{"id":8378,"date":"2026-09-04T10:08:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T10:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=8378"},"modified":"2026-09-04T10:08:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T10:08:17","slug":"chabria-sheriff-chad-bianco-cant-catch-a-break-thats-a-good-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=8378","title":{"rendered":"Chabria: Sheriff Chad Bianco can\u2019t catch a break. That\u2019s a good thing."},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
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Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco is not lazy, I\u2019ll give him that.<\/p>\n

During his unsuccessful run for governor this year, you may recall that the MAGA devotee found time to seize more than 650,000 ballots from the Proposition 50 redistricting race, claiming he suspected there were tens of thousands more votes cast than there should have been \u2014 a favorite (and false) complaint of election deniers.<\/p>\n

Read more Asking Eric: I\u2019m not OK with my ex leaving our son with his girlfriend<\/a><\/p>\n

There were not.<\/p>\n

Undaunted by reality, and likely law, Bianco announced he was going to have his deputies recount the votes, even though this kind of interference in the chain of custody of ballots never had occurred anywhere in the United States.<\/p>\n

This unprecedented seizure of ballots \u2014 something election-denier-in-chief President Donald Trump has been hinting at trying himself for years \u2014 quickly became a national news story, and a national concern.<\/p>\n

With midterms looming and more than one MAGA sheriff out there, what would stop another conspiracy-minded, badge-wearing maverick from doing something similar this November, potentially throwing our national election into turmoil?<\/p>\n

The specter of Bianco setting a precedent for like-minded conspiracists to follow prompted two significant lawsuits \u2014 one led by the election experts at the UCLA Voting Rights Project and the other from state Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta.<\/p>\n

The state Supreme Court heard arguments in those cases recently, and while we\u2019ll have to wait for the official rulings, things did not seem to go well for the sheriff.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

What surprised me most, or maybe just relieved me, was how thin Bianco\u2019s arguments were to support his actions. In the end, his legal team came with little more than contortions and cartwheels, trying to twist Bianco\u2019s overreach into existing law.<\/p>\n

His lawyer, Bradley Hertz,<\/strong> attempted to argue that legislators, when crafting laws protecting ballots, meant different rules to apply to investigations of elections preceding formal prosecutions. If that sounds confusing, it\u2019s because it is.<\/p>\n

Hertz seemingly was trying to convince the court that Bianco legally could pull his shenanigans as long as he didn\u2019t actually find criminal wrongdoing, which would trigger a different set of rules.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat seems bizarre,\u201d Justice Goodwin H. Liu said during a back-and-forth with Hertz.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Indeed.<\/p>\n

But it was Justice Joshua Groban who hit at the national implications of what Bianco had done \u2014 and what it could mean for the midterms if this court ruled in his favor.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems like under your broad view of the warrant power \u2026 the sheriff could seize ballots even before election day, right?\u201d Groban asked. \u201cEven before they were counted.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s terrible to have ballots seized after they\u2019re counted. It\u2019s devastating if they were to be taken before there was an official tally, because how would anyone trust that there hadn\u2019t been tampering? Simply seizing uncounted ballots, no matter what happens next, would create such paranoia and uncertainty that the election results almost certainly would be called into question \u2014 something that could play into the favor of, say, a wannabe authoritarian who fears he\u2019s likely to lose a fair vote count.<\/p>\n

Even Hertz seemed to acknowledge such a scenario was bad.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf search warrants were allowed during the election or preelection, that would obviously wreak havoc,\u201d he said. \u201cThere would be, kind of, a cat out of the bag, so to speak. You can\u2019t count ballots if they\u2019re not in the possession of the registrar.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Harriette Cole: My friend\u2019s indiscretion at the club made me look bad<\/a><\/p>\n

But then Hertz tried to come up with logic that what Bianco was arguing wouldn\u2019t mean that ballots could be seized anytime, anyhow, and that instead courts could find a way to allow seizing only after the official count. The court did not seem convinced that this was a good idea, or that that is what the law should or did allow.<\/p>\n

If that case didn\u2019t go well for Bianco, it was the second case brought by Bonta that really might end up being a hard loss.<\/p>\n

For years, decades really, in California and across the country, there has been a group of sheriffs who have argued they are a law onto themselves because they are elected, not hired or appointed. Some of these sheriffs argue that they are literally above federal law.<\/p>\n

In California, there has at times been momentum to rein in this line of thinking by creating clear boundaries in law, but the state Legislature always has backed down in the face of opposition from law enforcement.<\/p>\n

One potential curb on sheriffs\u2019 power comes from a single line in our state Constitution that seems to say the state attorney general has supervisory power over them. But the meaning and power of this particular clause has long been debated and seldom invoked.<\/p>\n

Bonta, however, invoked it against Bianco, claiming the sheriff had to back off the ballot-seizing because Bonta had authority to order him to stop. Bianco did stop, to his credit. But the standoff was heard by the court Monday and likely will force clarity on an issue that has long lacked it.<\/p>\n

Here again, the justices seemed amenable to Bonta\u2019s argument that sheriffs, at least to some extent, answer to him as the state\u2019s chief law enforcement officer. But the justices seemed far more cautious on this issue, and even the state\u2019s attorney conceded that \u201cit\u2019s actually pretty remarkable how little our Constitution says about county sheriffs.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Bianco loses on this issue, it would be huge. It would mean that Bianco not only overstepped his power by seizing the ballots, but that he also had forever lessened the power of California sheriffs by clarifying they do answer to the attorney general. I\u2019m sure that will be very popular with other sheriffs.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll see what the justices say, but at least it seems likely that this embarrassing chapter of California election history will end in favor of the law, and democracy.<\/p>\n

Maybe Bianco really does believe his conspiracy theories. After all, \u201cthere are some people who believe they had breakfast with Elvis on Sunday,\u201d pointed out Chad Dunn, who argued the case for the Voting Rights Project.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t satisfy them,\u201d Dunn warned.<\/p>\n

More importantly, we shouldn\u2019t \u2014 even when they wear a badge. Our laws already have robust protections for elections, and rogue sheriffs aren\u2019t one of them.<\/p>\n

Anita Chabria is a Los Angeles Times columnist. \u00a92026 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more Miss Manners: I\u2019m 28, and my mother is adamant I should be married and pregnant<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Riverside\u2019s top cop seized ballots over a conspiracy theory, but justices are rejecting this overreach<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"yoast_head":"\nChabria: Sheriff Chad Bianco can\u2019t catch a break. That\u2019s a good thing. - Next City Digest<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=8378\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Chabria: Sheriff Chad Bianco can\u2019t catch a break. 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