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A woman who five years ago settled a sexual harassment claim against a former longtime aide and friend to Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown came forward Thursday to criticize Brown's handling of the case. Appearing next to Chuck Poochigian -- Brown's Republican opponent in the state attorney general's race -- Nereyda Lopez-Bowden accused Brown of ignoring her complaints about Jacques Barzaghi, who had been at Brown's side for decades before he was fired in 2004. "He enabled Jacques Barzaghi for many years to continue his 'predatorial' behavior and harassment of women and men in the office," said Lopez-Bowden, speaking publicly about...

Kevan Blanche is a California attorney and campaign finance consultant. JERRY BROWN has been an unabashed and stalwart devotee of left-wing politics throughout his career, but in recent years he has led many to believe that he has joined the political mainstream. Nothing could be farther from the truth, and as mayor of Oakland, Brown has once again reaffirmed his longtime sympathies for leftist causes, while consistently working to undermine U.S. foreign policy with regard to Cuba's communist regime. In the February 28, 2002 issue of the Nation, reporter Marc Cooper wrote of his encounter with the mayor and of...

The California secretary of state, the attorney general, and the state Democratic Party are seeking to intervene in a lawsuit filed by state Republican Party leaders challenging Democratic candidate Jerry Brown’s eligibility to run for state attorney general, Brown’s attorneys said yesterday. Zachary Wasserman of Wendel, Rosen, Black & Dean in Oakland, representing Brown, told the MetNews that it’s his understanding that attorneys representing plaintiffs Thomas G. Del Beccaro, Contra Costa County Republican Party chairman; Adam C. Abrahms, head of the Los Angeles chapter of the California Republican Lawyers Association; and others, have stipulated that Secretary of State Bruce McPherson...

Statement Regarding Suit Joinder October 23, 2006, 6:00 PM Today we were contacted by the Attorney Generals Office and the Secretary of State. Each expressed that they would seek to join the lawsuit as nominal defendants in an effort to be heard in this matter. Although the Plaintiffs are skeptical of the motives of the existing AG Bill Lockyer, we felt that the interests of justice would dictate that we agree to allow them to join the suit without opposition. We agree that they probably have an interest in the outcome of the suit given that it affects their...

Republican officials filed a lawsuit Thursday seeking to have Democrat Jerry Brown disqualified from the state attorney general race because he doesn't meet a basic requirement for the post. The Brown campaign dismissed the claims as baseless. At issue is a requirement that candidates be admitted to practice before the state Supreme Court for at least five years immediately preceding the election. According to the State Bar's Web site, Brown was admitted to the bar in 1965, went inactive in 1992, reactivated in 1996, went inactive again in 1997 and has been an active member from 2003 to the present....

Republicans are set to file a lawsuit Thursday in Sacramento County Superior Court that seeks to disqualify Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown from holding the state attorney general's office. The suit, to be filed by Tom Del Beccaro, chairman of the Contra Costa County GOP, will assert that Brown, a Democrat, will run afoul of a state law if he wins next month because he reactivated his status in the State Bar in May 2003. Government Code Section 12503 declares that no person is eligible to be attorney general unless "he shall have been admitted to practice before the Supreme Court...

Two Northern California county Republican chairmen intend to sue today to disqualify Democrat Jerry Brown from serving as state attorney general, but Brown's campaign calls it the last gasp of a desperate campaign. "I can't tell you the nuts and bolts of what's behind it but we will have the news conference" at 10:30 a.m. in Sacramento, Contra Costa County GOP chairman Tom Del Beccaro said Wednesday; Yolo County GOP Chair Mark Pruner is involved, too. A posting on Del Beccaro's Web site, www.politicalvanguard.com, said Oakland's mayor "is ineligible to serve as attorney general, because he does not meet the...

OAKLAND - Republicans are set to file a lawsuit Thursday in Sacramento County Superior Court that seeks to disqualify Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown from holding the state attorney general's office. The suit, to be filed by Tom Del Beccaro, chairman of the Contra Costa County GOP, will assert that Brown, a Democrat, will run afoul of a state law if he wins next month because he reactivated his status in the State Bar in May 2003. Government Code section 12503 declares that no person is eligible to be attorney general unless "he shall have been admitted to practice before the...

While the rest of the nation lurches ahead to Election Day, California remains stuck in a time warp. Take the governor's race between incumbent Arnold Schwarzenegger and State Treasurer Phil Angelides. It started out as the 1984 presidential contest redux, with Arnold reprising the role of Ronald Reagan (hopeless optimist) and Angelides that of Walter Mondale (doomed the moment he called for higher taxes). That was before Angelides set the way-back machine to the 1960s, channeling his inner Tom Hayden and vowing to sue the Bush administration to return California's National Guard troops from Iraq. Unfortunately, for Angelides, time isn't...

