Lockyer And Lockyer Winning Big

Anthony Pignataro:

9:50 p.m. — Looks like Democrat Bill Lockyer is cruising to reelection as state Treasurer (the latest numbers from the state Secretary of State’s office show him leading Republican Mimi Walters 52% to 41%. That’s getting a lot of play, but what isn’t is that his wife, Nadia Lockyer, Bill Lockyer’s wife, is also speeding her way to victory in Alameda County’s 2nd District Supervisor race. With 38.7% of precincts in, the Alameda County Registrar of Voters is reporting that Nadia Lockyer has 66.84 percent of the vote to opponent (and former girlfriend of Bill Lockyer!) Liz Figueroa’s 32.62 percent of the vote.

And this presents a slight problem. See, back in January, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (a Republican, sort of) appointed Nadia Lockyer (a Democrat’s Democrat) to the California Community College Board of Governors. And as Center for Government Studies President Bob Stern said in my CalWatchdog story back in February, this most likely violates the Doctrine of Incompatible Offices.

“The doctrine of incompatible offices concerns a potential clash of two public offices held by a single official,” states the state’s Conflict of Interest pamphlet (approved by former Attorney General Bill Lockyer!). “When a person holds offices with two governmental entities and there is overlapping geographical and subject matter jurisdiction the offices generally are incompatible.” The pamphlet then lists a dozen examples, the first of which is “county board of supervisors member and community college board member.”

Stay tuned to see if Nadia actually has to give up her Community Colleges Governor’s seat…

NOV. 2, 2010