Humboldt County, California judge under fire for ethics violations as election looms

The headline from The Press Democrat (of Sonoma County, California but covering the north coast up through Humboldt), is "Humboldt County Judge Greg Kreis accused of sexual harassment, drunken bullying, throwing curveball into his reelection bid." Here's an excerpt from the deeply reported story by Andrew Graham and Marisa Endicott: 

The commission that oversees California’s judiciary has served presiding Humboldt County Superior Court Judge Gregory Kreis a 35-page notice charging him with 19 ethical violations including drunken bullying of attorneys, lewd behavior toward women, poor courtroom behavior, cronyism and abuse of power.

The allegations outlined by the commission on Feb. 2 stretch back years and have thrown his reelection campaign into turmoil just weeks before the March 5 election.

In one case, in May 2019, he is accused of using an antisemitic slur against a deputy public defender, insulting his manliness and then pushing him fully clothed off a pontoon boat into Lake Shasta.

A 2015 allegation from before he became a judge states that he took two attorneys with him to buy cocaine, then used the drug in the car as he drove back from the purchase.

Another accusation alleges he sneaked into a sleeping woman’s bedroom, exposed his genitals and tried to wake her.

Here are more posts about Humboldt County, which is metropolitan, but sparsely populated.  I'm just thinking about the presumably helpful role of this state commission in providing oversight of a sensitive matter like this one.  It seems far preferable to local oversight--and, to my mind, is even preferable to letting the voters decide in a couple of weeks.