San Francisco Deputy Public Defender Linda Colfax has spent the last 12 years representing clients accused of everything from sexual crimes and burglaries to assault with a deadly weapon. Now the out lesbian lawyer is ready to tackle the legal system from a different perspective.
She is running to become a judge on the San Francisco County Superior Court on the June 2010 ballot. So far she is the sole female candidate among a field of four male opponents �" three of them out gay men �" who also are eyeing a run for the bench.
"I wanted to move from being a public defender to being a judge. I wanted to make that transition," said Colfax, 41, who is married to Kristin Lamoureux, an educator at an alternative high school.
Together since 1996, the couple lives in Bernal Heights and is raising two children, 8-year-old Hannah Colfax-Lamoureux and 4-year-old Elias Colfax-Lamoureux.
A graduate of Harvard College and Michigan Law School, Colfax officially entered the judicial race in October. Yet the decision to run for the public office was not solely of her own choosing.
In 2008 she applied for a judicial post through Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's office but has yet to be contacted by the governor's appointments secretary or a statewide legal panel that reviews judicial candidates. With a seat on the local bench opening up next year, Colfax decided to try for the post via the ballot box.
"Were I to get on the bench, I wanted to get there either by the appointment process or either by running for an open seat," said Colfax. "Another factor, quite frankly, is that at the time I made my application, Schwarzenegger hadn't appointed any LGBT judges and certainly hadn't appointed any lesbian judges, so I really didn't know if my application was going to have any traction in his administration."
The governor's dearth of out judicial picks has led Michael Nava, an openly gay staff attorney for California Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno, to also enter the judicial race next year. But unlike Colfax, Nava told the Bay Area Reporter in October that he is not opposed to running against a sitting judge.
The judicial candidates have until February to decide to run for either one or possibly two open seats on the bench or campaign against a sitting judge up for re-election next year. If none of the judicial candidates for each seat wins a majority of the vote in June, the top two vote-getters face off in the November general election.
Colfax is proving to be a formidable candidate. She has already raised more than $80,000 toward a goal of $200,000. A member of the ACLU's Northern California chapter's board of directors, Colfax has lined up an impressive list of endorsements among the city's progressive political camp.
Those backing her judicial candidacy include her boss, Public Defender Jeff Adachi; City Attorney Dennis Herrera; openly gay state Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco); openly gay Supervisor David Campos; and former vice presidential candidate Matt Gonzales, the former supervisor who lost his mayoral bid to Gavin Newsom.
"I have no idea if that will be an asset. I am not going to run away from the fact I am a progressive," said Colfax. "I am thrilled to have support from the progressive community and I am not going to, for the sake of politics, somehow say I am not a progressive to try to appeal to a different group."
Along with a host of legal professionals, from attorney Cris Arguedas, the partner of former lesbian state Senator Carole Migden, to Peter Keane, dean emeritus of the Golden Gate Law School, one retired and five sitting judges from the San Francisco court have also backed Colfax's campaign. Among them are gay judges Kay Tsenin and Kevin McCarthy, and Gerardo Sandoval, a former supervisor who knocked out a Republican judge last year.
With her progressive credentials, Colfax would seem capable of duplicating Sandoval's success. Yet she said she isn't interested in unseating any of the current judges, no matter their political persuasion.
"Having appeared in court everyday in front of almost every judge that is on the bench, I have not found that someone's politics �" if you want to label them a progressive person, a moderate, a Democrat, a Republican �" has affected how they are as a judge," said Colfax. "I have appeared before many Republican judges who I think are tremendous judges.
"Be they a Democrat, a Republican, liberal, conservative, or progressive, I think at the end of the day we want our judges to rule according to the law and treat everyone in the court room with humanity, dignity and respect," added Colfax. "To isolate politics as the only thing which we evaluate a judge on is ignoring a lot of other aspects in determining if a judge is a good judge or not."
Colfax is hoping that voters will rule next summer that her courtroom credentials and bona fides as a mother and community leader qualify her for the bench.
"People can look at who I have been in both my work and volunteer activities as well as the fact I am a parent and see it is not all about the label of being a progressive," she said.
This is the second in a series of profiles on the candidates running to be judge in 2010.
For more information about Colfax, visit her campaign Web site at http://colfaxforjudge.com.
District 8 supe race updates
Endorsements continued to roll in this week for several candidates running to replace District 8 Supervisor Bevan Dufty in 2010.
As expected the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club awarded a dual endorsement to its past co-chairs Scott Wiener and Rebecca Prozan after the club held its final vote on the matter during its meeting Monday, December 14. The vote was largely a formality, as the more moderate political club's membership rarely bucks what its board decides when it comes to backing candidates.
After the club's leaders voted back in October to split the endorsement between Wiener and Prozan, former Alice co-chair Laura Spanjian and her supporters boycotted the successive membership votes. Spanjian reportedly netted zero votes at the Monday night meeting, while a fourth out candidate in the race, Rafael Mandelman, received one vote.
That leaves Spanjian the only major queer candidate in the race without backing from either of the city's main gay political groups. Mandelman, the outgoing president of the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, easily secured the progressive club's backing two months ago.
This week Mandelman announced that both District 5 Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi and Ammiano have signed on to his campaign, while Wiener announced he won the backing of San Francisco Firefighters Local 798.
Dufty holds first gay fundraiser for mayor
The openly gay Dufty will be holding his first major LGBT fundraiser for his 2011 mayoral campaign this weekend at Castro gay bar Trigger. A veritable who's who of the city's LGBT nightlife scene is hosting the $100-a-person event.
The club's owner, Greg Bronstein, was a major backer of Dufty's supervisorial campaigns, going so far as renting him office space in the heart of the city's gayborhood. Another key backer of Dufty's 2002 race, when he defeated out lesbian Eileen Hansen in the December runoff, was Bevin Shamel, publisher of the biweekly club guide Gloss.
Shamel is once again backing Dufty in his bid for mayor and is just one of the many co-hosts of this weekend's fundraiser. The list includes Jamie Awad, producer of the Club Papi parties; lesbian Entertainment Commissioner Audrey Joseph; drag queen and party hostess Tita Aida; Cafe Flore owner JD Petras; the founder of the roving A-List parties Antoine Delaitre; and AsiaSF co-owner Larry Hashbarger.
The party takes place 5 to 7 p.m. Saturday, December 19 at Trigger, 2344 Market Street.
Though much maligned when it first premiered seven years ago, Dufty's infamous television-head mascot figure is back. On his still-in-the-works campaign Web site http://bevandufty.com/, the Mayan-like symbol �" which is drawn in white and features a square box with missing circle inside a slightly angled square shape hovering over a body �" is prominently displayed. Dufty has also eschewed having his last name on the site and instead is using "Bevan for mayor San Francisco." In fact, the name Dufty only appears once at the bottom of the page where a legally required note says the site is paid for by the "Bevan Dufty for Mayor 2011" campaign.
Web Extra: For more queer political news, be sure to check http://www.ebar.com Monday mornings around 10 a.m. for Political Notes, the notebook's online companion. This week's column looks at the role the LGBT Equality Caucus plays in Congress.
Keep abreast of the latest LGBT political news by following the Political Notebook on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/politicalnotes.
Got a tip on LGBT politics? Call Matthew S. Bajko at (415) 861-5019 or e-mail [email protected].