Week in Review : MAJOR EVENTS, IMAGES AND PEOPLE IN ORANGE COUNTY NEWS. : COUNTY : Gates Easily Wins a New Term as Sheriff
The lanky lawman who describes himself as “just a cowboy” won an endorsement for another lap around the rodeo ring when Orange County voters gave Sheriff Brad Gates a 64.2% vote for another four-year term.
“Our turn was yesterday,” Gates told his wife Wednesday, after a campaign in which his opponents had called him everything from a crook to an incompetent--the usual kind of electioneering often seen in Orange County campaigns.
The two challengers--Municipal Court Judge Bobby D. Youngblood and Orange County Sheriff’s Sgt. Linda Lea Calligan--didn’t even garner enough votes to force Gates into a runoff election in November.
So the big question remaining after Tuesday’s balloting was what would happen to the two challengers.
Youngblood, a longtime Gates foe, can’t return to the Municipal Court bench, at least not right away. He didn’t seek reelection. Calligan, though, is a different matter: She has to go back to work--for Gates.
Moreover, she has to to work for him while she’s asking the court to invalidate the election results (because a judge barred her from printing several accusations about the boss in a ballot pamphlet) and have her name placed back on the ballot in November.
“I don’t work for him,” she said of Gates. “I work for the people of Orange County.”
Gates sees it differently. “I believe she should look for a job somewhere else.”
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
