Cristina Talley

Cristina Talley

Vern Nelson posted this 90-proof left-wing exhortation regarding the termination of Anaheim City Attorney Cristina Talley over at the perfervid Orange Juice Blog. [Anaheim Blog is not fearful of linking to blogs with diverging opinions, unlike Vern and some of his cohorts like Ricardo Toro, who refuse to link to this blog. very confident in their arguments, they must be!]

Reading Vern’s screed is a vivid illustration of how ardently the left views the world through a racial lens. Race and ethnicity are everything (at least, most of the time).

Ever since her firing a few days ago, left-wing agitators have suddenly made an issue of Talley’s ethnicity.  Suddenly, media outlets are prominently mentioning that Talley is a Latina — although what correlation that has to her lawyerly abilities is never stated. The local Left plays the race card in order to shut down, rather than enhance, discussion and debate.

Obviously, the council is split on the question of Talley’s competence. I don’t have a strong opinion on the degree of Talley’s legal acumen as a city attorney, but am certain it stems her mind, talent, education, character and experience — and not from her ethnicity or the color of her skin. It is reprehensible that so many of those who are exploiting this incident for their own purposes are trying to make it about race.

The voluble Vern Nelson declares that she is an outstanding city attorney, stating flatly that she “has been doing stellar legal work for the city since 1996.” Vern doesn’t explain the basis of that claim; perhaps his frequent interactions with the justice system endow him with a unique perspective unavailable to most of us. I suspect Vern says it because it serves his political purposes.

The outrage over her exit is interesting in that it comes from the same pressure groups who have been tirelessly flogging how the noticing of the GardenWalk agreement last year was a Brown Act Violation — and as the Voice of OC points out,  “The city attorney, however, is ultimately responsible for assuring that council votes don’t violate the Brown Act.” The three council members who voted “yes” are vilified — wrongly — for violating the Brown Act, while the person ultimately responsible for that violation is lionized? That makes a lot of sense (and let me note, I don’t agree with the court decision in this matter).

As Talley’s opinion that the city is in violation of the California Voting Rights Act: from what I have read and according to the experts I have heard at the Anaheim Citizens Advisory Committee meetings, that judgment can’t be made until there is an in-depth statistical analysis to determine whether or not there is polarized voting occurring in Anaheim’s council elections – and to my knowledge, that hasn’t been done. Given the absence of that data, I am unclear on how Talley arrived at her conclusion.

But back my main point: Talley’s ethnicity is of no relevance to the issue of her being shown the door, and it is shameful the way it is being waved around like a bloody shirt.