Political Campaign Snapshots 1: Michael Nava

Superior Court Judge hopeful Michael Nava, along with his legally married partner George Herzog (above right with Pardeep Saini and John Trout), hosted a thank-you dinner over the Labor Day weekend for campaign volunteers.



The meal for two dozen people was from a local Mexican restaurant, the food and the company were great...



...and there was an interesting multiracial mixture of gay and straight, young and old, such as Sandy Mori (above) who had wandered into the Nava campaign as a Japantown activist because she liked him.



Last Thursday Nava (above) held a fundraiser at Medjool, the Mission District restaurant that has been ground zero for gentrification controversies.



We started at the rooftop bar and restaurant which couldn't have been lovelier, but the fundraiser turned out to be downstairs on the mezzanine level.



Laurel Muniz and her husband from Bernal Heights showed up...



...along with dignified looking characters from the Latino Lawyers caucus...



...and the former Chair of the California Democratic Party, Art Torres (above with Nava).



Along with Mary Ann Massenburg and Gabriel White (above), Nava is going to need all the help he can get. California's judiciary are circling the wagons over this race and are holding expensive fundraisers for Nava's opponent, the sitting judge Richard Ulmer, maintaining the unconstitutional stance that judges should never have to face an election. The negative ads are starting with a series of telephone "push polls" where interviewees are being asked, "Would you be less inclined to vote for Nava if you knew he was an opportunist?" or "Would you be less inclined to vote for Nava if you knew he lived in Daly City?"



Nava does live just over the border from San Francisco in a modest home in Daly City, on the foggy Pacific bluffs overlooking a popular hang gliding location. It seems that judges are not legally required to live in the counties where they sit, and Daly City was the only place Nava and Herzog could afford six years ago. His opponent Judge Ulmer's house is in Daly City's nearby antithesis, namely Hillsborough, though Ulmer rents an aparment in Park Merced so his daughter can be close to her private school at St. Ignatius, according to his website.

However, the last word I would use about Nava's character is "opportunistic." In fact, the glad-handing and backstabbing of politics seems to be utterly antithetical to his nature, and it's amazing he has managed to survive this far into the political process. To lend a hand before the November 2nd election, click here for Nava's campaign website, and join the volunteer army. There are some wonderful people involved.

Michael Nava for San Francisco Superior Court Judge

In the "Politics" column of the Bay Area Reporter newspaper last week, there was a small announcement about a campaign kickoff party at the Eureka Lounge in the Castro District for the lawyer Michael Nava (above). He has been on something of an informal career judge track over the last 20 years, working as a research attorney and writing judicial opinions for the legendary Arleigh Woods on the Second Court of Appeals in Los Angeles during the 1980s-1990s.



Nava, who earned a J.D. degree from Stanford Law School in 1981, moved back to the Bay Area in 1995 and has been working as a staff attorney for the California Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno (click here for an interesting recent article from the LA Times). Moreno also performed a marriage ceremony for Nava and his partner George Herzog (above) last October.

Nava would like to be appointed as a Superior Court Judge, but his chances have been slim to none with Schwarzenegger in the California governor's seat, so he has decided to run for election for an open seat in the June 8, 2010 primary election. How many open seats will be available and how many candidates will be vying for them is still an unknown, but he decided to put his hat in the ring early.



I knew none of this before the campaign kickoff party, since my reason for attending was as a literary fan. Besides being an accomplished lawyer, Michael Nava happens to be one of my favorite fiction writers in the world. From 1986 through 2001, he wrote a series of seven slim mystery novels featuring the gay Chicano detective Henry Rios, starting with "The Little Death" and finishing with "Rag and Bone," which he announced would be the end of the line. In an email to me, Nava confessed that it took him a while to get comfortable:

"I had never written a long piece of fiction before the first novel -- I wrote only poetry before then -- and I didn't really know what I was doing until about the third book. I suppose I could have profited from a creative writing program, but I was already practicing law. After that, though, I found myself in the midst of the AIDS epidemic and writing with an urgency that probably made me a better writer than I would have been otherwise. I have not re-read the books in a long time; it seems, when I think about them now, that they were written by different hands than these."

