Beating the odds

Lolita Harper

When she realized the gravity of her uphill battle to unseat a

besieged judge, Gay Sandoval remembered the faces of young molestation

victims she called to the witness stand during her years as a deputy

district attorney.

She would hold their hand through the court room, look them in the eye

and reassure them they would be OK.

“The judge is here to protect you,” she would say. “Nothing bad is

going to happen.”

Those same innocent -- yet incredibly terrified -- faces popped back

into her head the moment she learned that Orange County Superior Court

judge Ronald C. Kline -- who is under house arrest relating to criminal

charges of child molestation and child pornography -- had been defeated

by a group of write-in candidates.

Kline received only 33% of the votes, while the block of write-in

candidates combined for 67%.

“It was all worth it,” Sandoval said.

When Sandoval learned of the incumbent Kline’s legal troubles in

December she knew somebody needed to challenge him but hoped it wouldn’t

be her.

Kline’s legal troubles reflected poorly on the legal community,

Sandoval said, but even worse, it sent a horrible message to children.

“A judge is there to protect you,” she said. “To know that a judge is

up on those kinds of charges, how does it make kids feel? How are they

supposed to believe about society’s role in protecting children when they

see that adults are standing by and doing nothing?”

But the 49-year-old attorney had already filed to run for a judgeship

in Office No. 3. She was torn.

Sandoval asked around the legal community, hoping to hear that someone

would challenge Kline but heard of no one.

She asked political analysts about the success of write-in campaigns

and learned her chances of unseating Kline were nearly impossible, much

less gaining the seat herself.

“It would have had to be someone on a suicide mission,” she said.

Mark Petracca, a political science professor at UC Irvine, agreed. He

called Sandoval’s feat “extremely improbable.”

After some deliberation, Sandoval decided to scrap her chances for a

real election -- complete with her name on the ballot -- and challenge

Kline as a write-in candidate.

“I knew that my personal chances of winning were not high so the

question was, do you do what you do for the village or do you do what

might be best for yourself?” Sandoval asked.

The village won.

Sandoval, a former columnist for the Daily Pilot, gathered 900

signatures -- 100 were needed -- to open the race for Office No. 21 to

write-in candidates and thus succeeded in getting Kline’s name listed on

the ballot. Had she not, Kline would have automatically retained his

seat, without voters even realizing it.

Once the signatures were gathered and ratified by the Orange County

Registrar’s office, 10 others joined the ranks as write-in candidates,

including Costa Mesa City Councilwoman Karen Robinson.

During the campaign, Sandoval worried the large number of candidates

would dilute the voters and help Kline keep his seat. In retrospect,

Sandoval said the large number of candidates may have helped inform a

larger number of people about Kline’s legal problems. But not everyone

had to declare themselves a candidate to spread the word, she said.

Petracca said the moral mission to defeat Kline, coupled with the

media attention the race received, gained the attention of the voters --

who usually ignore judgeship races -- and rendered an unlikely outcome.

“All of these people did the right thing because their heart was in

the right place,” Petracca said about the 11 write-in candidates.

Although Tuesday’s election produced a favorable result, Sandoval

still questioned her opponents reasons for running.

“If they wanted to run for judge, why didn’t they sign up the first

week in December?” she asked.

Individual tallies for write-in candidates will not be released until

March 26 and it is still unlikely that Sandoval garnered enough votes to

gain a seat on a bench.

The top two vote getters will participate in a runoff in November.

* Lolita Harper covers Costa Mesa. She may be reached at (949)

574-4275 or by e-mail at o7 lolita.harper@latimes.comf7 .