Who The Sacramento Bee endorsed for judge in Yolo and Placer counties

This year, voters in Placer and Yolo counties face something unusual: two contested Superior Court races. The Sacramento Bee is the only media outlet in the region that endorses candidates in political elections, and after virtual interviews with all four contenders on May 1, we are endorsing Ryan Davis for Yolo County Superior Court and Judge Leon Dixson for re-election to Placer County Superior Court.

Here is what voters need to know before marking those ballots.

How we made these picks

Because contested judicial races are so rare, we asked David De Alba — the retired presiding judge of the Sacramento Superior Court — to sit in on our interviews and help us assess each candidate’s legal experience. De Alba had never met any of the four candidates before, which the candidates acknowledged during the interview. He did not vote on the endorsement, but his insights informed our deliberations.

Yolo County: A rare open seat

The Yolo race is a true open contest, triggered by the impending retirement of Superior Court Judge Janene Beronio. The two candidates are both qualified and both gracious. But their backgrounds are not equivalent.

Diane Ortiz is a Yolo County deputy district attorney. She comes from a law enforcement family — her father served in the California Highway Patrol, and both her brothers are in law enforcement. Ortiz wanted to follow her father into the CHP, but a training injury prevented her from completing the academy. She then worked in a civilian capacity before becoming a prosecutor.

She carries endorsements from the Davis, Woodland, West Sacramento and Winters police officers’ associations and the Yolo County Deputy Sheriff’s Association. Beronio, the retiring judge, has endorsed her. As a Latina, Ortiz would also add needed diversity to a bench that still has too few women.

Ryan Davis is a Sacramento County court commissioner — a judicial role in which Superior Court judges appoint him to preside over a high volume of time-sensitive cases. A lifelong Yolo County resident raising his family there, Davis has worked in civil, family and criminal courts. Before becoming a commissioner, he served as a deputy attorney general at the California Department of Justice, a deputy state public defender, an assistant federal public defender and an advisory member of the Judicial Council of California.

At the state public defender’s office, he handled direct appeals to the California Supreme Court. At the Federal Public Defender’s office for the Central District of California, he drafted and filed habeas petitions — the filings that test whether a prisoner’s detention was lawful. As a deputy attorney general, he worked on Second Amendment cases, election law, housing cases and fiscal and regulatory issues. He has also taught at UC Berkeley Law’s Death Penalty Clinic as an adjunct professor.

On his campaign page, Davis explained why he became a public defender: “every person deserves a level of compassion that isn’t earned and can’t be forfeited.”

His brother, Matthew, is the Yolo County undersheriff; Davis has pledged to recuse himself from any case involving an arrest by his brother or sister-in-law, who also works in local law enforcement.

The bottom line for Yolo voters: Ortiz was impressive in her interview. But Davis’s range — civil, family, criminal, appellate, prosecution and defense — is broader and deeper. For an open Superior Court seat that will handle every kind of case, that breadth matters. We endorse Davis. You can read our full reasoning on the Yolo race here.

Placer County: A challenge that doesn’t add up

The Placer race is unusual for a different reason: it is a challenge to a sitting judge who has been on the bench less than two years.

Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed Leon Dixson to the Placer Superior Court on July 17, 2024. Before that, Dixson was regional counsel for civil rights at Legal Services of Northern California, where he spent his career representing people who could not afford lawyers.

“I have spent my entire career helping people out of poverty,” Dixson told us.

He is supported by every judge currently serving on the Placer Superior Court, along with a roster of appellate judges, former Placer County Sheriff Ed Bonner and former Roseville Mayor Gina M. Garbolino.

His challenger, Dave Bass, is the mayor of Rocklin and a prosecutor in the Sacramento County District Attorney’s office. Bass is backed by Placer County District Attorney Morgan Gire, Placer County Sheriff Wayne Woo, the Placer County Deputy Sheriff’s Association, the Placer County Deputy District Attorneys Association, the Rocklin Police Officers Association and Republican state lawmakers including Sen. Roger Niello and Assemblymember Joe Patterson. We endorsed Bass for Rocklin City Council in 2022 and have endorsed Niello and Patterson in the current cycle.

We respect Bass. We could not, however, find a credible reason to remove Dixson from the bench.

We asked. The hour-long interview did not produce one. A follow-up email did not produce one either. The complaints raised by a Bass supporter — that bailiffs and court clerks do not enjoy working with Dixson, that court calendars have been mismanaged, that proceedings were disorganized, that clerks were wrongly reassigned — are procedural matters. Those belong at the courthouse, raised with the presiding judge or court administration. They are not grounds to throw out a judge.

Is there something unspoken driving this challenge? We don’t know. What we do know is that the stated reasons are not serious enough to justify unseating a sitting judge.

The bottom line for Placer voters: We endorse Dixson for re-election. The case against him, as publicly presented, doesn’t hold up. Our full take on the Placer race is here.

What to do at the ballot box

If you live in Yolo County, vote Ryan Davis for Superior Court. If you live in Placer County, vote to retain Judge Leon Dixson. These are quiet races, but the people who win them will shape lives — yours, your neighbors’, your kids’ — for years.