Though Nava's humility is charming, as far as I'm concerned his Henry Rios books are classics of California detective fiction, comparable to Ross McDonald and Raymond Chandler. As a glbtq encyclopedia puts it (click here):

"The seven novels are more than simply puzzles to be unraveled. Indeed, the novels are not plot-driven, but character-driven. What sets them--especially the last five--apart from much detective fiction, in addition to their highly textured and allusive prose, is the increasing depth with which Nava probes character and motivation. Rios is gradually revealed to be more complex and more introspective than most fictional detectives, and his internal struggles and his often tortured relationships with others are what finally provide the major interest of the books and lift them above their formulaic genre."

Interestingly enough, none of the guests at the San Francisco Superior Court Judge campaign kickoff party seemed to have read the novels, including San Francisco District 8 Supervisor candidates Rebecca Prozan and Rafael Mandelman (above).



Neither had San Francisco Supervisor David Campos (above), who gave an eloquent speech about the qualities Nava would bring to the judiciary, and also how expensive a citywide campaign was going to be.



If Michael Nava is half as empathetic, intelligent and nuanced about justice as his fiction, he should make an absolutely superior judge. I volunteered to work on his campaign immediately.

Michael Nava Reaffirmed

The Democratic County Central Committee (DCCC) of San Francisco met early Wednesday evening to vote on their many endorsements for the November 2nd election to be held in three months.



The room was a small, narrow union hall in the Tenderloin on Golden Gate Avenue, and it was stuffed to the gills with the 33 voting members of the DCCC and a couple of hundred interested parties sitting and standing against the walls.



The meeting agenda was juggled so that The Controversial Case of Michael Nava (above left) could be heard first. The DCCC had endorsed Nava in his run for Superior Court Judge during June's primary election against an incumbent judge, Richard Ulmer, and another challenger. Nava won the election but didn't gather the 50%+ majority required, so he is running against Ulmer alone this November 2nd.

After the primary, a legal cabal, spearheaded by presiding state Court of Appeals judge Anthony Kline and presiding San Francisco Superior Court Judge James McBride, decided to do everything possible to make sure Ulmer wins the November contest. It fits in with their vision of "judicial independence," which is another way of saying they don't believe judges should have to stand for election if at all possible.



A good article by Tim Redmond at the Bay Guardian (click here) details the campaign against Nava, including a war cabinet meeting of judges summoned for battle at the law offices of Pillsbury, Madison and Sutro in early July. The main organizers, by the way, are all Democratic judges rather than Republican ones as has been misreported elsewhere, which only made the meeting that much more disgraceful. It really was about protecting an insular, class-bound white man's club. According to the article, the main dissenter was the indispensable Peter Keane, dean emeritus of Golden Gate Law University, who was quoted as following:

Keane said that “to frame this as an independence of the judicary question cheapens that argument.” Nava, he said, has every legal right to run and make the case that he’d be a better judge than Ulmer. “Ulmer’s been endorsed by the Republicans,” Keane said. “So what’s wrong if Nava is endorsed by the Democrats?” Keane said he’d voted for Ulmer in June, but was switching to supporting Nava this fall, in part because he sees a powerful attack coming down against the challenger. “A lot of Brahmins in the legal society have gotten stampeded into the lynch mob against Michael,” he said.

