A petition aimed at blocking the hire of an attorney chosen to represent Santa Barbara County’s Citizens’ Independent Redistricting Commission proved unsuccessful in court on March 9, despite concerns that the attorney in question doesn’t qualify for the job.
The Coalition of Labor, Agriculture, and Business (COLAB) filed a petition in the Superior Court of Santa Barbara County on March 5, calling for the court to prohibit the county’s approval of a contract with Strumwasser & Woocher, a Los Angeles-based law firm hired to provide independent legal counsel to the Redistricting Commission.
In the petition, COLAB argues that hiring the law firm and attorney Fredric Woocher would violate the basic hiring regulations outlined in the county’s redistricting ordinance, which precludes the Redistricting Commission from hiring legal counsel who have been involved with a “political committee” in the past eight years, who do not live in Santa Barbara County, and who are not registered to vote in the county.
“Mr. Woocher worked for the political committee of an elected official within the last eight years, does not live in Santa Barbara County, is not registered to vote there, and has not voted there in one of the last three general elections,” the petition reads. “Despite Mr. Woocher’s clear failure to meet the requirements of the ordinance, the [Board of Supervisors] is scheduled to approve the commission’s contract with Mr. Woocher at its meeting on March 9, 2021.”
The Redistricting Commission is an 11-member board of citizens who are charged with redrawing Santa Barbara County’s supervisorial districts using data collected during the 2020 census. An ordinance developed and approved by the Board of Supervisors in July 2018—and then approved by voters later that year—formed the Redistricting Commission and the rules it adheres to.
Although the redistricting ordinance prohibits the hire of attorneys who live outside of Santa Barbara County or have been involved with political committees, none of the four law firms that applied to represent the Redistricting Commission are based in Santa Barbara County. And most have worked in the political realm in some way or another. At a meeting on Feb. 3, the Redistricting Commission unanimously approved a final contract Strumwasser & Woocher.
Andy Caldwell, executive director of COLAB, said he doesn’t care if the ordinance is too hard to follow.
“That’s not our problem to fix,” Caldwell said. “That’s their problem to fix.”
Regardless of residency—Woocher confirmed that he does not live in Santa Barbara County and hasn’t voted there—there is debate over what counts as involvement with a political committee. In 2012 and 2013, according to COLAB’s petition, Woocher helped represent former Santa Barbara County Supervisor Doreen Farr when Steven Pappas challenged her 2008 election win and then, upon losing, fought the demand that he pay Farr’s legal fees.
While Woocher told the Sun he doesn’t consider his work with Farr to be political committee involvement, Caldwell does. And Caldwell said he wonders why progressive leaders and community members throughout the county lobbied so aggressively for Woocher and against his competitors.
“Why did they push so hard to get Woocher in there?” Caldwell asked. “And I can say that, from history, they pushed that hard because they want to control the county of Santa Barbara.”
At a Redistricting Commission meeting on Feb. 1, attorneys at Nielsen Merksamer, a San Francisco-based law firm that also applied to represent the commission, shared a different perspective. They said the redistricting ordinance only prohibits those who’ve worked with political action committees that have registered with the secretary of state.
“I think it’s important to actually stick to the language of this ordinance because if you start sweeping more broadly, you’re going to start to disqualify every law firm that does anything in this area,” Nielsen Merksamer Attorney Chris Skinnell said.
He noted Woocher’s work with former Supervisor Farr and another applicant’s work with a Democratic Party organizing committee, but he said those activities aren’t covered by Santa Barbara County’s ordinance.
“The people who do this type of work do politics,” Skinnell said at the meeting. “And so if you don’t stick to what the ordinance says, you’re going to start disqualifying every law firm that has any sort of involvement whatsoever and who knows what they’re doing.”
A Santa Barbara County judge denied COLAB’s petition to block the hire of Woocher on March 9. A few hours later, the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to approve the Redistricting Commission’s contract with Woocher, with Supervisors Steve Lavagnino and Bob Nelson voting against.
Although the majority of supervisors said they didn’t want to get involved in the decisions of an independent commission, Lavagnino said he was concerned that moving forward with the Woocher contract, which many on the right have criticized, would lead to more distrust and divisiveness in the community.
“So unfortunately I’m not going to be able to support moving forward on the contract,” he said. “I really want it out there though that I’m not saying that because of any feeling that [Woocher] couldn’t do a fair and honest job. It’s just that I’m trying to protect the final outcome, and allow people the peace of mind that what they’re seeing when they get done with it isn’t with a jaundiced eye.”
This article appears in Mar 11-18, 2021.