Proposed California legislation supported by Black Lives Matter and other social justice groups that would allow county boards of supervisors to remove elected sheriffs from public office is “politically driven” and would undermine democracy, says former Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva.
“This is all about power. It has nothing to do with elected sheriffs doing something wrong,” Villanueva told The Epoch Times.
Causes for removal are defined as a violation of a law related to the performance of a sheriff’s duties; flagrant or repeated neglect of a sheriff’s duties; and misappropriation of public funds or properties committed by a sheriff or their direct reports in the course and scope of their duties.
Causes also include willful falsification of a relevant official statement or document committed by a sheriff in the course and scope of their duties; and obstruction of an investigation into the conduct of a sheriff or a sheriff’s department by a governmental agency, office, or commission with jurisdiction to conduct an investigation.
Several law enforcement associations oppose it, according to the Assembly Public Safety Committee bill analysis.
The bill, introduced by Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D-Los Angeles), states that after being served with a written statement of the alleged grounds for removal, the accused sheriff would be provided a reasonable opportunity to be heard regarding an explanation or defense at a removal proceeding.
“No government official should have unchecked power,“ Jones-Sawyer wrote in the bill’s analysis. ”Regardless of the office or role, public officials take an oath to support and respect the rights of their constituents and represent the common good. But when a Sheriff abuses their power, our tools for meaningful accountability are tragically far and few.”
While the legislation may sound reasonable, it isn’t, Villanueva said.
“If you look at the language, it’s scary,” he told The Epoch Times.
Removing an Elected Officer
Existing California law already allows the removal of public officers for “willful or corrupt misconduct in office,” according to the bill. After an accusation is made, the law currently “requires that the court pronounce judgment that the officer be removed from office upon a conviction and at the time appointed by the court.”The California Statewide Law Enforcement Association argues that “like county boards of supervisors,” sheriffs are elected and are also held accountable by voters.
“Shifting power and accountability from the voters to the Board risks injecting politics and petty disagreements into the removal of a Sheriff, overriding the will of the voters,” the association states in its opposition arguments in the bill analysis. “By nullifying the will of the voters, the Board of Supervisors will become the judge, jury, and executioner for the Office of the Sheriff. We believe these decisions are best left to the voters.”
The Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs, California Fraternal Order of Police, California State Sheriffs’ Association, Deputy Sheriffs Association of San Diego County, Long Beach Police Officers Association, Sacramento County Deputy Sheriffs’ Association, and San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Employees’ Benefit Association also oppose the bill.
Activist groups such as Black Lives Matter–Los Angeles (BLM), Initiate Justice, Oakland Privacy, and Secure Justice support AB 1090.
The fact that BLM is backing the bill is all anyone needs to know, Villanueva said, adding that the group’s calls to “defund police” are “backfiring massively” with crime rates soaring across the county.
He suggested the legislation is based on a double standard, with the state and some boards of supervisors wanting to put limits on the power of local sheriffs—restrictions they aren’t advocating for their own positions.
“These people act with impunity, thinking there’s no consequences to their actions, and everybody is just going to follow suit. But when you’re independently elected, you actually get to pump the brakes and say: ‘Timeout! We’re not doing that.’ And that drives the supervisors nuts because they think that they’re all-supreme and powerful,” he said.
Local Policy Disputes
Many Democrat-controlled boards of supervisors don’t want Republican sheriffs countering their political narratives or refusing to enforce unconstitutional laws, Villanueva said.“It’s a way to purge all the sheriffs from being Republican and to put in place puppets,” he said. “This is what one-party rule looks like in California.”
While Villanueva is a registered Democrat and appealed to some of the party’s “progressive” values, he also gained notoriety for conservative policies during his four-year term as sheriff. He lost his re-election bid to former Long Beach Police Chief Robert Luna in 2022.
Outside of deep-blue counties such as Los Angeles, Sacramento, and San Francisco, almost all the sheriffs in the remaining 55 counties in California are Republican, he said.
Villanueva said that during his tenure as sheriff, the board of supervisors did everything they could to discredit him.
“They defunded me; they defamed me,” he said.
He claims the proposed legislation is designed to “shield the county supervisors from accountability,” and that one of Luna’s first official actions as sheriff was to dismantle the Public Corruption Unit.
At the time, the unit was investigating an elected official for suspected corruption in the wake of a separate FBI investigation that led to the conviction of former Los Angeles city councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas on federal corruption charges in March.
Villanueva is mentioned twice in the bill analysis accompanying AB 1090 in statements provided by the organization Oakland Privacy. According to the group, one of the reasons for supporting the bill is that some sheriffs refused to enforce local mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But Villanueva scoffed at the idea of police arresting people for not wearing masks on beaches and in open outdoor spaces.
“Really? We didn’t have the bodies to go out there and chase real crime and we’re going to spend our time doing that?” he questioned. “They’ve been busy spending all their time demonizing law enforcement and think we’re going to go chase around people on the sand that weren’t wearing a mask when we know that no matter what we do the [district attorney] won’t prosecute anybody? Why ... would we do that? That is just supreme stupidity.”
While Oakland Privacy acknowledged the remedy for such situations “is an electoral one” in its comments, meaning voters can oust sheriff candidates in elections, the group argues that such remedies “are not always available to the voters,” since the majority of sheriff elections have only one candidate running.
The group also alleged that Villanueva “obstructed an investigation into an in-custody death and threatened criminal charges against a reporter, before walking that back.”
However, Villanueva denies the allegations.
“There was no obstruction. There was no in-custody death [investigation] that was not completed,” he said.
Los Angeles County supervisors Janice Hahn, Holly Mitchell, Lindsey Horvath, Hilda Solis, and Kathryn Barger didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The Assembly Public Safety Committee voted 6–2 on April 11 to pass AB 1090, moving the bill further along in the legislative process.
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