The political pressure brought to bear by statewide heavyweights was impressive, led by John Burton who is the Chairman of the California Democratic Party. On Saturday afternoon, there was a meeting of the DCCC to hear a quintet of Nava's judicial attackers, including gay Superior Court Judge Kevin McCarthy. According to an article by Kate Moser in "The Recorder" legal paper:

San Francisco Superior Court Judge Kevin McCarthy also spoke at the meeting, saying Nava's challenge is different from his own. McCarthy, one of three candidates to successfully challenge an incumbent San Francisco judge in the past 20 years, said he decided to run in the 1990s when he was discouraged by what he saw as an unwillingness by governors to appoint lesbian and gay candidates to the bench. "I did it because there was no other choice," McCarthy said. Despite the comparisons of McCarthy's path to Nava's, he said, "in the context of this particular race, the balance between diversity and judicial independence is different." There are "people in the pipeline now" from the LGBT community, he said, in line for appointments.

I believe this is called slamming the door shut once you've entered yourself.



The debate on rescinding Michael Nava's endorsement started off with a rambling disquisition by the former California State Senator newly elected to the DCCC, Carol Migden. She was spearheading the defense of "judicial independence" and continuity in the courts, and it soon became obvious that Frank Chu (above) is a model of clear-thinking sanity compared to the lunatic Ms. Migden.



Then Supervisor David Campos, a friend of Michael Nava, stood up to speak, and he gave one of the most impassioned, angry and beautiful speeches I've heard from him or any other politician lately. He first detailed the reasons why Nava should be elected as judge and then described the outrageous campaign of political pressure by judges who were doing so in the name of "keeping politics out of the judiciary." By their very acts, he said, they were making the election that much more political with every bit of lobbying. Greg Kamin at Fog City Journal wrote the best account of the meeting I have found (click here). Here's an excerpt:

Um… yeah. It’s every bit as bad as it sounds. The rationale seems to be that incumbent judges shouldn’t have to face opponents for re-election. Back when I lived in the Soviet Union, they had elections where you only had one candidate, and (surprise surprise) that candidate always won. But last time I checked, the Iron Curtain came down, and this is not the Soviet Politburo. Former California Senator Carole Migden and Attorney Bill Fazio, who squeaked into 12th place on the west side, had requested a re-vote, on the somewhat specious reasoning that they didn’t have a chance to participate the first time. Migden spoke first, repeating the assertion that incumbent judges should be given the benefit of the doubt. But boy, was team Nava ready for them! Supervisor David Campos gave one of his most eloquent and passionate speeches ever. The audience repeatedly applauded. La Raza Lawyers Foundation was in the house. Alice B. Toklas Club members were on hand to lend support. By the time DCCC member Arlo Hale Smith started speaking in favor of keeping the endorsement, it was pretty clear that the coup had failed.

The final, shortest speech came from chairman Aaron Peskin who noted the "double standard" of the judiciary requesting that the Democratic County Committee stay neutral in the race while Ulmer, the Decline-to-State candidate, had already requested and received the official endorsement of the San Francisco Republican Party.



The entire scene was quite dramatic, and by the end the near-unanimous vote against rescinding Michael Nava's endorsement was greeted with cheers. The only person posting a yea for a revote was Mad Ms. Migden, the nemesis of CBS-TV Blogger Beth Spotswood (above).



Michael Nava looked a bit blown away and bewildered by the entire drama, though he shouldn't have been, since the scene was straight out of one of his seven Henry Rios detective novels. If you've read the series, one of the best California detective fictions ever, it's obvious why Nava would make a great judge. If you haven't, the best reason to vote for him is what a commenter wrote in response to the Bay Guardian article:

We have a system that allows for the election of judges. I'm not convinced that it's necessarily the best system, but it's what we have to work with. As such, my duty as a voter is to cast my vote for whomever I think will be the best superior court judge. That will be Nava. It's not because he's gay or Latino, it's because he's the better candidate. This is a guy who took his Stanford J.D. and worked as a prosecutor in L.A. instead of settling for a six figure salary at a big firm. Ulmer, on the other hand, took his Stanford J.D. straight to a series of big corporate law firms. There's nothing wrong with that, but for a judge I value Nava's experience in a City Attorney's Office *and* in private practice at a seriously intense boutique litigation firm over Ulmer's more thin experience at large corporate law firms.

