In response to Monday’s piece, "The Evidence is Clear: Steve Cooley is Right Choice for AG," by Sacramento County District Attorney Jan Scully and Kern County District Attorney
Ed Jagels.
Dear Jan and Ed,
It is unfortunate that you let your good names be used by Steve Cooley’s campaign hacks to distort my record in the article published over your names on the Fox and Hounds website this morning. Jan-we’ve worked together on the Masters in Law program for prosecutors that I established at Chapman with the collaboration of the California District Attorneys Association, and you know that the breadth of my relevant experience is much broader than the article attributed to you conveys.
Ed, your own brother is supporting my candidacy after hearing about the significant constitutional appellate experience I will bring to the office of Attorney General, including involvement in over 50 cases before the Supreme Court of the United States-experience that no other candidate in the race, Democrat or Republican, has.
You claim in the article that you are driven by the evidence, but it is patently clear from your article that you did not even bother to read the briefs in the South Dakota case you belittle. The significant constitutional issues raised before the Supreme Court of the United States in that case involve state sovereign immunity from suit under the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution and also the limits on the federal government’s spending power contained in Article I of the Constitution. I was retained by the State of South Dakota-and appointed a Special Assistant Attorney General, pursuant to South Dakota law-because I am one of the leading constitutional experts in the country on those issues.
The fact that the Steve Cooley camp continues to mischaracterize the case as one about kosher foods in prison demonstrates just how little understanding of those constitutional issues Steve Cooley has. But I expected more from the two of you. The bottom line is that, in this time of constitutional crisis that California is confronting, we need constitutional expertise in the office of Attorney General, an expertise that has been sorely lacking for the past decade and that no other candidate in the race this year brings to the table.
Who else in the race for Attorney General but me has the constitutional expertise to confront the unconstitutionality of retroactive public employee pension spikes that are bankrupting this state (I helped launch the Orange County litigation bringing that challenge), or the unconstitutionality of the expansive interpretation of federal law that has shut off water flow to the Central Valley and is destroying our agricultural industry (I have been involved in most of the major commerce clause cases decided by the Supreme Court over the past decade addressing those very issues), or the unconstitutionality of the state legislature’s attempts to raise taxes in violation of Proposition 13’s 2/3 vote requirement (I was the one who brought the lawsuit to stop that illegal maneuver last year), or the constitutionality of Proposition 187 dealing with illegal immigration and Proposition 8 defining traditional marriage, or the unconstitutionality of ObamaCare?
No one, as anyone who looks at the evidence will readily conclude.
I am also deeply disappointed in your joining in Steve Cooley’s mischaracterization of his own record on Three Strikes. You know as well as anyone that Cooley authored the Three Strikes Reform Act of 2006, an initiative that would have weakened the Three Strikes law and made it impossible for prosecutors to charge a third strike for a twice-convicted violent felon recidivist unless the third strike was itself a violent felony. Worse, had Cooley’s initiative succeeded, many 3-time felons previously convicted under the existing 3-Strikes law would have been released back into our streets. The rest of the DAs in the California District Attorneys Association were so troubled by Cooley’s position that they removed him from the line of succession to become President of the organization, and Cooley responded by resigning from the group and by withdrawing the membership of the deputy and assistant DAs in the Los Angeles DAs office as well. But you know all this-you were there.
Nor would you have repeated the Cooley campaign spin that he has "swept" law enforcement endorsements, if you were truly committed to following the evidence. As you undoubtedly know, the Los Angeles Deputy District Attorneys Association-Steve Cooley’s own employees, who know him best-have endorsed me. Dave Paulson, Solano County DA and former President of the California District Attorneys Association, has endorsed me, as has Carl Adams, the longest-serving District Attorney in the State. Former Attorney General of the United States Ed Meese has not only endorsed me but is serving as my honorary Campaign Chairman.
I also have the endorsements of such prominent former prosecutors as Andy McCarthy, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for Manhattan who prosecuted the first World Trade Center bombers, former Chief Deputy Attorney General of California Dave Sterling, and Don Stenberg, the co-founder of the Republican Attorneys General Association. Finally, former California Attorney General and Governor George Deukmejian has given me his endorsement (he had previously endorsed both Tom Harman and Steve Cooley before I got into the race, but unlike Cooley, I have not sought to convey the misimpression that he has endorsed only me in this race).
Here is what Governor Deukmejian said about my candidacy:
"Having served as Attorney General, I know that the office can be a force that benefits California when held in good hands, and can do great harm when held in the wrong hands. I am happy to endorse John Eastman for Attorney General, because with him in this important position it would be in good hands. John is a nationally-recognized constitutional scholar and litigator who will bring a much-needed expertise to the office."
I realize that campaigns often draft statements such as the one published over your names this morning, and I sincerely hope that you will distance yourselves from the mischaracterizations in it. Indeed, I look forward to working with you both beginning Wednesday morning, June 9, if I win the primary election; too much is at stake for California for us not to elect someone who can grabble with the significant constitutional issues we will face in the coming years.