With the exception of the largely ceremonial Bronx borough president’s position, the Bronx district attorney is the foremost boroughwide elected office. And for the first time in the position’s 109-year history, two women — incumbent Darcel Clark and challenger Tess Cohen — will vie for the Democratic nomination in a summer primary.
Clark, who is looking to win a third term in office, has seen the gradual perception change of the Bronx District Attorney’s Office since she first started there in 1986 as an assistant district attorney. Under then-District Attorney Mario Merola, the Bronx’s approach to the crack epidemic in the 1980s was to “lock people up, hit them with every charge and push for maximum sentences.”
