08/29
By Carl Tennenbaum
The August 29, 2026 PD Editorial: A county oversight council shouldn’t host a candidate forum arguing that IOLERO's Community Advisory Council is the "wrong group" to host a nonpartisan candidate forum raises legitimate questions about the appropriate use of public resources. Unfortunately, the editorial does something quite different than asking those questions: it presents a disputed legal interpretation as settled law while omitting important facts that undermine its argument.
The editorial states that County Counsel "correctly advised" the CAC that it "may not host a candidate forum" and that doing so is "illegal under state law." That is not an established fact. It is County Counsel's erroneous legal interpretation, and a particularly sweeping one at that.
California law prohibits government officials from using public funds to advocate for or against candidates. Government Code §54964 addresses expenditures supporting or opposing a candidate, defining the relevant expenditure in terms of communications that expressly advocate for the candidate's election or defeat. Nothing in that statute says that a governmental advisory body is prohibited from conducting a genuinely nonpartisan candidate forum.
That distinction matters.
A forum in which every qualified candidate is invited, receives equal treatment and equal opportunity to respond, where no candidate is endorsed, and the sponsoring organization does not advocate for anyone is fundamentally different from using public resources to campaign for a candidate.
The editorial invokes the Hatch Act and the broader principle that the government must remain neutral in elections. That principle is beyond dispute. But neutrality does not mean the government must become silent whenever candidates are involved. The federal Office of Special Counsel's Hatch Act guidance distinguishes prohibited partisan activity and misuse of official authority from activities that are permissible when conducted in a nonpartisan or personal capacity, issuing a legal opinion on this specific case.
Another important distortion is that the editorial describes the CAC as an "11-member panel appointed by supervisors that oversees difficult cases involving the Sheriff's Office" and suggests that it would somehow be "refereeing" the races for the Board of Supervisors. The CAC does not oversee difficult cases or referee elections, nor does it determine who wins them. Its purpose is to act as a community adjunct to IOLERO and to provide community input concerning civilian law-enforcement oversight.
Asking candidates for the Board of Supervisors where they stand on Measure P and civilian oversight is hardly an inappropriate subject for public discussion. The Board of Supervisors is directly responsible for County government, including the structure and funding of IOLERO. Voters have every legitimate interest in knowing the candidates' positions on these issues.
The editorial's most revealing suggestion comes near the end, when it proposes that CLEAN invite the Sonoma County Deputy Sheriffs' Association and the Deputy Sheriffs' Law Enforcement Management Unit to co-sponsor the forum.
That would hardly make the event more neutral.
The DSA has a well-documented institutional interest in gutting Measure P and has continually fought any meaningful civilian oversight, choosing to ignore the will of the voters and engaging in expensive, taxpayer funded litigation instead of community based cooperation. Suggesting that an organization with a direct stake in the controversy should participate as a co-sponsor while portraying the civilian oversight community as inherently conflicted is difficult to reconcile with the editorial's stated concern about neutrality.
There is nothing inherently partisan about asking candidates publicly to explain their positions on law enforcement oversight. In fact, an informed electorate requires precisely this kind of discussion.
If County Counsel believes that the CAC lacks legal authority to sponsor such a forum, it should identify the specific statute, regulation or judicial decision establishing that prohibition. The July 27 memorandum does not do so. It instead makes sweeping assertions about the Hatch Act and California law without providing the legal foundation one would reasonably expect for such a categorical conclusion.
The Press Democrat editorial should have distinguished between what the law clearly prohibits and what a risk averse, conservative County Counsel believes presents a legal risk. Instead, it transformed a contested legal interpretation into a statement of fact. That isn't neutrality. It is advocacy for one side of a very important public-policy debate.
The simple fact that the IOLERO CAC and the four supervisorial candidates have chosen to participate in the forum, fully aware of County Counsel’s opinion, speaks volumes to how this issue is being viewed, and who really cares about keeping the Sonoma Community involved and informed.
Public confidence suffers when the County continuously acts to handicap its own advisory boards rather than foster open dialogue. It is disheartening to see the Press Democrat Editorial Board fall into lockstep with County Counsel in promoting misleading and legally dubious information.
