Politics and Blunt Force Trauma (Written February 2011)

In 2002 I was injured in a car accident and had what I latter learned can only be described as "closed head trauma". The accident, I could not really recall. Many things related to my life, like my phone number and the directions to my office from my home, I could not remember. Words escaped me, peoples names escaped me, and often I found my self en route somewhere, only to realize that I was unsure where I was going and why. The strange and unexpected lesson I learned is that there is a facet of emotional memory, emotional experience, that does not get erased, even with this loss of short term memory. Emotionally, you remember. The day after my accident, I woke up, in my own room, in my own bed, unsure of where I was, but I knew for sure, that I belonged there. The ‘feeling’, emotional experiences, were not forgotten, and not affected by my short term memory problems.



My recent submersion into politics was a little bit the same. I was a stranger in a strange land, but compelled to be there by a force that I still struggle to explain, and the emotion attached to it, is inescapable.



I have spent the past 15 years sharpening my skills as a litigator and navigating the treacherous waters of family law in Southern California Courts. For the 8 years prior to finishing Law School I sold cars, paid my own way and purchased a home. It is amusing to be characterized as someone with financial influence in local politics at this time, because I was not in any way a trust fund baby. My puzzled family marvelled at why I would work a decent paying full time job that was often seven days a week, and still pursue the law degree at all other times including evenings and weekends. My parents are the hardest working people I know. My mom didn’t finish high school and my dad drove trucks and wanted to own his own trucks more than anything. I think at some point they really thought I had lost my mind though. Encouragement for my far fetched plan was non-existant, and my committment to the plan, rarely gained me any reinforcement or approval. One of my bosses in the car business said to me one day, "If that law thing doesn’t work out, you will always have the car business." Thankfully the law-thing kinda worked out for me, but I’m always up for a new challenge, and politics has been calling me since I was a young Republican.



After my years in the car business and in the practice of family law, I have to admit, I was somewhat dismissive of the warnings of the hard knocks I would take in politics. In the car business in the 80's I was generally the only woman on the sales force, a very young one at that, and in law practice, I have devoted my career to family law litigation, divorces and trial work. I lived in the trenches of these tough careers, worked with rough aggressive car salesmen, and represented vindictive abrasive litigants and confronted antagonistic divorce lawyers. I truly did not think that politics could serve up any abuse, humiliation or adversity I hadn’t already endured in life. I was mistaken.



The ugliness in politics is merciless, it is arbitrary, objectifies and disregards the humanity of the participants. Unlike litigation, there is little if any, professional courtesy, and most frustrating is the utter lack of a right to confront and cross examine.



We sat through about 5 Candidate "Forums" in my recent City Council race. Not debates, but question and answer programs, sponsored by various organizations in the city. During at least the last two of these debates, both John Anderson and Tom Lindsey, unequivocally denied any involvement in the extensive negative campaign levied against incumbent Jan Horton.




No one asked further, and I did not get the opportunity to ask my cross exaiming questions of Mr. Lindsey and Mr. Anderson. If they had "nothing" to do with the negative campaign, (Anderson’s meticulously chosen words were "I did not write that piece.") then why did the negative mail pieces about Jan Horton each come on the very day, and with the same bulk mail permit, as the mail pieces on Anderson and Lindsey. They (Anderson/Lindsey) were endorsed by the YLRRR, the group that claimed responsibility for the mail pieces against Horton. Lindsey/Anderson were also endorsed by the CRA and the NOCCC. Both or either group was responsible (apparently, because no one has stepped up and claimed responsibility for it) the obnoxious robo-call, with the angry male voice targeting Jan Horton. I would have loved an opportunity to call as witnesses for purposes of cross-examination, Anderson, Lindsey, various founding members of the YLRRR and organizers of the NOCCC, on the veracity of their financial declarations, their denial of involvement in the hit pieces and who really was that angry male voice?




Even these many months after the campaign is over, I am contacted on a regular basis by citizens who own horses and are denied access to and use of our city facilities because they backed the wrong candidate, by property owners who are in fear that their open support of my campaign would have earned them the retribution of the current city council, by concerned citizens who clearly realize that by being "outside" of the small controlling political circle in our city, they will not in any way have the same voice or advantages as those on the "inside". Due process is not supposed to work this way. I continue to contend, there is now, and has not been any danger of "Bell in YL" the political climate in this city is more akin to historic Chicago, where the prevailing attitude was " If you are not one of us, you are not."




I will not again, belaver here, the points already exhausted during the course of the campaign about the substantive deficiencies with the policies and platforms of the current majority council. Suffice it to say, we the citizens, through apathy or misinformation, have allowed an administration that patronizes a minority of citizens and a special interest group, and who’s agenda and record of spending would embarrass many a democrat.



Jim Drummond, on the one occasion he ventured to speak to me, made it clear that he did not like that I had retained a political consultant, did not like my consultant personally, and suggested that I change courses. His continual favorable treatment to John Anderson and John Anderson’s friends make no secret of where Jim Drummond’s loyalties lie, but his veiled threat to me that I would not find favor with him if I was not alligned with his friends was something I found unusually offensive from someone who hides behind the veil of the press and feigned objectivity.



I have not reviewed the financial reports of any other candidates. I really don’t care to. I was assured at the outset of the campaign that I would spend more than the others, because I was a newcomer, because I refused to allign with any other candidate and because I intended to run a credible campaign. I do doubt the summary of Mr. Drummond that I outspent the others. I have serious doubts about the veracity of the reports of the YLRRR, Lindsey or Anderson, given the unprecedented battle they waged. However, that is the benefit of anonymity isn’t it. There is no membership roll of the YLRRR published anywhere, at any time. Still no one knows who really is a member of this organization. The organization that undoubtedly decided this election. The organization that is strangely outside the parameters of John Anderson’s carefully drafted "ethics" ordinance.



I am the only candidate who hired professionals to work on my campaign. I am the only candidate who is also a sole practice, lawyer, and single parent. I take seriously the legal requirements of set forth by the federal government, I did not have the time to learn these ropes, and no fully unemployed spouse to navigate them for me. I have a lot to lose potentially, and I intended to come through the campaign without inadvertently missing any legal requirements.


I would not have done anything differently. I would do the November 2010 campaign all over again. I will not do another one, but have no regrets about the recent past. I saw truth and common sense die a slow and painful death right before me, each and every time I confronted these candidates. Sound bytes and platitudes rule the day, and our city is worse off because of it. The damage resultant from complacency has not yet even begun to rear it’s ugly head. This, I can not face again.



So, yes, strangely and illogically, compelled to engage in this battle? I was. I may forget the veiled threats of Jim Drummond, and the furtive glances of Anderson and Lindsey as they denied the obvious, but the feeling, much like blunt force trauma, of standing up, at great personal expense to myself and my family, to do the right thing, and being accused of something else, well that is a ‘feeling’ that is not to be forgotten. It was important to do, and not likely I will stand before that train again.