LA County Candidates

Vote for incumbent Robert Luna to block right-winger Alex Villanueva from returning to the office.

The LA County Sheriff’s Department is riddled with injustice and when Alex Villanueva served as Elected Sheriff from 2018 to 2022, he made things far worse. Ultimately, this should not be an elected position. But currently it is and that means voters are faced with a choice about who should run this Department with a 3.6 billion dollar budget, 18,000 employees, control over the jail system, responsibility for policing across half of the county.

The incumbent is Robert Luna, the former Long Beach police chief. And while he’s not as progressive as Eric Strong who we endorsed in 2022 and recommended the 2026 primary, Luna is an improvement over Villanueva. He stopped the incitement and retaliatory raids against political enemies that Villanueva launched.

Luna has the the support of all five county supervisors and other leading officials such as as Senator Alex Padilla, the County Federation of Labor, and UNITE HERE Local 11.

His campaign is promoting a falling violent crime rate and increased clearance rates for violent and property crimes (the percentage of reported crimes that are solved). He touts reforms including creating the Office of Constitutional Policing; a ban on law enforcement gangs; transparency measures like outfitting deputies in LA County jails with body-worn cameras and posting data on uses of force, taser usage, stops, etc. We’re not in a position to judge how successful or impactful these reforms have been but he remains the better choice than Villanueva by any measure.

We have serious concerns about the most common progressive choice in this race, Rhonda Haymon. When we declined to endorse or recommend her 2024 run (against the judge who held her in contempt of court), the way she responded was one of the least professional reactions we’ve seen in our many years of doing endorsements. This behavior is mirrored in other public reporting. While we are reluctant to recommend prosecutors over public defenders, our concerns about Haymon leave us no choice but to suggest you vote for Maria Ghobadi who has extensive Democratic club and union backing, in addition to conservative support.

In the spring, we recommended a vote for Anna S. Reitano and also mentioned that Justin Clayton was an excellent choice. As it turns out, these are the two candidates that made it through the run-off. So we have the enviable position of two good choices.

Clayton is the Deputy in Charge of the Public Defender’s Office Inglewood branch. He’s spent more than a decade as a public defender and has litigated more than 40 cases. His endorsements include the public defenders union, La Defensa, the CA Working Families Party, and the LA County Democratic Party.

Reitano previously served as a public defender until moving over to the Justice and Safety Division of LA County Counsel’s office, where she supervises civil litigation and advises county departments. She has endorsements from multiple newspapers, Democratic clubs, and elected leaders like State Senator Ben Allen. She was endorsed by La Defensa when she initially ran for this office in 2022.

Both Clayton and Reitano have the same “Qualified” rating from the LA County Bar Association and endorsements from a variety of current judges. Due to support from the public defenders union and Working Families Party, we give the edge to Clayton.

This is another tough one, unfortunately. Our June recommendation was Anthony (A.J.) Bayne who has 30 years of experience, including extensive work as a public defender. He received a “Well Qualified” rating by the Los Angeles County Bar Association, and has endorsements from multiple judges, the ILWU union, and Metropolitan News.

The other candidate, David DeJute, has the backing of more conservative elements like Rick Caruso and “Thrive” as well as the LA County Democratic Party.

DeJute’s campaign has highlighted the fact that Bayne has registered as an independent or Republican and apparently contributed $4.80 to Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016. This has persuaded La Defensa to withdraw its recommendation of Bayne.

This race is a great example of why our system for election judges is broken.

In this open race, there are two public defenders – Donna Tryfman and David Ross. According to Met News’ endorsement of Tryfman, she has a reputation for being more abrasive while Ross is more of a smooth talker. Both have extensive endorsements and would likely make good judges. We give the edge in this race to Ross, who has more progressive support, including a recommendation from La Defensa, while Tryfman is recommended by conservative group “Thrive.” Ross reports that he has not accepted any contributions from law enforcement, and he will not accept donations from corporations or PACs. Ross received a “Qualified” rating from the Los Angeles County Bar Association.