The strongest element of diversity that Nava brings isn't his race or sexual orientation, it's his experience working in a wide range of legal contexts.

Portrero Hill Festival 2: Politicking

The Michael Nava campaign for San Francisco Superior Court Judge joined the Potrero Hill Democratic Club booth at the festival on Saturday, joining a huge slew of candidates working the streets, such as Margaret Brodkin (below).



Brodkin is running for School Board in November, after being dismissed rather shabbily by Mayor Newsom from the Department of Children, Youth and Families last year.



Nava's campaign has picked up support from just about every group in San Francisco except for the Republican Party, the sitting judiciary who don't believe they should be forced to engage in elections at all, and the local dead-tree dailies. The latter have instructed their respective attack dogs, C.W. Nevius and Ken Garcia, to demean and belittle Nava in their opinion columns as often as possible.



The San Francisco Chronicle has also endorsed former BART board member Lynette Sweet for District 10 Supervisor, which encompasses the southeast waterfront from Potrero Hill to Bayview/Hunters Point. The endorsement is in spite of Ms. Sweet's well-documented ethical challenges, and is probably because she can be trusted to do whatever the old power structure of San Francisco wants her to do.



Though she has a campaign headquarters at the bottom of Potrero Hill, I didn't see Ms. Sweet at the festival, but did run into DeWitt Lacey (above), who has been endorsed by the San Francisco Democratic Party.



Steve Moss (not pictured), who has lately been demonized in the Bay Guardian weekly, was wandering around...



...while Community College Trustee and District 10 candidate Chris Jackson photogenically posed in front of appropriate signage.



I have no idea who you should vote for in District 10, and in fact am still ambivalent about my own District 6. Do vote for my friend Michael Nava for Superior Court judge, though. He will make a great jurist.

Michael Nava and The City of Palaces

Between 1986 and 2000, Michael Nava wrote seven California crime novels featuring lawyer Henry Rios. The series earned a devoted, admiring group of fans who were saddened when the author went silent for the next fourteen years. Nava has finally returned, not with a continuation of the Rios tales, but with The City of Palaces, an extraordinarily ambitious historical novel set in Mexico during the final years of president Porfirio Diaz and the revolutionary upheavals that replaced him. It was worth the wait, because the book is a masterpiece.



I stumbled across the Henry Rios novels in the late 1990s, and at their best thought them equal to the other great California detective novelists Raymond Chandler and Ross MacDonald. Nava also brought some rare personal qualities to the genre, being born gay and Chicano in a Sacramento barrio, before receiving scholarships to study writing at Colorado College and the law at Stanford. Nava's vividly rendered characters range in economic class from high to low, and the gay and Latino characters are unusually three-dimensional, ranging from closet cases to gay libbers and hypocritical Latin politicians to sympathetic workers. They feel written from the inside.



I recently reread the whole series and was happy to find they sturdily stood the test of time. Among other things, they are an invaluable portrait of California during the AIDS plague years, in a world teeming with political, sexual, ethnic, and economic tensions. The series gets stronger as it goes along as Nava gains more confidence in his overlapping narratives and emotional effects. The Death of Friends and The Burning Plain are brilliant and savage, while the final Rag and Bone gives Rios something of a happy ending, on his way to a judicial appointment with a new lover in a new town.



in 1999, Nava above moved to San Francisco where he was hired by the California Supreme Court to write legal opinions. In 2009-2010, he ran for a San Francisco Superior Court Judge position on a campaign of ethnic inclusion, which was covered extensively on this blog. Nava eventually lost the runoff election by a small margin in a campaign that was an eye-opening, dispiriting closeup for both of us of San Francisco politics at its most craven.



