OC Voters Re-Elect Judge Censured for Courthouse Sex; Skew Left in Primaries

Orange County voters defied expectations on election day. They cast more ballots for Democratic presidential candidates than Republican, and they re-elected a judge after he had been censured for having sex with women in his chambers.

Uncharacteristic Voting

Fore decades, Orange County has been one of the most reliably Republican counties in the state, but more and more Democratic voters have been registering, chipping away at the Republican advantage.

And on Tuesday, more Orange County residents cast their ballots for a Democrat in the presidential primary than for a Republican.

Donald Trump garnered the most votes in the county. A full 146,888 voters came out for Trump. Another 20,000 Republicans voted for candidates that had already dropped out of the race.

However, most notably, 224,559 voters went to the left, favoring either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.

It’s possible that voter turnout on the right was tempered because Trump has long been the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party. That race was settled long before Californians went to the polls.

One expert isn’t at all surprised by the development. Chapman University’s Political Science Professor Fred Smollers boldly predicted last week that Orange County would go for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in the general election.

“I predict that for the first time since 1936, Orange County will support the Democrat - Hillary Clinton,” he said.

Conservative business leaders who hold sway in Orange County politics, aren’t comfortable with Tump, he said.

A Second Chance

Less feted but equally sexy, was a judicial race in Orange County for a seat on the Superior Court.

Voters handed reelection to Scott Steiner, who was censured in 2014 for having sex with an intern and an attorney in his court office. Both were his former students at Chapman University.

"Engaging in sexual intercourse in the courthouse is the height of irresponsible and improper behavior by a judge," the commission wrote in its decision to censure, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Both women were students of Steiner’s when he was an adjunct professor at Chapman University's law school.

According to the Los Angeles Times. when the Commission on Judicial Performance censured Steiner, it wrote, “Engaging in sexual intercourse in the courthouse is the height of irresponsible and improper behavior by a judge."

But voters in Orange County weren’t deterred.

Steiner won reelection over Karen Lee Schatzle by nearly 50,000 votes or 56.3 percent of the vote to 43.7 percent.

He thanked his supporters via Facebook:

“It has been an honor working for the people of Orange County. Thank you for supporting me in my efforts to protect victims' rights. With the will of the voters, I will continue my work as a Judge of the Orange County Superior Court for a second term. I am humbled by all of the encouragement I have received leading up to Election Day returns. Once again, thank you for re-electing me to a second term on the bench. I vow to keep working hard for justice.”