California Democrats Endorse Convicted, Disbarred ‘Slumlord’ for State Office

Michael “Mike” Schaefer, 84, an incumbent member of the California Board of Equalization, won the party’s endorsement last weekend despite a past criminal conviction for spousal abuse, disbarment in two states, and past accusations that he was a “slumlord.”

The San Francisco Chronicle reported:

An attorney by training, Schaefer has also run afoul of the law multiple times, and has been disbarred in California and Nevada.

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He was accused — and eventually acquitted — in a 1970 Yellow Cab bribery scandal in San Diego, when he served on the City Council. He was convicted of misdemeanor spousal abuse and jailed in 1993, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune, and was ordered by a jury in 1986 to pay $1.83 million to former tenants in Los Angeles who sued because they said their apartments, rented from Schaefer, were overrun with rats, cockroaches, sewage and street gangs, according to the Los Angeles Times. And in 2013, a Nevada court ordered him to stay at least 100 feet away from actor and comedian Brad Garrett, who played a cop and brother in “Everybody Loves Raymond,” after he allegedly stalked the actor following a dispute over a complimentary ticket to a Las Vegas show.

Schaefer won in 2018 without the party’s endorsement, and currently sits on the statewide board, which handles the administration of property taxes and other levies.

The California Democratic Party has declared that “freedom and protection from violence or abuse, domestic and otherwise, is a fundamental human right.” However, it voted to endorse Schaefer despite his past conviction for spousal abuse.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.