The silver lining in the electoral defeat was that Nava went back to work in earnest at the novel on which he had been ruminating and researching and writing drafts over the last couple of decades. The scope of the tale, with its potent blend of family, political, religious, and artistic histories, kept growing in his mind until he realized the original plan for a single book had become gargantuan, and it would probably require a quartet of novels to do it justice. The first installment, The City of Palaces, has just been published by the University of Wisconsin Press (click here for the Amazon link), and it's great both as a stand-alone novel and the beginning of a grand saga.



At its heart, the book is a story of marriage between a seemingly mismatched pair in upper class Mexico City in the final years of the four-decade reign of President Porfirio Díaz (above). Miguel Sarmiento is a handsome, guilt-ridden young doctor, an atheist and believer in modern science. Alicia Gavilan is an aristocrat with a face scarred from smallpox, a mystical Catholic who takes the Christian concept of charity seriously. They could not be more dissimilar but their pairing makes perfect sense, particularly as the world around them ruptures. There are dozens of other characters, some of them so marvelous they threaten to become the center of the narrative. There is La Niña, Alicia's mother entombed in a decaying Mexico City palace, who is alternately an ogre and a shrewd fairy godmother to her grandson José, an artistic, sensitive boy who feels like an answer to her prayers.



Historical figures such as Francisco Madero above are also important characters, and the depiction of his part in the Mexican Revolution and subsequent assassination during La Decena Trágica (Ten Tragic Days) in 1913 is masterful on Nava's part. He makes a complex series of events lucid and gripping, bringing to light a part of history very few people know or understand. There are exquisite set pieces throughout the novel, including Luisa Tetrazzini singing Aida at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, marvels and terrors in the back of a coffin factory where early silent films are projected onto a sheet, the workings of the underground railroad saving Yaqui Indans from slavery, battle scenes in Ciudad Juarez, and slaughter in the streets of Mexico City. It is a very rich stew where each strand informs the others.



A California Chicano writing an historical novel set in Mexico is something of an audacious act, but Nava has pulled the challenge off. My hope and dream for the book is that it is translated well into Spanish, becomes a runaway bestseller in Mexico, and is then transformed into a big-budget, six-month telenovela which conquers the world. ¡Que viva México!

Michael Nava and the Myth of Judicial Independence

I accompanied Michael Nava (above right), the lawyer and novelist who is running for San Francisco Superior Court Judge, to Jane Morrison's Chinese New Year's fundraiser. Michael had been through a hellish couple of weeks because he had just committed the unforgivable sin, which was changing his mind about running for an empty judicial seat and instead running against a sitting judge, Richard Ulmer Jr., who was appointed to his post last June by Governor Schwarzenegger.



On February 11th in The Recorder, a local legal journal, Kate Moser wrote an article about the blowback Nava has been receiving from former supporters in the judiciary because of his decision, including his own boss, California Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno:

"Moreno was earlier featured on Nava's campaign Web site and campaign literature under endorsements, but is no longer listed on the Web site. Moreno confirmed Wednesday that he's not endorsing Nava anymore. "I just have a policy against endorsing any candidate who runs against an incumbent judge," Moreno said. "I think it threatens the independence of the judiciary. I think if you talk to most judges, they would be reluctant to endorse a candidate who is challenging an incumbent judge."

San Francisco Superior Court judges Suzanne Ramos Bolanos and Kevin McCarthy were also listed under endorsements on Nava's Web site in January, but they are also no longer listed. McCarthy couldn't be reached by the Recorder 's deadline, but Bolanos confirmed that she had withdrawn her endorsement. "I was one of his early endorsers, but at the time he told me that he would be running for the open seat and absolutely reassured me that he was not going to be running against any of my colleagues," Bolanos said. "Sadly, I think the elections here in San Francisco have become heavily politicized, and I just don't think that's appropriate for the judicial branch."

If Presiding Judge James McBride's reaction to the challenge is any barometer, it appears Ulmer can expect some strong support from colleagues. "I am very surprised that [Nava] would take on a candidate whose apparent only deficit would be that he will not be getting the Democratic Central Committee endorsement," McBride said. "I question what it is about Judge Ulmer's record that could make him a suitable target for a race based on qualifications. If Mr. Nava is attempting to make this nonpartisan race into one based on partisan endorsements, we hope he's not successful."

