A white, male judicial candidate, reluctant to take on a Hispanic woman in a race for a seat on the superior court in heavily Hispanic Los Angeles County, Calif., offered her a bribe to run against someone else. That’s the gist of the state attorney general office’s case against Harvey Silberman, who won that election and now is a sitting judge.
Judicial elections were already rife with negative campaign ads and financing from outside political groups. Whether Silberman is convicted or not, his case offers something new: a glimpse into how the machinery of judicial elections has come to work, from the use of political consultants to the deal-making among the candidates. It also shows that the machine can run off the rails.
