For example, Dan Wolk has a healthy lead in finances, drawing money across the political divide in Davis. His filing tells you that he is the odds-on favorite to become the city’s next mayor pro tem, to succeed Joe Krovoza and become mayor. But aside from that, we do not know a lot about who else will emerge as a candidate and who will ultimately make up the Davis City Council.
However, the financial disclosures tell us a tremendous amount about the judgeship race. Back in June of 2008, Judge Tim Fall was then being challenged by Deputy DA James Walker. As it turned out, Mr. Walker did not really have the full backing of even his own office, the judges rallied around Judge Fall and he handily defeated James Walker, 76-23 percent in a race that was never close.
When Clinton Parish announced he was running against Judge Dan Maguire, it looked like a different story. He had his boss Jeff Reisig firmly behind him, as well as Sheriff Ed Prieto. He saw a relatively newly-appointed judge, without much experience presiding over criminal cases, and figured he could make some hay.
It is still early, but the early filings demonstrate that if Judge Maguire is truly vulnerable, we do not see it. He quickly amassed the support of the entire Yolo County judicial bench. The result is that Mr. Parish has been out-raised by a nearly five to one margin by Judge Maguire.
In addition to the entire bench, Judge Maguire has amassed the support of many defense attorneys, including many who supported Jeff Reisig in 2006 over Pat Lenzi – a race that, despite Mr. Reisig’s tremendous advantage monetarily and with endorsements, ended up incredibly close.
Perhaps most telling is that many of the people that Clinton Parish works with on a daily basis are not supporting him. We are not just talking about defense attorneys either.
Perhaps the biggest blow to Clinton Parish is that the Deputy Sheriff’s Association this week came out for Dan Maguire. Mr. Parish has touted his law enforcement credentials and has gotten the support of some of the police associations in the county (although it is difficult to tell how many because, unlike Judge Maguire, his endorsements are not listed on his website).
You might think – what is the big deal here? It is one association. The big deal is that the deputy sheriffs probably know Clinton Parish better than any other police organization in the county because it is deputy sheriffs who serve as the bailiffs in the Yolo County Courthouse.
In other words, the law enforcement group that has members in contact with Clinton Parish every single day in the court system is not supporting Clinton Parish.
Leaving aside any assessment on Mr. Parish’s qualifications, in retrospect there were several critical mistakes made by Mr. Parish in calculating this move.
The first is that, even now, one of the most formidable political forces in the county is Presiding Judge Dave Rosenberg. As a sitting judge, Dave Rosenberg has to sit on the sidelines for most political fights, but this is still the same person who was a two-time mayor, a member of the Yolo County Board of Supervisors, and a formidable fundraiser and advisor to two Democratic governors, with Gray Davis ultimately appointing him to the bench before his 2003 ouster.
While on the bench, he has still managed to turn the Davis Odd Fellows into a force in the community, and has been extremely influential as the presiding judge.
The previous Deputy DA who challenged a sitting judge did not fare well against the still well-oiled Rosenberg machine, and it appears that Mr. Parish will suffer a similar fate.
But it is more than that. Clinton Parish chose the wrong message at the wrong time. This is not 1994 or even 2004. The tough on crime mantra of the last two decades has worn thin, communities and local governments are cash strapped, and the idea that tough on crime is the only way to be and that the voters would feel strongly enough about the issue to dismiss a sitting judge is a tragic miscalculation.
The financial disclosures show that Clinton Parish has only raised $5000 and the money, for the most part, is not coming from outside of his base.
In fact, the political establishment, if it has gotten involved in this race, has come out for Judge Maguire. He not only has the support of current and past public defenders, but also three members of the Davis City Council including Mayor Krovoza, and two members of the Yolo County Board of Supervisors including Don Saylor, who was a staunch supporter of Jeff Reisig.
Public Guardian Cass Sylvia has come out in favor of Judge Maguire, as well, and remember that her office often works with the district attorney’s office and various judges in their advocacy.
The writing is on the wall here. Can things change? Yes, it is January. But Mr. Parish has young children and a good career ahead of him. District attorneys do not make a tremendous amount of money and he has already put in $11,000 of his own money into this race.
We have personally been there and done that, but at some point you have to understand where the political winds are blowing and make decisions that are responsible for your family. We do not know Mr. Parish’s financial situation, but our best advice to him is not to put much more personal money into this race – no need to throw good money after bad and try to shore up a cause that you likely will be unable to save.
That said, political campaigns notoriously change with the wind, but unless external money starts flowing, there is simply no way that Mr. Parish is going to be able to unseat a sitting judge who has done nothing to offend anyone, that we can tell.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
An excellent campaign pitch for Judge McGuire.
“An excellent campaign pitch for Judge McGuire.”
An analysis that Parish is in trouble is a campaign pitch for Judge Maguire?
DMG,
“The big deal is that the deputy sheriffs probably know Clinton Parish better than any other police organization in the county because it is deputy sheriffs who serve as the bailiffs in the Yolo County Courthouse.
