Republican Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe narrowly won a fifth term Tuesday night, fending off a challenge from an attorney who previously spent more than two decades as a prosecutor in his office.
Howe received 51% of the vote, compared to Democratic candidate Vanessa Riebli’s 49%, according to unofficial results from the Johnson County elections office. The race came as most Johnson County officeholders won new terms despite a commission upset and the election of a Democrat to lead the sheriff’s office for the first time in a century.
Howe ran his campaign this year on a slogan of justice rather than politics. The longtime prosecutor began his career as a prosecutor in 1988. He rose through the ranks of the office until he was one of eight attorneys fired during a wave of administrative changes under his predecessor Phill Kline, who left the office took over in 2007.
Howe ran on the Republican ticket the next year and ousted the man who fired him, and has remained the county’s top prosecutor ever since.
In August, Howe handily defeated a primary challenger, the first the district attorney has faced since taking office 16 years ago. Topics covered during that match included the sharp rise in fentanyl deaths in the Kansas City area, including Johnson County, and the complex criminal cases that follow when people are prosecuted for distributing those drugs .
Howe, for his part, has praised his office’s record on fatal fentanyl overdoses and said his prosecutors have tried cases despite the inherent challenges. Such cases are difficult to make because law enforcement officials are often tasked with proving that someone died from a precise drug transaction.
Riebli is trying to put the office in the hands of Democrats and is a partner at the law firm Bath & Edmonds in Johnson County. She entered the race as the prosperous county, once a stronghold for Republicans, has become home to a growing number of Democrats.
The county had about 153,000 Democrats and 193,000 Republicans out of nearly 473,000 registered voters in September, according to election office statistics. About 120,000 are not affiliated with any of the major political parties.
Riebli had a reputation as a lawyer with twenty years of experience in the Public Prosecution Service, where she prosecuted high-profile murder cases. She also blasted Howe for his leadership in the office, saying several prosecutors and associates have left in recent years due to a workplace culture problem and a lack of upward mobility.
Riebli also criticized Howe for restructuring the office during the COVID-19 pandemic so that prosecutors were assigned files under a specific judge rather than working in specialized units.
In the run-up to the election, critics tried to use Riebli’s relatively short tenure as a lawyer against her.
