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Monday night with the judges
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Constant Readers,
Once again I had a marvelous time last night with the fine folks of the Middle Polk Neighborhood Association, who invited me to speak about ballot propositions at their monthly meeting. This time, we talked about Prop T (treatment on demand), Prop H (energy) and Prop 1A (high speed rail). People asked great questions and made astute comments, which certainly kept me on my toes.
Before I spoke, however (incumbent) Judge Mellon and Supervisor Sandoval - each vying for a seat on the Superior Court - got 5 minutes to talk about their candidacy. Basically, it comes down to this: Judge Mellon has 15 years of experience as a judge with 22 years of legal practice before that. But he is, by many accounts, a rude and crotchety judge. (Though he's apparently gotten better since being moved to civil court.) Mellon was given the lowest passing score of "qualified" (not "well qualified" or "exceptionally well qualified") by the SF Bar Association committee that examines judicial candidates.
Sandoval, on the other hand, has minimal experience and was not even rated as "qualified" by the SF Bar. For example, he always talks about how he worked at the fancypants law firm Skadden Arps when he graduated from Columbia law school in 1995, but always leaves out that he was only there for one year. But Sandoval is a very nice man. And he's Hispanic. And his daddy was no big-shot.
Advantage: Sandoval. He has name recognition and his campaign has honed in on the (ideally irrelevant) fact that he is a Democrat and Mellon is a registered Republican. (Mailer here: Download Gerardo_Sandoval_for_Superior_Court_Judge.pdf.) And, while I haven't seen any campaign pieces highlighting cases Mellon decided in a partisan manner, this town votes Democrat regardless of the office.
--Melissa
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