Anaheim City Councilman Jordan Brandman formally kicked-off his congressional campaign yesterday with an event at the Sheraton Park Hotel in the Anaheim Resort, with about 80 people from all CD46 cities in attendance. Claudia Perez Figueroa, a member of the Anaheim Housing and Community Development Commission, led off the program with the Pledge of Allegiance and introduction of dignitaries, before introducing Michael Brandman, who then introduced his son and candidate.
Joe Dunn Rumors Joins The Race
Rumors are afoot that They aren’t rumors: Joe Dunn, the liberal litigator who represented central OC in the state Senate from 1998 to 2006 and is a founding board member of the Voice of OC (he resigned after filing to run), may has filed to join the race to succeed Rep. Loretta Sanchez in 46th Congressional District, according to Federal Election Commission records. Sanchez is running for U.S. Senate against left-wing Attorney General Kamala Harris.
The two other main contenders for CD46 are former state Senator, Assemblyman and OC Supervisor Lou Correa and Brandman The only Republican looking to run in the solidly Democratic seat is Irvine Councilwoman Lynn Schott. There’s been speculation of a candidacy by Bao Nguyen, the newly-minted Garden Grove mayor and left-wing golden child of the OCEA’s Nick Berardino and the Orange Juice Blog set; however, CD46 lacks the numbers of Vietnamese voters who nudged Nguyen to his 15-vote squeaker over Bruce Broadwater.
Dunn completed his statement of candidacy form on August 6, filed them with the FEC on Saturday, August 8, and it was stamped received yesterday. He listed the address of Friends of Joe Dunn for Congress as 555 Capitol Mall, Suite 1425, Sacramento. His papers will filed by OC personal injury lawyer Jim Pantone, who is married to Carina Franck-Pantone, consultant-for-life to the Orange County Employees Association (OCEA).
OCEA loves Joe Dunn; we can probably infer Bao Nguyen is foregoing a CD46 campaign and instead serve the remaining 1 year and 4 months of his two-year term. Absent a Bao Nguyen candidacy, Dunn will have the port side of the political spectrum to himself. Whether that is a plus or minus depends on several factors. If for example, if Dunn ends up facing either Correa or Brandman on a Democrat v. Democrat general election ballot, it hurts him: he’s too far left to compete with either of them for Republican and NPP votes. Although CD46 is a solidly Democratic district, that doesn’t mean it is a liberal district.
If Dunn manages to best both his Democratic opponents in June 2016 and face off with Lynn Schott or another Republican, then Dunn’s liberalism won’t really be a factor since he’ll win the general by dint of the Democratic registration advantage.
Dan Chmielewski had posted on the possibility of a Joe Dunn candidacy over at TheLiberalOC.com:
Since I started writing for this blog back in 2006, a Joe Dunn candidacy for high office in OC is sort of a pipe dream for many of OC’s liberals and progressives. Dunn, a respected former State Senator from Central OC in the middle of last decade, is rumored to be making calls and has designs to run for Congress in CD-46, the seat now held by Loretta Sanchez.
Color me skeptical, but Dunn has done this before. Teased a candidacy for State Assembly in 2006 only to withdraw. He teased a candidacy for First District Supervisor to challenge Janet Nguyen only to withdraw. There were indications Dunn was going for the DPOC Chairman’s job, only to withdraw. With the exception of the Assembly race in 2006, won by Jose Solorio, Dunn’s flirtations with higher office have cost Democratic opportunities to advance (Jeff Letourneau held off on pursuing the DPOC chair until Dunn made up his mind and the delay likely cost Letourneau a decent shot).
A Joe Dunn congressional candidacy most hurts a possible Bao Nguyen candidacy the most, due to shared political alliances. Next, it hurts Joe Correa because voters could get a side by side comparison of the two men that help the seat for so long.
You can read Dan’s entire post here, but it looks like Dunn is pulling the trigger. Of course, if at some point Sanchez pulls the plug on her U.S. Senate run, the CD46 situation will revert to status quo ante.
Dunn was fired last November from his job as executive director of the California Bar Association, and subsequently responded by filing a “whistleblower” lawsuit.
City-by-City Breakdown of CD46
In terms of party registration, the 46th Congressional District is 46.8% Democrat, 27.5% Republican and 21.7% No Party Preference.
Although Santa Ana is the most populous city in CD46, Anaheim has the most voters. Here’s the city-by-city breakdown in terms of number of voters:
Anaheim: 93,656
Santa Ana: 81,775
Orange: 31,648
Garden Grove: 16,431
Unincorp. 3,924
For an even more micro-breakdown, here is how voters are distributed in Santa Ana’s seven wards:
Santa Ana Ward Division 1 15029
Santa Ana Ward Division 2 12259
Santa Ana Ward Division 3 17123
Santa Ana Ward Division 4 16218
Santa Ana Ward Division 5 11698
Santa Ana Ward Division 6 9448
The California State Auditor says that, under the direction of Joe Dunn the State Bar, “Has Not Consistently Protected the Public Through Its Attorney Discipline Process and Lacks Accountability”
KEY FINDINGS
During our audit of the State Bar’s discipline system and its finances, we noted the following:
• To reduce its 2010 excessive complaint backlog of over 5,000 cases to just over 1,700 cases in 2011, the State Bar frequently settled cases and may have been too lenient and allowed some attorneys whom it otherwise might have
disciplined more severely—or even disbarred—to continue practicing law.
The years the State Bar focused its efforts on decreasing its backlog, the State Bar settled over 1,500 cases—more than in any of the other four years in our audit period.
The level of discipline the State Bar recommended as part of some of these settlements was inadequate—of the 27 cases the California Supreme Court returned to it for further examination, the State Bar increased the level of
discipline it recommended in 21 cases, including five disbarments.
• The information the State Bar submits to the Legislature in its Annual Discipline Report is problematic—the State Bar continues to report fewer cases than the law permits despite the similar concern we raised in our 2009 audit.
• The State Bar’s efforts to align its staffing with its mission have fallen short. It shifted staffing resources, employed contractors, and authorized a significant amount of overtime to reduce its backlog in 2011, but discontinued those
operational changes shortly thereafter and its backlog has again begun to increase—by 25 percent since 2011.
• Despite spending $76.6 million to purchase a building in Los Angeles, the State Bar did not perform a cost-benefit analysis before receiving board approval for the purchase. Further, in a report to the Legislature just four months prior
to purchasing the building, the State Bar underestimated the total cost by more than $50 million.
• Over the last six years, the amount the State Bar collected from annual membership fees exceeded its operational costs. In fact, the excess funds would be sufficient to cover between four and nine months of the State Bar’s
operations—which is between two and seven months more than general best practices dictate.
In short – Joe Dunn is a rat crook who ratted out the nest of rat crooks for the purpose of not looking so much like the rat crook he is.