Political Rules of Game Changed by the Sheriff : Campaign: Policy banning officers from running against Duffy in his try for a sixth term is eliminated.

The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department has modified its policies regarding staff members engaging in political campaigns and has dropped a provision that prohibits subordinates from running against the incumbent sheriff.

In addition, the Sheriff’s Department has stopped distributing to deputies a television videotape in which Sheriff John Duffy discussed his campaign next year for an unprecedented sixth term in office.

The changes came at the request of local attorney Everett Bobbitt, who has maintained that Duffy has been playing politics with the sheriff’s position in an attempt to add four more years to his 20-year reign as chief law enforcement officer of the county.

Duffy could not be reached for comment Thursday, but copies of his new department policies regarding political activity show that the changes were made this week after sheriff’s Capt. Jim Roache--who was represented by Bobbitt--obtained a temporary court order Monday allowing him to run against Duffy.

The department’s Manual of Policies and Procedures, amended on Wednesday, shows that the provision excluding staff members from running against the incumbent sheriff has been deleted.

The updated manual also states that, although staff members are not allowed to publicly criticize the sheriff or his department, “this rule is not intended to apply to political activities by a candidate for public office.”

Sgt. Bob Takeshta, a Sheriff’s Department spokesman, said Thursday that the entire department will be briefed on the changes in the manual. “Copies are now being duplicated and distributed among the troops,” he said.

Bobbitt said the changes mean that any member the Sheriff’s Department can file for the June primary.

“Anybody now could run,” he said. “There’s no longer a rule against it. Any commander and below now can run, and there’s no bar against it.”

Even before Bobbitt filed the suit on behalf of Roache to overturn the policy restrictions, Duffy indicated that he planned to rescind the provision at some later date.

In a declaration filed in the Roache lawsuit, Duffy said that Roache filed the suit only to gain publicity about his upcoming campaign for sheriff, rather than going through normal departmental channels to obtain a waiver of the policy.

“The manner in which Roache made his request,” Duffy’s declaration said, “causes me to believe that his real purpose is to generate publicity and public sympathy over something that is really not an issue.”

Roache, however, has said he hired Bobbitt to file the lawsuit because he needed an immediate resolution to the problem in order to begin raising campaign funds.

On the videotape issue, Bobbitt had informed the sheriff that he would file a lawsuit if Duffy persisted in requiring all staff members at the jails and patrol stations to view his interview on the televised Headliners program on KNSD, Channel 39.

The lawyer contended that Duffy was violating the law by making deputies review the political interview while on county time.

Anthony Albers, chief deputy in the county counsel’s office, advised Bobbitt in a letter Wednesday that rank-and-file deputies are no longer viewing the tapes.

“The sheriff has ceased distribution of copies of (the) videotapes . . . and all distributed videotaped copies have been picked up by the Video Production Unit of the Sheriff’s Department,” the letter said.

The letter added, however, that “the sheriff’s actions should not be interpreted in any way” as a concession that the distribution of the tapes was an infraction of the law.

And Takeshta said the tapes may have been returned already in the normal course of business.

“We do a lot of videotaping for the department,” he said. “As a matter of routine, they go out and are returned, and so it would not be uncommon for those tapes to be returned by now.”