With the June election now less than two months away, in this installment of our election coverage, we consider the candidates running for Orange County Sheriff. The office is officially a non-partisan office, but as we have been told, all three of the candidates are Republicans, so this battle is an internal party contest.
Our purpose here is not to endorse any of the candidates, but rather to provide some additional information and perspective on the race.
All three of the candidates–Sandra Hutchens, Bill Hunt, and Craig Hunter–are seasoned professionals with many years in Southern California law enforcement. At the same time, however, the three are very different politicians and this is a political office.
Based on our review of the candidate’s web sites, other public information, and after listening to a candidates forum, we believe some important distinctions between the candidates are discernable.
We will do our best to identify those distinctions without becoming judgmental, nevertheless, some readers will inevitably disagree with our characterizations. All are welcome to express their opinions in the comments section of this article.
We believe it is unlikely that any candidate other than a conservative Republican would be successful in a bid for election as Orange County Sheriff. It seems safe to assume that all three candidates fit this general characterization, but there are important differences. Further, we believe these differences are representative of the different perspectives confronting the Republican Party at a national level.
One element of the Republican Party, the Tea Party movement, is not even sure it wants to be considered part of the GOP. Former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, while not officially leading the Tea Party movement, certainly has demonstrated her ability to rally that segment of the Party. If this is your political perspective, we believe Bill Hunt would be your candidate of choice for OC Sheriff.
The remainder of the GOP could perhaps be generalized by considering the perspectives of David Frum, until recently a resident fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. While clearly a conservative, Frum separated himself from the Tea Party group by taking a less confrontational approach to the recently passed healthcare legislation. If this is your political perspective, Sandra Hutchens is probably your candidate of choice for OC Sheriff.
At the risk of offending any upstanding conservatives, we found a recent piece in that bias liberal East Coast bastion of journalism—the New York Times—to provide a reasonable explanation of these two different facets of the GOP. Click here to read the piece.
Which of these two perspectives will be chosen by the party faithful to go against the Democrats will be determined in the June primary election. Whether that perspective represents the will of the electorate will be determined by the November general election.
Besides Bill Hunt and Sandra Hutchens, there is one additional sheriff candidate. That would be Craig Hunter. We found it difficult to place Hunter squarely in one of the two GOP camps. Thus, if neither of the two previous perspectives represents your political point of view, Hunter might be your choice.
Sandra Hutchens is the incumbent, but she has never been elected to the job. She was appointed by the Orange county Board of Supervisors in June 2008, when then Sheriff Mike Carona resigned after he was indicted. She spent 30 years in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. After graduating from the LASD Academy in 1978 and rising up through the ranks, she retired as Division Chief.
Challenging the appointed incumbent are Bill Hunt and Craig Hunter. Bill Hunt is a 21 year veteran of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department from which he retired in 2006 as a Lieutenant. The 2010 race is his second attempt to be elected as Orange County Sheriff. Hunt lost in his 2006 attempt to unseat then incumbent Mike Corona.
Hunt’s web site indicates that he retired, but other press accounts indicated he was fired by Corona after losing the 2006 election. After his 2006 retirement, Hunt has managed an Orange County based private investigations agency which he founded in January 2007.
The third candidate for Orange County sheriff is Craig Hunter. Hunter is the Deputy Police Chief for the City of Anaheim. He has been with the Anaheim Police Department since 1982.
Of the three candidates, it seems clear that Sandra Hutchens has the most experience as a senior leader in a large police or sheriff’s department. In addition to doing the job in OC for the last two years, she served in a senior leadership position for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Craig Hunter has also served, and is now serving, in a senior leadership role in a large police department. But the Anaheim Police Department is much smaller than the OC Sheriff’s Department. The OCSD has more than 4,000 people, while the Anaheim PD has a staff of around 800. Bill Hunt also claims to have plenty of police management experience gained through his various leadership assignments while he was with OCSD, plus his leadership experience in running his own business. While Hunt’s experience certainly is relevant, it is not at a senior leadership level comparable to the other two candidates.
While Hutchens is the only candidate who has actually performed the job of Sheriff, that does not come without controversy. One area where the sheriff affects our lives is based on that position’s authority to issue permits to carry concealed weapons. In a study by the Orange County Register published 10/7/2008, it was reported that former Sheriff Carona, issued permits to carry concealed weapons to his political supporters.
Click here to go to the story.
After Carona’s downfall, Hutchens tightened the procedures for issuing the permits. According to the OC Register article, a permit had been issued to at least one person who had been convicted of a firearms violation. Hutchens has faced criticism because she was more restrictive about issuing the permits, which require the gun holder to establish “good cause” for needing the permit.
Both Hunt and Hunter have stated they believe the desire for self defense is good enough to establish good cause. In fact, on his web site, Hunt puts issuing permits to carry concealed weapons as his first priority. For Hunter, this issue is further down on his list, but he clearly states he is in favor of issuing concealed weapon permits much less restrictively than Hutchens.
In looking at who is endorsing these three candidates, it is clear that Hutchens is the candidate of the OC GOP establishment. From the West side of the county, she is endorsed by California State Senator Tom Harman, California State Assemblyman Jim Silva, and Los Alamitos Councilmember’s Troy Edgar and Dean Zarkos. Hunter, while he is the Deputy Police Chief in Anaheim, he has received only two endorsements from that city council. OC District Attorney Tony Rackauckas, so far, has not endorsed any of the three candidates.
The endorsements received by Bill Hunt include the Association of Orange County deputy sheriffs, AOCSD, and Joe Arpaio, Sheriff of Maricopa County , Arizona. Arpaio is probably one of the most controversial law enforcement figures in the country today. In addition to an anti-immigration and anti-Hispanic campaign, Arpaio‘s Wikipedia entry includes “In October 2009, it was reported that the FBI was investigating Arpaio for using his position to settle political vendettas. In January 2010, it was reported that the Department of Justice has impaneled a grand jury to investigate allegations of abuse of power by Arpaio. In March 2010, it was reported that an investigation into Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is “serious and ongoing”, according to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.”
Click here to go to the article.
Bill Hunt is proud of his endorsement by Arpaio and list’s it first on his web site. Hunt received the endorsement by AOCSD last week after a candidate forum and a vote by the members.
Hunt presents himself as the person with the most “boots-on-the-ground” knowledge of and experience with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. In the vote by the union members, the deputies supported Hunt by a large margin. The results were as follows: Bill Hunt 50.24%, Sandra Hutchens 26.70%, Craig Hunter 12.02%, and No Endorsement 11.04%.
The web sites of the three candidates can be reached as follows:
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About Dolores Barr, Publisher
Dolores Barr has lived in Rossmoor since 1992 and has created this site to provide local news for the people of Los Alamitos, Seal Beach, Rossmoor, Leisure World, Sunset Beach, and Surfside, California. My husband and I have had two students graduate from the Los Alamitos Unified School District and currently our Grandson, Ricky Apodaca, grade 3 at Weaver Elementary, is actively involved in youth baseball through LAYB and youth football through FNL.
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