In other words, the law enforcement group that has members in contact with Clinton Parish every single day in the court system is not supporting Clinton Parish.”
Maybe, but the Deputy Sheriff’s Association represents all deputies. What percentage of all deputies are bailiffs? Could it be that those working as bailiffs supported Parish, but were outnumbered by the rest? How do they determine whom to support?
“Clinton Parish chose the wrong message at the wrong time. This is not 1994 or even 2004. The tough on crime mantra of the last two decades has worn thin…”
Has he run on a “tough on crime” platform? I know he’s touting his criminal law experience, but that’s not necessarily the same thing as talking about “taking out all the trash.”
“District attorneys do not make a tremendous amount of money…”
Relatively speaking I suppose. I don’t know what level Parish is at, but assuming, based on the length of time he said he’s worked there, he’s likely earning upwards of 120K according to the County HR Salary Resolution for Deputy DA IV. Still, 11K is a lot.
Let me pick some nits:
[i]”He quickly amassed the support of the entire Yolo County Judicial Bench.”[/i]
Is there an organization called the Yolo County Judicial Bench? Or did you mean to say the ‘Yolo County judicial bench’?
[i]”… including many who supported Jeff Reisig in 2006 over Pat Lenzi – a race that, despite Mr. Reisig’s tremendous advantage monetarily and with endorsements, ended up incredibly close.”[/i]
Incredibly close was Bush against Gore in Florida in 2000 or Romney against Santorum in the Iowa caucus this year. Reisig beat Lenzi by nearly 3,000 votes in 2006. Far closer among local races was Lamar Heystek outpacing Mike Levy for the Davis City Council’s last seat by 277 votes. In fact, Lamar only beat 4th place finisher, Stan Forbes, by 570 votes.
[i]”… unless external money starts flowing, there is simply no way that Mr. Parish is going to be able to unseat a sitting judge who has done nothing to offend anyone …”[/i]
You are probably right. I think your analysis from top to bottom makes sense. However, keep this in mind: most of our county’s eligible voters will not cast a vote in this race*; and of those who do vote, I would guess a majority will not cast an informed vote. They won’t, for example, witness a case presided over by Judge Maguire. They won’t read up on each man’s judicial philosophy. They won’t attend a campaign event to hear one or the other speak. They will likely just fill in the box for Dan Maguire because he has the title of judge before his name.
In my opinion, it is ridiculous that we vote for judges and that sitting judges are forced to raise private campaign donations which at the very least give off the appearance that those supposedly independent individuals owe favors to certain people in our community, including lawyers who will argue cases before those judges.
*In the Fall-Walker race in June, 2008, 27,719 votes were cast, 76.5% going to Fall. According to Freddie Oakley, there were 90,706 registered voters in Yolo County in 2008. In the February presidential primary, 53,969 voters cast a ballot.
Yes, because:
1. It reads like a duck.
2. It follows by just 48 hours another lengthy, favorable writeup, beginning–“[quote][b]Judge Maguire Surges to Huge Advantage[/b] It is early but if Deputy DA Clinton Parish thought that Judge Dan Maguire was vulnerable, he may be sorely mistaken.”[/quote]3. You wrote back in October at the beginning of this “unseemly election battle”:[quote]”The Vanguard had its first opportunity to sit down with Judge Daniel P. Maguire, and found him to be a calm, collected and devoted individual….The problem becomes obvious here, as a judge is supposed to be fair and impartial. Talk to Judge Maguire for a few minutes and it becomes clear he is exactly that.”[/quote]4. Only a week before you told us how fair and impartial Judge McGuire is–based on a “few minutes (talk)”–you summarized Mr. Parish’s announcement with lengthy write-ups about his role in the infamous cheese case, noting: [quote]”Mr. Parish is also well known for his court room antics….And finally we have numerous cases where Mr. Parish has thrown what is tantamount to an adult tantrum when he has not gotten his way.”[/quote]5. You’ve constantly targeted Mr. Parish, criticizing his performance in pretty much every case he’s tried.
6. You chose to illustrate your analysis with Judge McGuire in a close-up formal, movie star portrait with the U.S. flag and some kind of black robe and Mr. Parish in a distant snapshot of a tiny pinhead with horns coming out of it.
7. You write today a long series of campaign-like comments. (“The American people don’t want a tough-on-crime judge anymore. They want to reduce spending.”)
Given what you feel about and have written about Mr. Parish over the years, it’s understandable that you would be against Mr. Parish in his campaign against Judge McGuire. Don’t try to hide a reasonable opinion. I think you should endorse the judge now and forego every-other-day “analyses” that are about as analytical as Fox News analysis.
Yes, it reads like a campaign pitch to me. We’ll see what the future holds for [u]Vanguard[/u] coverage of this race.
Who knows who should be a judge? Certainly not the voters, in my opinion.
