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2018 Sacramento County elections |
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Election dates |
Filing deadline: March 9, 2018 |
Primary election: June 5, 2018 General election: November 6, 2018 |
Election stats |
Offices up: County board of supervisors, County board of education, County assessor, County sheriff, District attorney, Superior court judges |
Total seats up: 29 |
Election type: Nonpartisan |
Other municipal elections |
U.S. municipal elections, 2018 |
Incumbent Anne Marie Schubert defeated homicide prosecutor Noah Phillips in the nonpartisan primary for district attorney in Sacramento County, California. In the wake of several law enforcement incidents, the election centered on accountability and how fatal law enforcement incidents in the county had been handled.[1]
Outside groups and activists became more involved in the race after Schubert received $13,000 from the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association (CSLEA) and Sacramento County Alliance of Law Enforcement less than a week after Stephon Clark, an unarmed black man, was killed by Sacramento police officers.[2]
Cat Brooks, the executive director of the Justice Teams Network, said the contribution reflected that district attorneys were "beholden to law enforcement unions." Tanya Faison, a founding member of the Sacramento chapter of Black Lives Matter, and other local activists also called on Schubert to press charges against the police officers involved in the shooting.[2]
A CSLEA spokeswoman said in a statement, "There was no timing involved. We’ve been for [Schubert] from the very beginning. It’s unfortunate that the check had to happen at that time."[2]
Phillips highlighted this issue in his campaign. He pledged to "hold law enforcement transparent, which my opponent does not believe," and said that he would reopen the 2016 police shooting of Joseph Mann. Real Justice PAC endorsed Phillips and began to invest money in his campaign in March 2018.[3]
Phillips received more than $1 million in contributions, out-raising Schubert's $800,000. The arrest of a suspect in the East Area Rapist cold case and the release of an inappropriate work email from Phillips shifted momentum in the race in May, according to The Sacramento Bee.[4]
Schubert won the seat outright in the nonpartisan primary because she and Phillips were the only two candidates listed on the ballot. California does provide for write-in candidates, however. Between April 9 and May 22, 2018, a candidate could have filed to have his or her name counted on ballots as a write-in candidate.[3][5]
Schubert was first elected Sacramento County District Attorney in 2014 with more than two decades of law enforcement experience. As a county prosecutor, she formed Cold Case Prosecution and become a nationally recognized expert on forensic DNA. Schubert also founded the Community and Government Relations Division, which combines community relations and legislative advocacy solutions to enhance public safety.[6]
She emphasized sentencing reform and prevention in an interview. “The prevention aspect of it, whether it’s gun control or anything else is making sure that we as a DA’s office get out in the community, build good relationships, educate our youth, talk about whatever it is,” she said.[7]
Phillips' professional experience includes working as the supervising attorney of the District Attorney’s Domestic Violence, Human Trafficking, Elder Abuse units and as the principal criminal attorney for the Major Crimes Division in Sacramento.[8]
Phillips said of his prosecutorial perspective, "Every organization has priorities and when we’re talking about preventing crime, whether it be crimes against children, domestic violence assaults or elder abuse—those would be my priorities. Quite frankly, those are all areas that appear to need immediate problem-solving. Those are all emergencies from my perspective.”[9]
Incumbent Anne Marie Schubert won election outright against Noah Phillips in the primary for Sacramento County District Attorney on June 5, 2018.
Candidate |
% |
Votes |
||
✔ |
|
Anne Marie Schubert (Nonpartisan) |
62.6
|
174,957 |
|
Noah Phillips (Nonpartisan) |
37.4
|
104,596 |
Total votes: 279,553 | ||||
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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The following endorsements were compiled from the candidates' websites on April 9, 2018.
Public Safety
District Attorneys
Judges
Victims’ Rights Groups and Individuals
Advocacy Groups
California State Legislature
Local Officials
Sacramento City Officials
Citrus Heights City Officials
Elk Grove City Officials
Folsom City Officials
Contributions in the race passed $1.2 million in May 2018, with both Phillips and Schubert benefiting from more than $640,000 in contributions each.
The Sacramento Bee compiled the following data on the top 10 contributors for each candidate on May 7, 2018:
The Phillips campaign released mailers in April 2018 accusing Schubert of not holding law enforcement accountable for the deaths of Joseph Mann and Stephon Clark. The mailer read, "It shouldn't be so hard to make the right decisions. It shouldn't be so hard to stand up to injustice. When a man is shot six times in the back while armed with only an iPhone, it shouldn't be so hard to say it's wrong and we need to take action. I will."[1]
In May, The Sacramento Bee published an email exchange between Phillips and his uncle where Phillips called a message describing the sexual behavior of women by their ethnicity as "work appropriate and for that matter appropriate anywhere."[12]
Phillips accused the Schubert campaign of providing the emails to the press. He said, "Instead of debating the issues, my opponent is spending public resources building fences and combing through years of my old emails to try to find something she can use to embarrass me. In doing so, the current DA, my former boss, has inadvertently shed more light on why I decided to run in the first place."[12]
Phillips later tweeted, "Over two years ago, my 70-year-old uncle sent these emails. I should have challenged them. Instead, I am embarrassed to say, I didn't. I failed to change a narrative with a close relative because it was simply easier not to."[13]
The county government of Sacramento County is located in Sacramento, California. The county was first established in 1850. It covers a total of 964.64 square miles in northern California. The county's population was 1,482,026 in 2014.[14]
Sacramento County is overseen by a five-member board of supervisors. Each supervisor is elected by district to a four-year term. Residents also elect a county assessor, district attorney, and county sheriff.
The following table displays demographic data provided by the United States Census Bureau.
Demographic data for Sacramento County, California (2015) | |||
---|---|---|---|
Sacramento County | California | U.S. | |
Total population: | 1,465,832 | 38,993,940 | 316,515,021 |
Land area (sq mi): | 964.64 | 155,779 | 3,531,905 |
Race and ethnicity[15] | |||
White alone: | 59.6% | 61.8% | 73.6% |
Black/African American: | 10% | 5.9% | 12.6% |
Asian: | 15% | 13.7% | 5.1% |
Native American: | 0.8% | 0.7% | 0.8% |
Pacific Islander: | 1% | 0.4% | 0.2% |
Two or more: | 6.7% | 4.5% | 3% |
Hispanic/Latino: | 22.3% | 38.4% | 17.1% |
Education | |||
High school graduation rate: | 86.6% | 81.8% | 86.7% |
College graduation rate: | 28.8% | 31.4% | 29.8% |
Income | |||
Median household income: | $55,987 | $61,818 | $53,889 |
Persons below poverty level: | 13.7% | 18.2% | 11.3% |
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, "American Community Survey" (5-year estimates 2010-2015) |
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