{"id":6569,"date":"2017-09-17T18:52:31","date_gmt":"2017-09-18T01:52:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/?p=6569"},"modified":"2025-12-07T18:54:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T02:54:18","slug":"retired-judge-steven-bailey-announces-run-for-attorney-general","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/2017\/09\/17\/retired-judge-steven-bailey-announces-run-for-attorney-general\/","title":{"rendered":"Retired Judge Steven Bailey Announces Run for Attorney General"},"content":{"rendered":"

Katy Grimes, Flash Report]<\/em><\/p>\n

El Dorado County Superior Court Judge Steven Bailey recently retired to run for California Attorney General. A Superior Court judge since 2009, Bailey stepped down last month to mount his campaign for the office of Attorney General.<\/p>\n

<\/span>\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

Judge Steven Bailey<\/em><\/u><\/p>\n

Bailey, an attorney since 1990, was a State of California Criminal Law Specialist, and handled complex criminal matters including death penalty, life in prison, homicide and sexual offenses.<\/p>\n

This is significant since Xavier Becerra, the\u00a0current Attorney General<\/a>\u00a0has been a politician his entire career rather than practicing law. Becerra\u2019s law license was filed \u201cinactive<\/a>\u201d with the California State Bar Association until 1\/1\/2017.<\/p>\n

I met with\u00a0Judge Steven Bailey<\/a>\u00a0and we covered a lot of ground. This is\u00a0Part l.<\/p>\n

Judge Bailey, a Republican, said he decided to run for Attorney General, \u201cwhen after 8 \u00bd years on bench, you see all of the problems that revolve through the courtroom, but have no solutions.\u201d Bailey explained that because too many \u201csolutions\u201d come from Sacramento, and the Legislature, California also needs a solutions-oriented Attorney General.<\/p>\n

One of the other significant issues Bailey discussed is how law enforcement is being misused and put in the position of having to be mental health case-workers. \u201cWe have police officers and sheriffs officers going around the state collecting statistics for bureaucrats,\u201d Bailey said, as a result of Black Lives Matter activists pressuring police to write down the ethnicity of everyone they stop.<\/p>\n

Proposition 47<\/a>\u00a0(2014) and\u00a0Proposition 57<\/a>\u00a0(2016), along with\u00a0Assembly Bill 109<\/a>\u00a0allowed for the release of criminals back on street, as well as the decriminalizing of many felonies including theft and many sex crimes. \u201cCrime is out of control,\u201d Bailey acknowledged. \u201cLaw enforcement officers are targets for gangs. Almost nothing they can do is right.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat can be more ridiculous than Sacramento city council announcing they will pay gang members to not be violent?\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Bailey talked about how it has become commonplace for officers to be killed on duty. \u201cAssassination are taking place on the streets,\u201d Bailey said. \u201cWhen an officer is down, the killers brazenly come up and shoot them when they cannot defend themselves.\u201d This is new.<\/p>\n

So many of these criminals on streets are the ones released under AB 109, Prop. 47 and Prop. 57, and \u201cthey are dangerous,\u201d Bailey reiterated.<\/p>\n

Weaponizing The AG\u2019s Office<\/strong><\/p>\n

Given that Bailey has practiced law and served many years as a judge, I asked if the office of the AG has become too political and why, because the California Attorney General hasn\u2019t always been such a partisan political office. \u201cJerry Brown set the standard for politicization of the office of Attorney General,\u201d Bailey said. \u201cThen Kamala Harris did as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bailey said the current Attorney General Xavier Becerra, appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown, hasn\u2019t a clue what he is doing. \u201cHe was inactive as an attorney for 26 years while he lived in Washington D.C. and was in Congress.\u201d Suing the federal government over President Trump\u2019s decision to reverse the unconstitutional DACA executive order by former President Barack Obama, or suing over Trump\u2019s plans to overturn Obamacare, \u201cis what he does. His focus is Washington D.C. He has no clue on what is important to the people of California.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bailey said California compares right up there along with New York\u2026 the two biggest opponent states of Donald Trump. \u201cThey\u2019re spending all of their time fighting Washington,\u201d Bailey said. \u201cWe taxpayers are paying this guy to work for the people of this state. But I guess it\u2019s normal for him to spend all of his time fighting Washington because that all he knows.\u201d<\/p>\n

I asked Judge Bailey what he sees as some of the needed reforms in the California Department of Justice.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to bring the whole department and organization back to being focused as advocates for the people,\u201d Bailey said. \u201cWhat we\u2019ve got is a public interest law firm paid for by taxpayers. This emasculated the agents in the department,\u201d Bailey added.<\/p>\n

Jerry Brown, Kamala Harris and Xavier Becerra \u201cnearly wiped out the crime lab in California,\u201d Bailey said. \u201cThere is no attention being paid to drug crimes. Look at the DOJ and where they are putting their resources into investigations\u2026 not into crime control, and not supporting law enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re whole focus is \u2018who did you stop today?\u2019 instead of \u2018how many crimes did you prevent today,\u2019 you get emasculated agents.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bailey also said the DOJ has not hired criminologis\u00a0ts to do drug training, and they are solely focused on DNA. \u201cWhile DNA is important, there are a lot of other things that need attention, like drug labs, which was always a DOJ job,\u201d Bailey said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe recent and current Attorneys General think drugs are so unimportant, they worked to get Propositions 47 and 57 passed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regarding drug crimes, Prop. 47 removed one of the key mechanisms away from courts to get treatment. Judges used to be able to order drug convicts to drug treatment and rehabilitation. \u201cTreatment or prison\u2026\u201d Bailey said. \u201cThey choose treatment.\u201d Now, following passage of Prop. 47 and Prop. 57, anyone convicted of a drug crime is told it may be a 90 day sentence, but because the jails are full, the sheriff will likely have to let you go, or there is treatment, but it\u2019s no longer mandatory, Bailey explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Prop. 47 We\u2019ve encouraged people to go out and steal from the public,\u201d Judge Bailey said. \u201cWe\u2019ve signed the death warrant to thousands of people who are addicted. We\u2019ve made the mistake that all drug users are the same. But they are not. Some support their habits selling. Now it is a misdemeanor\u2026 maybe you\u2019ll get 6 months \u2013 maybe 180 days, but if the jail is full like it typically is in LA County, they probably won\u2019t do any real time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bailey added, \u201cThey used to get real time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Katy Grimes, Flash Report] El Dorado County Superior Court Judge Steven Bailey recently retired to run for California<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":"","thumbnail":"","medium":"","medium_large":"","large":"","1536x1536":"","2048x2048":"","darknews-slider-full":"","darknews-featured":"","darknews-medium":"","darknews-medium-square":""},"author_info":{"display_name":"News MoLo","author_link":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/author\/admin\/"},"category_info":"News<\/a>","tag_info":"News","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6569"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6569"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6570,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6569\/revisions\/6570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}