Sheriff Gates Leaves the Scene

When one of the TV networks wanted to portray Orange County’s controversy over a proposed tax to help the county recover from bankruptcy, it featured two things: sunny coastal scenes of an affluent area and Sheriff Brad Gates.

In the county, there is no leading mayor, no high-profile county executive, no dominant member of the Board of Supervisors. Gates, who said Thursday that he will not seek reelection to the office he has held since 1974, has come to symbolize public officialdom perhaps more than any other person.

With his Boy Scout demeanor, Gates stepped forward in the tumultuous months after the bankruptcy in late 1994 to help run the county. He argued as few public officials could have dared for an eventually defeated sales tax measure to restore county services. In a county where key political decisions too often are made in the back room, he was independent and outspoken.

It was that way on a number of issues. Last year, he led the charge statewide against a successful state ballot measure to legalize the medical use of marijuana. In Orange County, he became a persistent voice on jail overcrowding, taking dramatic steps to make his point. Last year, for example, the Sheriff’s Department released 32,000 inmates who had not served their full sentences.

Throughout his tenure, Gates has shrewdly mined the county’s sentiment for strong enforcement. As a popular figure at the polls, he was able to leverage political support for efforts against crime into a favorable budgetary position for his department.

But as powerful as he was, he was not able to surmount some defining political realities in Orange County. He ended up on the outs with many prominent Republicans for his support of the bankruptcy recovery tax. On jails, individual supervisors represented districts with no taste for new facilities within their borders even though the county was under federal court orders to end overcrowding.

Gates’ departure opens the door to a truly contested race to succeed him. The campaign offers the county an important opportunity to take stock of its law enforcement needs. Somehow, it must also find the will to solve the jail overcrowding problem.