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A judge decided today that City Attorney Carmen Trutanich can't call himself Los Angeles Chief Prosecutor when he appears on the June ballot as a candidate for District Attorney. That would be misleading. But he can call himself Los Angeles City Prosecutor. So there.
Immediately, the campaign managers for Trutanich and Alan Jackson, the rival candidate who sued over the issue, issued press releases crowing that on this great issue of the day, they had prevailed. Both are below.
From John Shallman — see if you can tell who pays his fee:
It's another victory in court for Carmen Trutanich. The court rejected Jackson's attempt to strip Trutanich of his rightful designation as a prosecutor. Carmen Trutanich is proud to be the Los Angeles City Prosecutor running one of the largest local prosecutorial offices in the nation. As we said from the beginning though, today's ruling is irrelevant because ballot titles are irrelevant which is why we didn't challenge Jackson's bogus title. It's particularly irrelevant when you consider the fact that Carmen Trutanich paid the County Registrar $106,000 in order to provide voters with a 200-word statement of qualifications. Jackson failed to provide a statement because he wasted all of his money on a negative smear campaign against Carmen Trutanich. Now Jackson is broke. So the score stands: Trutanich 200, Jackson 0.
And now the release from the Jackson camp.
Today Deputy DA Alan Jackson won a challenge in court over Carmen Trutanich’s ballot title of “Los Angeles Chief Prosecutor”. The judge agreed with Jackson’s writ calling Trutanich’s ballot title “misleading” forcing him to throw out both of his proposed alternatives. Each ballot titles was deemed inappropriate and spurious forcing Trutanich to settle on the ballot title “Los Angeles City Prosecutor.”Deputy DA Alan Jackson responded, “We are pleased and satisfied that the court saw through Mr. Trutanich's attempt to mislead and deceive the voters with a concocted ballot designation. The court clearly sent a message that the people of Los Angeles deserve better than to be hoodwinked.”
“Today's ruling was reality check for Mr. Trutanich,” said Jackson’s strategist John S. Thomas.