I asked Nava how he'd come to this decision, and he told me, "There were too many of us who were friends and allies running for the same empty seat, and it made me heartsick. [Linda Colfax, above left, from the San Francisco Public Defender's Office, is one of them.] One of the main reasons I'm running is because I believe strongly in increasing judicial diversity, and this election just felt like underrepresented friends fighting over scraps at their master's table. I knew the blowback was coming, and writing out checks to return donations was hard, and so was being publicly attacked by so many colleagues, but after I made the decision a huge weight lifted from my chest. It was the right thing to do."



On February 17th, in the San Francisco Daily Journal, another legal publication, Nava struck back at the hypocrisy of those who accused him of sullying judicial independence and turning the apolitical judiciary into a partisan brawl. Nava is such a good writer that his defense really can't be improved upon, so I'm going to quote the whole thing.

"When I filed for a seat on the San Francisco Superior Court currently occupied by a Schwarzenegger appointee, the reaction from other judges was swift and predictable; they circled their wagons and accused me of politicizing the judiciary, engaging in partisanship and even threatening judicial independence. A judge friend of mine in Los Angeles told me recently that when you become a judge, two things happen: You lose your first name and no one will criticize you to your face. Sadly, this kind of deference and absence of accountability can foster, not judicial independence, but judicial isolation. So, let me set the record straight about judicial independence and politics and partisanship in judicial races."

In article six, section 16, the drafters of California's Constitution made the decision that every California judge, from the lowliest trial judge in the smallest county to the Chief Justice, must face the voters. Thus, California's constitutional lawmakers chose to balance judicial independence with judicial accountability to the people whom the judges serve. In the case of superior court, where judicial elections are competitive and not simply retention elections, it is clear that the intent was to give the people a voice in deciding who sits on the court in their counties. In superior court races, the voters decide who has, not only the formal qualifications, but the candidates' community ties and values. These are legitimate considerations because, as everyone in the legal system knows, a judge's background and beliefs form part of the temperament that he or she brings to the job of judging. Therefore, to criticize me, or anyone, for running against a sitting judge as threatening judicial independence ignores California's constitutional mandate and the choice it represents to give voters the ultimate say about the judiciary. If judges feel that standing for election threatens their independence, their recourse is to seek a constitutional amendment, not to attack those of us who are giving voters the choice to which they are entitled under the state constitution.

Now what about partisanship and politicization? As someone who has gone through the judicial application process, I can state unequivocally that that process is not only inherently partisan and politicized, but, unlike an election, it doesn't even have the virtue of transparency. Just one example: This governor, like his predecessors, employs secret judicial vetting committees which can, quite literally, blackball any applicant without any accountability about their decision. Minority bar associations had criticized this process for its lack of transparency and, in response, the legislature passed AB 2095 which would have forced the Governor to disclose the names of these committee members. He vetoed it.

In his veto message, the Governor asserted that he takes "very seriously" his duty to "appoint individuals to the bench who are equal to the great task of serving this state." And yet, while the Governor has been apparently unable to find many gay or lesbian lawyers (maybe 1% of his appointments) or Latino/a lawyers (about 6.7%) "equal to this great task" he has found room on the bench for two white, male Republicans who were found to be not qualified by the state bar: Elia Pizzoli in San Bernardino and Charles Poochigian in Fresno.About Pizzoli, then-Assemblymember Ted Lieu observed, "Every time we've raised the issue of judicial diversity, the pushback is that the governor only looks for the most qualified applicants....At least we know now what our applicants did wrong. They were qualified attorneys instead of Republican insiders." Regarding Poochigian, a one-time Republican state senator, his former senate colleague, Sheila Kuehl wrote on her website that she had rated him not qualified because "I knew from personal experience that Sen. Poochigan's votes had consistently indicated animosity to civil rights statutes regarding gender, disability and sexual orientation."