Republican state senator trails better-known Jerry Brown in polls. Chuck Poochigian first volunteered in a political campaign in 1977 at a rally where George Deukmejian was ramping up his bid for state attorney general -- and accusing then Gov. Jerry Brown of being soft on criminals. Nearly three decades later, it's Poochigian's turn to run for attorney general -- and accuse Brown, now Oakland mayor, of being soft on crime. [Podcast: Jim Zamora interviews AG hopeful Chuck Poochigian. ] "I guess you could say it's ironic that we're still having these discussions about Jerry Brown and crime in 2006,"...

Has anyone heard the campaign ad Ben Stein did for Chuck Poochigian? It's pretty funny. :)

The choice for attorney general is a slam dunk -- State Sen. Chuck Poochigian, R-Fresno. Throughout his years in public life, Poochigian has been a steady, thoughtful and effective lawmaker. His opponent, former Gov. Jerry Brown, who went on to become Oakland's mayor, has been a policy gadfly on more sides of more issues in more state offices than anyone in recent memory. Poochigian's credentials to be the state's "top cop" as attorney general make Brown's laughable by comparison. As a three-term legislator from Fresno who at times represented parts of Kern County, Poochigian has been a strong supporter of...

To hear political pundits up north tell it, attorney general candidate Jerry Brown is a changed man. Editorials and commentaries in recent months have declared ad nauseum that Brown is no longer the flaky "Governor Moonbeam" of yesteryear, but a hard-nosed, git-er-done kind of guy when it comes to crushing crime in California. Tell that to the people of Oakland, where Brown is mayor. Folks up there must be pleased as punch with their city's crime rate, which includes the murders of 118 people, in a city of only 300,000, so far this year. Intrigued by the notion of a...

Words also abound as Poochigian and Brown trade barbs - In a lively debate Thursday, one candidate for attorney general pulled out a bullet and placed it on the conference table while his rival displayed the photos of numerous teenage boys raped and killed by a serial killer in 1979-80. The debate between Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown and Fresno Republican state Sen. Chuck Poochigian touched on topics ranging from global warming, stem cell research and illegal immigration to abortion rights, assault rifles and the death penalty. The one-hour event, sponsored by The Chronicle and KPIX 5 television, is one of...

Democrat Jerry Brown's name recognition is proving to be formidable for lesser-known Republican challenger Chuck Poochigian. OAKLAND -- In the contest for the state's "top cop," both leading contenders are radical ideologues. Or at least that's the perception each candidate for attorney general wants voters to retain about his opponent.In television ads, Democrat Jerry Brown, the former governor and now mayor of Oakland, portrays Republican Chuck Poochigian as an "extremist" who would end abortion rights in California and legalize cop-killing assault weapons. Poochigian, a state senator from Fresno, returns the favor by describing Brown as "a flaky liberal" who cares...

SACRAMENTO - Oakland Democrat Jerry Brown, who cemented his reputation as California's most enduring political enigma by running for attorney general, and Republican foe Chuck Poochigian of Fresno, are each bashing the other as extreme. In moderate, Democrat-leaning California, both are correct, political experts say. In TV ads, Poochigian criticizes Brown as too soft on crime to be the state's top cop, while Brown calls Poochigian too harsh. Analysts say the crossfire is generating some of the best political theater in the run-up to the Nov. 7 general election. "After the governor's race, it's the most interesting and entertaining," said...

LOS ANGELES - State Sen. Tom McClintock and Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi have much in common. Both have long careers in public office, McClintock's starting in 1982 and Garamendi's in 1975. They hold high-profile positions, McClintock as a state senator known for railing against wasteful spending and Garamendi as a consumer-oriented state insurance commissioner. Both also have run for governor in the past and may aspire to do so again. But in their quest to replace Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, who is termed out of office, they could hardly draw a sharper contrast. Garamendi is a longtime Democratic Party loyalist...

OAKLAND - In the foyer of his modest campaign headquarters, Jerry Brown proudly displayed a striking, life-size tile mosaic that was given his dad, Edmund G. "Pat" Brown, when he left the state attorney general's office 47 years ago to become governor. "I'm going to be able to bring it back into the building and put it up on the wall," said Brown, who just as pridefully offered that his late father had done "a hell of a job" as attorney general. But just a few minutes earlier, when asked whether sentimental reasons are at least partly driving him to...

SACRAMENTO — It looks like state Sen. Chuck Poochigian can save some money this spring in his run for state attorney general. His opponent in June's Republican primary, former U.S. ambassador-at-large Pierre Prosper, announced Thursday he was dropping out of the race. Prosper, who advised the Bush administration on war crimes issues until last year, said in a statement that his campaign did not meet fundraising goals and "we realized that the Republican primary would be an uphill battle." Prosper's campaign reported having $53,871 cash on hand as of Dec. 31, the latest reporting period. The Poochigian campaign reported having...

O.K. Here's the deal.I met with Ambassador Prosper last night, and he appears to be the PERFECT candidate to be California's new Attorney General, or possibly even to replace Dianne Feinstein as our Senator. Either way, we will have a HUGE uphill fight -- since his is not yet a household name -- so we will need to generate as much FREE publicity as we can get, to help get the word out about this EXTRAORDINARILY well-qualified candidate.One way to do this might be to get more name recognition by working with his non-traditional LAST NAME: "Prosper." In particular, I...