“Maybe, but the Deputy Sheriff’s Association represents all deputies. What percentage of all deputies are bailiffs? Could it be that those working as bailiffs supported Parish, but were outnumbered by the rest? How do they determine whom to support?”
Wouldn’t you think that those who know and work with him would be more influential? Moreover, they rotate and so probably most of the deputies have worked in the court and with Parish at some point in time.
All: I’m not a fan of judicial elections and agree that a lot of people will not know the issues involved. We don’t get to choose however at least at this time.
Just Saying:
It reads like an analysis of who is likely to win the race. I did not get into issues or point out in this article points of agreement and disagreement.
Your point two, so what? Do you disagree?
Your point three, four, and five are irrelevant to this article.
Point six, I received one picture from Judge Maguire and pulled one photo off of Parish’s site, I don’t have a lot of choice in photos.
Point seven, it was an analysis of the electoral landscape. This is a year where it seems people are more concious about their money than they are about getting tough on crime. In 1994 or other years, I think Parish’s message would resonate more strongly.
Is that based on my assessment of the voters? Yes it is. Is it subjective? Yes. It was a commentary, meant my view.
“Given what you feel about and have written about Mr. Parish over the years, it’s understandable that you would be against Mr. Parish in his campaign against Judge McGuire”
WHat does that have to do with this story which was an assessment as to who will win based on a limited set of data – money and endorsements?
“Yes, it reads like a campaign pitch to me. “
It only reads like a campaign pitch because you have to add extraneous material to it that were not brought up in this article. If the numbers would have been reversed, the article would have said the same thing about Parish. But the fact is that he has been outraised $25K to $5K in contributions. That is not a particularly close margin and suggests when coupled with endorsements that Parish is in trouble.
The fact is that nothing you have said disputes the arguments made in this column and the only way you get to a campaign pitch is by including material external to this piece.
[i]”Who knows who should be a judge? Certainly not the voters, in my opinion.”[/i]
While it obviously has the flaw that elected executives are motivated by their own politics, I think the normal system of letting a governor select our state judges and have the state senate vet them and approve or reject them (or likewise, at the federal level, have the president pick the judges and have them vetted by the US Senate and then voted in or out by the full Senate) is the way to go.
One reform I would like to get rid of is lifetime appointments for judges at the state and federal level. I think lifetime appointments cause a couple of needless problems:
1. Tthey give the appointer an incentive to pick someone too young and inexperienced for the job, because doing so extends the appointer’s influence far more years beyond his time in office. If the president picks a 33-year-old for a federal judgeship, that judge will be in his seat for 50 years or more. If he picks a 62-year-old, the president’s man is probably there for less than half the time the younger guy would be; and
2. They give the lifetime judges too much freedom to stay on the job well past their primes, when many in older age lack energy, and some are senile or headed in that direction.
What I would suggest as a reform is this: take the number of judges on a panel–such as the 9 we have on the SCOTUS–multiply that by 2 and you get the number of years an appointment should last. For the US Supremes that would be 18 years. For the California Supreme Court, where there are 7 members, their terms would last 14 years. For the Yolo County Superior Court, where there are 10, the terms would last 20 years.
The mathematical genius of my proposal is that it evens out the number of judges each governor or president gets to make. That is, in each 4-year executive term, the terms of two judges in each panel will always expire and require replacement. We won’t have situations like we had with Jimmy Carter, who did not get to appoint any Justices to SCOTUS. We will (largely*) avoid situations where one president can completely change the Court with 4 appointments in 4 years.
A president could still pick a young judge. But he would not have any reason of legacy to do so. He could also pick an older judge, if he thought the codger was best suited for the job. A governor or president could also re-appoint a judge whose term has expired.
Regardless of new appointments or old, having a fixed term of years for judges strikes me as a good balance to get the best people on the job, to allow them judicial independence and to remove the incentives we now have which don’t serve justice.
*If judges die or retire before their terms are up, I would have the chief executive appoint replacements who would fill out the remaining years of the term of the judge who quits or dies.
[quote]2. They give the lifetime judges too much freedom to stay on the job well past their primes, when many in older age lack energy, and some are senile or headed in that direction. [/quote]
What oldsters may lack in energy (even assuming they do lack energy – I know many older folks who could run circles around some of their younger counterparts) they may make up for in life experience. Just because you get old does not necessarily mean you become “senile or headed in that direction”…
There are many rationales (whether you agree w them or not) to lifetime appointments – the most important one being that if the person is appointed for a lifetime, they supposedly will not be swayed by political considerations, as they might be if given a shorter term (would be concerned about their future when the term expires) or have to run for the office (possible corruption by campaign contributions)…
“the most important one being that if the person is appointed for a lifetime, they supposedly will not be swayed by political considerations,”
Well that rationale certainly doesn’t seem to hold true for the Supremes of either persuasion.
Could it be because he is being backed by Jeff Reisig who isn’t well liked in this county?