By Michele Hanslee, President of the Association of Los Angeles Deputy District Attorneys.
California voters decisively rejected George Soros’ attempt to bypass the legislative process, with the three District Attorney candidates he financed losing by large margins. In three California DA races, Soros had poured hundreds of thousands of dollars in the last weeks of the campaigns attempting to elect candidates sharing his political and social views of the criminal justice system
In San Diego County, Summer Stephan walloped the Soros’ candidatewho received nearly $1.5 million in Soros dollars by 63-36% margin, in Sacramento County Anne Marie Schubert trounced the Soros financed candidate by a 64-36% margin, and in Alameda County Nancy O’Malley decisively beatthe Soros candidate by a 59-41% margin.
The out of state billionaire’s attempt to buy elections in counties he had no connection with became a central issue in each campaign and helped rally support for the winning District Attorneys. A similar result played out last month in Washington County, Oregon, where the Soros’ financed candidate who received $465,000 in last minute dollars was beaten by a 69-30% margin.
In prior blogs, we criticized Soros’ attempt to buy the criminal justice system and explained that the legislative and initiative process is where policy decisions on the criminal justice system should be made. As the professional association representing 1,000 Deputy District Attorneys in Los Angeles County, we have and will continue to engage in that legislative process. However, as prosecutors our duty- and that of the elected District Attorney-is to fairly enforce those laws and not personal political beliefs on what the law should be.
Soros is unlikely to be deterred by this string of defeats, as the millions he unsuccessfully spent in these campaigns are just rounding errors in his bank account. In fact, a recent LA Times story noted his effort to end-run the legislative process will be expanded to elections for Judges, whose duty it is to faithfully apply the laws. Hopefully voters will respond to efforts to buy Judges in the same fashion as they did to Soros’ attempt to buy three District Attorney offices in 2018.
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