Openly gay judge edges past incumbent to win San Diego DA's race

Associated Press ^ | November 12, 2002 | Ryan Pearson

[Steven W.]

SAN DIEGO – A state judge declared victory Tuesday in the bitter and tightly-contested San Diego district attorney's race.

Bonnie Dumanis won by a margin of about 3,500 votes, upsetting an incumbent tainted by scandal and a no-confidence vote from his prosecutors.

Dumanis becomes the first openly gay district attorney in the United States, according to the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund.

About 10,000 absentee and provisional ballots were counted Tuesday, leaving Dumanis with an unofficial lead of 292,361 votes to 288,805 votes for District Attorney Paul Pfingst. Both were Republican in a nonpartisan race.

About 200 ballots remained to be counted Tuesday afternoon and election results will not be certified by the county until Nov. 27.

"I think this was more about my opponent than it was about me," Dumanis said Tuesday. "The message was: It was time for a change."

Dumanis, a 50-year-old Superior Court judge and former prosecutor, did not make her sexual orientation an issue in the race.

"Healing the office is the top priority," Dumanis said. She entered the race last year after the county prosecutors' union issued a vote of no confidence in Pfingst's ability to lead.

Voters in the Hillcrest and North Park neighborhoods, the center of the city's gay community, favored Dumanis by a 2-to-1 margin and may have been key to her victory, according to an analysis by The San Diego Union-Tribune. Dumanis said she was "proud and pleased to be a part of the gay community" but noted her support from outside those areas.

"I had the support of a diverse group of people, not just the gay community," Dumanis said.

The Washington, D.C.-based Victory Fund promoted Dumanis nationwide by asking members for donations and sending out 7,000 mailers featuring her picture. Group members contributed about $11,000 to her campaign, said fund spokesman Jason Young.

Young said he expects Dumanis to be "tough on all crime," including hate crimes targeting gays and lesbians.

"Having her voice there is critical," Young said. "Gay and lesbian San Diegans can look forward to strong support in the District Attorney's office."

Dumanis plans to form a cold-case homicide task force and launch new initiatives on white-collar and narcotics crime. She said the office under Pfingst "has done a lot in the hate crime area and I think that should continue."

Pfingst has been largely silent since the election, though he all but conceded in an e-mail sent to his staff last week.

He headed an office that boasted the state's highest felony conviction rate and last summer's high-profile conviction of David Westerfield for the murder and kidnapping of 7-year-old Danielle van Dam.

But Pfingst's second four-year term was dogged by scandals that embittered many of the 300 prosecutors in his office. One of his top deputies resigned in 2000 and later was convicted of theft for using employees and equipment from the District Attorney's office to run his personal real estate business.

Dumanis launched her campaign saying the public was weary of the office's troubles. It became a bitter and sometimes mean-spirited race as Pfingst was accused of making anti-Semitic comments about a fellow prosecutor 17 years ago, and Dumanis was prompted into disclosing she that she tried to kill herself in the 1980s.

[Steven W.]

Upon winning, Dumanis thanked her "partners in the media, particularly Rick Roberts" and promised her first priority would be to start being "fairer to gangs".

[Poohbah]

Pfingst's habit of giving plea bargains to attorneys who gave to his campaign fund (Does he think he's Gray Davis?) was why I didn't vote for him.

[Steven W.]

very principled, but now you have somebody near certifiably insane who was propped up by the gay lobby and the unions.

[joesnuffy]

Oh Oh ..wonder if he and that other gay judge.....
tried each other....

[CARepubGal]

Bingo! Pfingst was a media whore and his truly horriffic conduct during the Stephanie Crowe fiasco along with about 2/3 of the Deputy DA's hating the SOB were enough for me to vote for change.

[cyncooper]

Ping a ling!

[Solamente]

Kinda gives getting a slap on the wrist a whole new interpretation...

[EllaMinnow]

Pig in a poke ping.

[ErnBatavia]

"Here come the judge, here come the judge! The court's in session, and here come the judge!"

[Jaded]

Thanks for the ping.

[CyberAnt]

"Pfingst's habit of giving plea bargains to attorneys who gave to his campaign fund"

You have proof of that?? I've never heard anything about this before.

Pfingst has been interviewed on Roger Hedgecock's show several times, and I've never heard Roger bring it up ... and Roger would bring it up.

[Poohbah]

Pfingst has been interviewed on Roger Hedgecock's show several times, and I've never heard Roger bring it up ... and Roger would bring it up.

It's part of what motivated the prosecutors to vote "no confidence." And Roger went into the tank for Pfingst. Then again, I take Roger with a grain of salt on this issue--it's awful close to how he got booted out of office.

[breakem]

Just wondering, when a man appears in public with his wife, is he openly heterosexual?

[CyberAnt]

Well ... when the city goes to hell in a handbasket, maybe in 2 years we can get a real DA back in office.

It was the UNION who brought the vote of no confidence, not members of Pfingst's office. I really get annoyed when people distort that fact.

I know very little about the new DA; however, her comment about being "nicer to gangs" shocks me - I sincerely hope that action does not come back to bite her.

[Poohbah]

It was the UNION who brought the vote of no confidence, not members of Pfingst's office. I really get annoyed when people distort that fact.

And the union is made up of those people. They could've shut it down--they didn't.

Pfingst started acting like his predecessor (and his predecessor's predecessor), assuming that he had a divine right to the office. We have a history of throwing out DAs who get a God Complex in this county.

[185JHP]

Hi FRiend! That comment about gangs probably has to do with the observation in Romans 1:29-32. Evil people not only like to do evil things - they like other people's doing evil things.

[lawdog]

More troubling was her "PC pep rally", closing with that all time Klintoon cliche," do the right thing."

[CyberAnt]

Hey buddy, how are you??

Glad to hear from you - how are things??

You are so right about this new DA - she's going be a challenge. If your scripture references are correct (and I don't doubt they are), San Diego is in for a crime spree like nothing it has ever seen before. Maybe that's what it will take to get repubs off their duffs and vote these crooks out of office.

Guess I'd better get busy and get my San Diego chapter going so we can take to the streets and protest her. Sounds like fun!!

[CyberAnt]

Well ... you're entitled to your opinion, but in all the times I ever heard Paul speak, I never, ever got the impression he had any kind of "God" complex.

[CyberAnt]

Well ... having personally traveled with Roger, I cannot even remotely believe Roger would tank for any one or any thing. You may belive he would, but I believe he wouldn't. Guess we just have to agree to disagree on this point.