My point is this: It is disingenuous for judges to pretend that the appointment process by which they reached office is free of politics and partisanship, and yields only the most qualified judges, while judicial elections are somehow tainted by politics and partisanship and result in less qualified judges. What seems to be happening is that some judges are affronted by the fact that they have to run for office at all. To them I would say: Go read the constitution. This isn't politics, it's democracy."

A final point about why I am running against a sitting judge and not for the open seat. When I made my decision to challenge the incumbent there were three candidates for the open seat who, like me, were either gay or lesbian, and one of them was also, like me, Latino. It is clear to me that this Governor, while he may respond from time to time to political pressure on the issue, has no real commitment to judicial diversity. I do. And I do not believe that judicial diversity will be achieved by fighting for scraps that fall from the master's table. We members of underrepresented groups have to demand our place at the table.

I am unquestionably qualified to be a judge, I represent and am a beneficiary of San Francisco's values of social tolerance, progressive politics and community, and I would bring an historic measure of diversity to the superior court as its first openly gay judge of color. That's why I'm running.

Ulmer vs. Nava and the Judicial Shakedown

Peter Keane (above) is one of the most respected and accomplished legal scholars in the country. He served as Dean of the Golden Gate University School of Law from 1998 to 2003, was president of the San Francisco Bar Association, Vice-President of the California Bar Association, and has provided legal commentary for everyone from NPR to CNN. Last Friday, the San Francisco Chronicle published an "Open Forum" op-ed by Mr. Keane where he accused the San Francisco judiciary of "borderline ethical (if not downright unethical) campaign tactics by San Francisco judges to elect Ulmer." (Click here for a link to the whole article.)



Keane prefaces his accusation with the following:

"First, put aside whether you favor incumbent Superior Court Judge Richard Ulmer or challenger Michael Nava (above). Whoever the voters choose is qualified and will be a fine, capable judge."

Keane voted for Ulmer in the primary election but has decided to change his vote to Nava this Tuesday because:

"With lockstep unanimity, the judges of the San Francisco Superior Court have savaged the democratic process and cheapened the important principle of protecting the independence of the judiciary. To their personal discredit, they have done this out of a self-serving fear that potential competitors will run against them and that the voters might legitimately and democratically decide that others are better qualified to serve."

Keane continues:

"Last summer, all former bar presidents and I received a cryptic e-mail from Presiding Judge James McBride speaking for the entire court. It urgently summoned us to a meeting in the conference room of a prominent downtown law firm for the evening of July 7...

At the meeting, McBride and a delegation of other judges, announced that they spoke for all of the judges of the San Francisco Superior Court. They proclaimed that a Nava victory would be the destruction of judicial independence in San Francisco...

But that was not the most distressing part of the meeting. The bar presidents were then given marching orders by the judges to raise $350,000 to defeat Nava.

Remember now that present in that room was the top legal establishment of San Francisco. These were the heads of virtually every large, wealthy San Francisco law firm. The lawyers of those firms appear every day before San Francisco Superior Court judges in cases where huge amounts of money are at stake. Every lawyer in that room understood how essential the goodwill of San Francisco Superior Court judges is to the prosperity of their practices and to the success of each individual firm member.

This was a shakedown."

As commenter cosmo wrote, "It's really amazing--lawyers NEVER use this kind of language, so when a mainstream guy like Keane does, it carries extra force."

The San Francisco Chronicle has endorsed Ulmer over Nava, but I would urge you to do the opposite. Nava is thoroughly qualified to be a Superior Court judge after a long and varied legal career, but he's not a member of this self-selected club, which only increases the prospect that he will embody true "judicial independence." Above all, Mr. Keane is to be thanked for speaking out from behind a wall of judicial silence. He's a salutary example of what a professor of legal ethics should be.