Reisig is gone—if he ever truly existed.
In his latest outburst, Reisig shared a City Journal article from the right-wing Manhattan Institute titled “The Worst Prosecutors in America, 2022,” a hit piece targeting progressive prosecutors around the country. Reisig tweeted: “Voters in too many places were conned by the promises of ‘progressive’ prosecutors. Crime and decay spiked in those places. Thankfully, most have been thrown out.”
This isn’t just a policy disagreement. It’s an ideological declaration.
In recent months, Reisig has emerged as a recurring figure in right-wing media—Fox News, Newsmax, City Journal—touting hardline carceral views, denouncing reformers, and parroting conspiracy theories about George Soros and USAID. As the Vanguard noted in April, “Whatever brief flirtation Reisig had with criminal justice reform is officially over.”
It’s not just the rhetoric. It’s the company he keeps.
In February, Reisig posted a screed on social media: “Stunned to now learn that I twice campaigned my butt off for District Attorney against radical, cop-hating, progressive candidates who were apparently bankrolled by some of my own tax dollars, thanks in part to +$20 million USAID grants given to George Soros-connected foundations… This is insanely corrupt and undemocratic stuff. Good riddance USAID.”
This kind of conspiratorial vitriol might be common on fringe message boards or Trump rallies—but coming from a sitting elected DA, it’s dangerous. It erodes public trust, delegitimizes reform efforts, and betrays the democratic process that put him in office.
Reisig may now enjoy painting himself as a truth-teller in a world gone “woke,” but we don’t have to look far to remember when he sang a different tune.
Back in 2018, his own Chief Deputy DA, Jonathan Raven, defended Reisig as a progressive. “The Davis Enterprise endorsed him calling him one of the most progressive in the state,” Raven wrote. “When Sac Bee just endorsed the [Sacramento] DA last Sunday they said she had a lot of work to do to add progressive programs ‘like in Yolo.’” Raven even claimed, “Jeff didn’t vote for Trump and doesn’t like Trump.”
He switched his party registration from Republican to Independent. He expanded mental health court and launched restorative justice programs like Neighborhood Court. At the time, it seemed like Reisig was part of a new wave of pragmatic prosecutors willing to lead from the center.
But today’s Reisig is back on the familiar path of fear-based politics and culture war fodder. His recent media appearances and social posts are nearly indistinguishable from the playbook of the same “tough-on-crime” prosecutors who helped build California’s bloated carceral state in the first place.
What happened?
Some of it is likely political calculation. With reform-minded prosecutors like George Gascón and Larry Krasner under relentless attack from police unions and conservative media, Reisig may be trying to hedge his bets in a post-reform political landscape. In 2022, he barely survived a challenge from Cynthia Rodriguez, a progressive reformer. Perhaps he saw which way the national winds were blowing and decided to tack hard right.
But what’s most disturbing is how comfortably Reisig now occupies that space.
Consider his embrace of City Journal, a publication that consistently frames decarceration as a threat and reformers as enemies of public safety. Or his appearance on Fox News, not to discuss nuanced local programs like mental health court, but to rail against the liberal boogeyman and declare “commonsense” justice under assault.
Even his supposed environmental credentials are now under question. Yolo County Supervisor Jim Provenza once praised Reisig’s enforcement of environmental laws. But Reisig is vice president of the California District Attorneys Association (CDAA), which misappropriated $3 million in settlement funds earmarked for environmental and worker safety cases—money that was instead funneled into general expenses. Those funds were meant to prosecute polluters and protect workers. Instead, they were misused by an organization now synonymous with resistance to criminal justice reform.
And let’s not forget: the CDAA has repeatedly lobbied against sentencing reforms like Prop 47 and Prop 57—both overwhelmingly supported by Yolo County voters. Reisig’s office is not just affiliated with this group; he’s in a leadership position. It’s hard to reconcile that with his claims of being data-driven or progressive.
Reisig has also supported Gov. Gavin Newsom’s controversial CARE Court, which permits the state to mandate treatment for people with severe mental illness. Critics, including Human Rights Watch and Sen. Sydney Kamlager, have denounced the program as coercive and dangerous, warning of a system that overrides self-determination and creates new pathways for institutionalization without due process.
But that fits the new Reisig model perfectly: expanded prosecutorial power, wrapped in the language of compassion, justified by a selective reading of public safety data.
So which is the real Jeff Reisig?
Is it the DA who told The Sacramento Bee in 2021, “I’m not in the same category as hardcore progressives… I view our job more as threading the needle of criminal justice reform and public safety”? Or is it the one now accusing reformers of being “radical, cop-hating,” Soros-funded extremists?
At this point, it’s not a contradiction—it’s a transformation.
Reisig is no longer trying to balance the needle. He’s bent it back toward the old politics of punishment. His days of threading between reform and tradition are over. The mask has slipped.
And what we’re left with is a prosecutor who once dabbled in reform but has now returned to the comfort of the carceral consensus—only this time, with a Fox News audience cheering him on.
Go get em Reisig.
Keep your constituents safe.
“That Jeff Reisig is gone—if he ever truly existed.”
‘I see dead people’ — D.G.
““Voters in too many places were conned by the promises of ‘progressive’ prosecutors. Crime and decay spiked in those places. Thankfully, most have been thrown out.”
I could have said that. So could a lot of people, most people. In fact, a majority. Of voters.
“In recent months, Reisig has emerged as a recurring figure in right-wing media—Fox News, Newsmax, City Journal—touting hardline carceral views”
Carceral views, like putting criminals in jail.
“It’s not just the rhetoric. It’s the company he keeps.”
The old ‘he appeared on Fox, he must be evil’ trick, that only works on stupid people.
“Reisig has also supported Gov. Gavin Newsom’s controversial CARE Court . . . Critics . . . have denounced the program as coercive and dangerous”
So go after Gavin then.
“Reisig is no longer trying to balance the needle. He’s bent it back toward the old politics of punishment. His days of threading between reform and tradition are over. The mask has slipped.”
Balance the needle? Can I slip you a few more metaphors to blend into the mixed word-poo salad ?
Go Jeff! Lock ’em up! Shish Boom Bah!
Can you imagine Jeff Reisig sitting in his office this morning and one of his assistants walks in and says:
Hey Jeff, the Vanguard ran another negative article on you today.
No kidding, tell me something new.
Must be slipping, last one was in April
What’s the count now, 100?
“In 2022, he barely survived a challenge from Cynthia Rodriguez, a progressive reformer.”
Dude what you smokin? He beat her 60-40 and he carried every precinct in the County, except ironically, the one I live in. He’s won five in a row and I’d be surprised if he didn’t retire in 2028 with a fat 3% pension and close to 30 years at the DA’s office.
So I imagine Jeff is thinking about his next act, perhaps in media, who knows? But whatever he does after he retires I wish him well. He’s had that job a long time and despite what people think being a DA is a grind.
“Dude what you smokin? He beat her 60-40 and he carried every precinct in the County, except ironically, the one I live in. He’s won five in a row and I’d be surprised if he didn’t retire in 2028 with a fat 3% pension and close to 30 years at the DA’s office.”
Boy, if that’s barely surviving I can’t imagine how big a landslide would be…
I don’t think anyone confused Reisig with an “actual” progressive.
Turns out that voters don’t want progressives as district attorneys, for the most part.
And the reason for that is because no one has shown that restorative justice (and similar concepts) actually work.