Judge Opens Congressional Campaign

Orange County Superior Court Judge James P. Gray said Wednesday that, unlike his opponents, he is uniquely qualified to occupy the congressional seat now held by Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove) because of his position as a jurist.

“Probably all of the ills and problems in our society have come through my court,” Gray said, formally announcing his campaign. “I’ve seen what happens when we have bad public policy, when we have badly drafted laws. As a judge, you’re trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. As a member of Congress, I’d be able to be proactive.”

Gray, a Republican best known for supporting the decriminalization of drugs, began a leave of absence Wednesday to actively campaign for the congressional seat. Republicans Lisa Hughes, a family law attorney and certified public accountant, and Anaheim City Councilman Bob Zemel also have announced their candidacies.

Gray lunged into controversy of his own several years ago when he declared that the nation’s “zero tolerance” in the war on drugs was a failure. He suggested that decriminalizing drugs and refocusing funding from enforcement to prevention would be better uses of the countless millions of dollars spent.

He also supported last year’s statewide Proposition 115, which allows medical marijuana use, though he faulted some of the measure’s provisions.

Among those on hand to endorse Gray on Wednesday was former California Supreme Court Justice Marcus Kaufman, who lives in Orange County. Kaufman said he met the lower court judge through Gray’s volunteer work and said he was impressed by Gray’s commitment to ideas, “even if they’re not so very popular at the time.”

“On the way over here, I was thinking I didn’t know if he was a Democrat or a Republican, and it didn’t make a single bit of difference to me,” Kaufman said.

Gray said he intends to campaign to voters of all parties in the state’s first open primary, which will list every candidate on a single primary ballot. The top vote-getters from each party will move to the general election.

He said he expects he’ll have to raise at least $600,000 for the primary race, “and that’s obscene.”

Hughes has pledged to spend $500,000 of her own money for her race; Zemel is counting on support from businesses and from appeals to members of the Christian Coalition. Zemel has hired former Christian Coalition executive director Ralph Reed, now a consultant in Atlanta, to manage his campaign.