HUNTINGTON BEACH – After months of conflict between Huntington Beach City Attorney Michael Gates and his would-be opponent Jerald Friedman, an Orange County Superior Court decision Friday, Sept. 21, makes the incumbent the only candidate on the November ballot.
One day before the candidate filing deadline of Aug. 10, Friedman lodged a lawsuit with the California Supreme Court arguing that the city should not have disqualified his application.
Huntington Beach requires its city attorney to hold a degree from a law school accredited by the American Bar Association. Friedman graduated from the University of West Los Angeles, which is accredited by the State Bar of California but not the ABA.
(Photo by Michael Fernandez, Contributing Photographer)
In his lawsuit, Friedman claimed that the ABA prerequisite is “arbitrary, capricious, oppressive and punitive” – noting that larger California cities with elected city attorneys demand no such requirement.
The lawsuit asserted that because ABA-accredited schools tend to charge higher tuition, the city’s stipulation discriminates by screening “implicitly on the basis of socioeconomic class.”
The state Supreme Court kicked the suit to lower courts, where Judge Robert J. Moss denied Friedman’s request to appear on the ballot.
“In cities with elected city attorneys, the city lacks the ability to vet candidates for the position, thus a requirement above and beyond State Bar admission is both reasonable and desirable,” Moss wrote in his decision.
Moss also suggested that Friedman should have filed his complaint earlier, observing that its hearing “is occurring after the deadline for the publication of official election materials.”
Expressing disappointment with the ruling, Friedman said, “It’s individuals, not schools, that run for office – and it’s the individual’s merit, not the school’s reputation, that decides what kind of an attorney they are.”
Gates and Friedman have gone toe-to-toe since April, when Gates filed a lawsuit against resident Daniel Horgan to stop his petition for a gun-control ballot initiative. As Horgan’s attorney, Friedman accused the city of violating his client’s free-speech rights. The city later dropped the suit after Horgan gave up on his petition, but a judge declined to award Friedman attorney fees.
Gates predicted that Friday’s court decision puts to rest the two men’s showdown: “This should be the end of the road for Friedman’s legal challenges against the city.”