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EDITORIAL
Editorial on Marina Torres Draws Comments
In the Tuesday edition of the METNEWS, there appeared an editorial titled, “Torres—a Liar—Is Unfit for Office of Los Angeles City Attorney” commenting on a campaign card disseminated as an insert to the Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times portraying candidate Marina Torres as a “FEDERAL CORRUPTION PROSECUTOR,” which does appear as her ballot designation. As a matter of fact, she is a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California and is now in private practice.
The editorial notes that Elections Code §13107(a)(3) permits ballot designations comprised of “[n]o more than three words designating either the current principal professions, vocations, or occupations of the candidate, or the principal professions, vocations, or occupations of the candidate during the calendar year immediately preceding the filing of nomination documents.” It contests her eligibility to refer to a past occupation in light of a provision of the Code of Regulations restricting such references to candidates who would otherwise be bereft of a description, and asserts that whatever might be allowed to appear on the ballot, Torres is not justified in portraying herself in campaign literature as presently being a prosecutor.
The following letters were received. Also provided was this message, disseminated Wednesday apparently by the Torres campaign, referring to the candidate in the present tense as a “federal corruption prosecutor”:
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Misleading Voters Is Unacceptable
I just read your opinion piece on her. I completely agree with your points. May I suggest something that has not yet been discussed?
What offends me about her and her campaign is this:
The ballot designation law may support her designation, if she actually prosecuted federal corruption cases in 2021—which is questionable. Indeed, under the law, this must have been a “substantial” or “considerable” amount of her time in 2021.
Assuming arguendo that she can legally use that designation, this still does not allow her to use it in her campaign ads, etc. The ballot designation laws apply only to ballot designations. It doesn’t apply to campaign materials, ads, etc. In your current campaign you cannot mislead the public.
Once again, the critical point, in my opinion, is that while a candidate may use a ballot designation which does not actually reflect what he or she is doing currently (as opposed to the preceding calendar year), this does not give that candidate carte blanc to use that designation in campaign literature which suggest or implies that the candidate is currently engaged in that activity NOW.
The simple truth is that Ms. Torres is absolutely not “keeping [current tense] our streets safe.” She may have, and some point in the past, “kept” our streets safe.
And if this is a reflection of her character or integrity (or lack thereof), I am concerned that she will not keep our streets safe in the future if she is elected.
(The writer is a judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court whose name has been withheld at the writer’s request.)
Liars Should Be Thwarted
I read with keen interest your informative analysis of the misleading if not outright fraudulent campaign advertisements by L.A. City Attorney candidate Marina Torres concerning her occupational ballot designation. Your article took me back to similar personal experiences serving on the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s Judicial Elections Evaluations Committee (“JEEC”).
I served for over 20 on JEEC, as a member, sub-committee chair, vice chair and twice as chair. Over that time span we experienced numerous instances in which judicial candidates, much like the candidacy of Marina Torres for L.A. city attorney, where candidates lied about their qualifications or other important facts. They know better and engaging in this conduct does the public and themselves a huge disservice, it is just plain wrong and they know exactly what they are doing. Desperate people do desperate things. “Federal Corruption Prosecutor” has much more “curb appeal” to the voters than “Civil Attorney” and that is exactly why it exceeds the bounds of ethical conduct.
My predecessor as chair of JEEC was my good friend and colleague Gerry Chaleff. Gerry stood by an ethical impact on ratings by candidates found to have lied or be lying. Gerry and I believe a presumptive rating of “not qualified” for any judicial candidate whom JEEC found to be untruthful was appropriate and proper. After all, who wants a bench offer who is a liar deciding their case? What citizen wants a city attorney representing them and their city who is a liar?
As Gerry would say, once they put on the black robe of a judicial officer, it will not get any better. He was absolutely correct.
We coined the phrase for this “presumptive not qualified” approach to the JEEC rating process as “Chaleff’s Law.” We also took steps to ensure the Personal Data Questionnaires (PDQs) were accurate and there was candidate responsibility and accountability for its content. The PDQs capture extensive background information, qualifications, experience, community service and experience for each candidate evaluated by the JEEC. Its a good system. We did find candidates who lied or misstated information on the PDQs so often that we were sadly forced to add language to the PDQs to hold candidates personally responsible for the PDQ content accuracy and added an attestation clause to that effect for the candidates to sign. We did this to eliminate the insulting excuses such as “My secretary filled out the form for me” and other manifestations of character flaws by the candidates caught in the lie.
These are important offices of public trust and the public and the legal profession deserves only the best candidates; those who lie in such cases fail to meet minimum standards of suitability.
BRENT A. BRAUN