Sitting judge who promoted own candidacy barred from bench

The California state Supreme Court rejected an appeal Wednesday by Steven Bailey, the former judge who ran for state attorney general last year and then was permanently barred from returning to the bench by a state commission because he used his judicial position to promote his political campaign.

Bailey, a former Superior Court judge in El Dorado County, argued that the Commission on Judicial Performance violated his freedom of speech by enforcing rules that prohibit judges from using their positions to run for nonjudicial office. The commission disagreed, and the state’s high court, which has the last word on judicial discipline in California, denied review of his appeal without comment.

The penalty is the most severe the commission can impose on a former judge: a public censure and a lifetime ban on judicial service in California, a common shortterm occupation for retired judges.

Bailey was a judge for 8½ years before retiring in August 2017. He ran for attorney general as a Republican and finished second in the June 2018 primary but received only 36.4% of the vote against Democratic incumbent Xavier Becerra in November.

Before his retirement, the commission said in its Feb. 27 decision, Bailey organized an “exploratory campaign” in which he posed in judicial robes, referred to himself as “Judge Bailey” and emphasized his judicial experience in speeches.

Bailey sought advice in November 2016 from an expert on judicial ethics, who advised him to take a leave of absence from the bench before using

his judicial title in the campaign. But he remained a judge for another nine months before formally declaring his candidacy.

The commission also said Bailey, in five cases from 2009 to 2014, had ordered defendants charged with alcoholrelated crimes to use a specific company’s anklemonitoring braces. The judge’s son, John Bailey, worked as a case manager for the company and received a commission for every defendant he monitored.

Bailey “plays by his own rules with little concern for whether his conduct comports with the rules applicable to all judges,” said the commission, whose members are appointed by the governor, legislative leaders and the state Supreme Court.

In his challenge to the decision, Bailey’s lawyer argued that being a judge was “an integral part of his identity” that he was entitled to communicate to prospective voters, even during his exploratory campaign while he was still on the bench.

“The electorate has a right to know who Judge Bailey is and what his qualifications are,” attorney Kristin Iversen told the court. Requiring a judge to take a “lengthy, unpaid leave of absence” to run for a nonjudicial office interferes with “core political speech” and also imposes a “grave financial burden,” she said.

Iversen also said Bailey did not seek contributions from “anyone who could or did come before him” in court.