Good (local) news regarding judicial diversity, out of California's Inland Empire

Byrhonda Lyons reported some surprisingly good news about diversity among California trial judges for CalMatters last week:  61% of the trial court judges in Imperial County, California are people of color! Imperial County is not rural by the U.S. Census Bureau definition, nor is it nonmetropolitan by the definition of the Office of Management and Budget.  It is, however, rural in the California imaginary, part of the Inland Empire and with a highly agricultural economy.  

The county is one of the state's poorest and most diverse (85% Latino), hugging the Arizona state line and the Mexican border.  Here's a segment about how diversity on the Imperial County bench came to be.  The short story:  it began with personal initiative and persistence: 

Contentious elections have been critical to transforming the bench in Imperial County.

Located just 17 miles from Mexicali, Mexico, the California town of El Centro is the seat of rural Imperial County, where Latinos have been a majority for decades. White people long dominated the bench. In 1980, then-Gov. Jerry Brown appointed Matt Contreras to be a judge of what were then called Municipal Courts. Contreras became the county’s first Latino judge — and the only one for another decade.

By 1990, Juan Ulloa, having been skipped over for an appointment, bypassed that traditional process and gambled that voters would elect a Latino judge.

“It was common wisdom,” he said, “that it couldn’t be done.”

That year, a Superior Court judge retired, clearing the way for Ulloa to run for a newly vacant seat. He lost. Four years later, another judge retired, and Ulloa ran again, facing off against Roger Benitez, now a federal District Court judge best known for rejecting California’s assault rifle ban.

Since the state began collecting diversity data on judges 14 years ago, governors and the voters have helped Imperial County go from two Latino judges in 2007 to five in 2020 — rising, falling and coasting along the way.

Now Latino judges make up half of the 10-member bench. Two Latino judges were appointed by Brown, one in 2016 and one in 2018. One was appointed by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2009. The other two won in elections.

Said Ulloa: “Once we proved it could be done, the doors opened.”

In all, 40% of Imperial County’s judges first got the job by campaigning for election. That’s exceedingly rare in California, where counties can go decades without a Superior Court challenge.

“The Imperial Valley is such a close-knit area that people want to make sure they know who they are electing,” said Judge William Quan, an Asian American native of the valley. Quan ran twice, losing once before and winning in 2014.

“You learn to appreciate that. And maybe that has bred this thinking that I will run for election versus appointment because we understand the people. We know them and we’re comfortable enough to be able to ask for their support.”

While elections can diversify a bench, they can also have the opposite effect. Latina Judge Ruth Bermudez Montenegro, appointed by then-Gov. Brown in 2012, was unseated by Judge Brooks Anderholdt in a primary election a mere few months later. Eventually she won another judgeship and now is a magistrate judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. 

The other good news is that the California Supreme Court is the most diverse judicial body in the state:  

[F]ully 71% of its judges are people of color, creating one of the most diverse Supreme Courts in the country.

I'm glad the story notes that now infamous federal district judge, Roger Benitez, lives in Imperial County. 

Here's another post about a lawyer, my former colleague Cruz Reynoso, who started his career in Imperial County where he eventually worked for California Rural Legal Assistance.  This part of Judge Ulloa's biography-- reminded me of Reynoso, who was the first Latino to sit on the California Supreme Court.  Ulloa was thwarted in his first few efforts to get a seat on the Imperial County court--by getting a gubernatorial appointment or getting recommended by the local bar.     

[Ulloa] figures his legal work representing employees in discrimination suits and inmates seeking better jail conditions deemed him “too radical” for an aspiring California judge at the time.

Be sure to read the entire CalMatters story for a nice rural "lack of anonymity" angle at the end. 

A prior Byrhonda Lyons story about the lack of diversity among California trial court judges is here, and the blog post about it is here.