Today is Election Day for the district attorney’s office in Queens, New York. By deciding what the criminal justice system will look like for this borough of 2.5 million people, the election will have national implications for the movement against mass incarceration.

The most radical of the candidates, Tiffany Cabán, stands out as the only public defender in a crowded field. She joins a growing trend of public defenders, such as Larry Krasner in Philadelphia and Franklin Bynum in Houston, who are hoping to transfer the values of public defense to powerful elected offices in the criminal justice system. They aim to wield this leverage in favor of their former clients.

It’s no coincidence that public defenders are so visible in the fight against the criminalization of working people; or that their campaigns have attracted significant support from socialists. The right of poor and working people to a legal defense was not, as is popularly believed, the product of noblesse oblige, generously granted from above. It was won through mass struggle by socialist and antiracist organizers. What’s more, public defenders have, at times, been organized into powerful labor unions. Through those unions, they’ve been able to connect their interests to their clients’ interests to forge real solidarity, and defend their clients on a collective, rather than just individual, level.