CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
February 23, 2005 | Jean O. Pasco, Times Staff Writer
Assemblyman Todd Spitzer (R-Orange) said Tuesday he would not run against Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas in June 2006, ending what had seemed destined to be the most expensive and nasty headbanging of the county's upcoming political season. Spitzer said the race would have cost about $3 million on both sides and split law enforcement groups, crime victims and community leaders, who would have to choose between the two Republicans.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
March 8, 2001 | JACK LEONARD and JEAN O. PASCO, TIMES STAFF WRITERS
Under fire for using county staff to help launch his charity, Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas has withdrawn a request to the Board of Supervisors for approval to use county resources for the venture. Rackauckas sought approval last week after claims that he improperly ordered investigators to run criminal-background checks on donors to the Tony Rackauckas Foundation.
OPINION
February 7, 2011
When 11 students affiliated with the Muslim Student Union at UC Irvine disrupted a speech by the Israeli ambassador to the United States last year, they no doubt knew there would be consequences. Rather than staging a traditional protest ? by leafleting, say, or holding up signs expressing their disapproval ? they attended the event as members of the audience and then stood up, one by one, and shouted the ambassador down more than a dozen times. The university was right to punish the students, who needed to be taught that it is not an appropriate use of one's free speech rights to deny someone else the opportunity to make himself heard.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
November 3, 2007 | David Reyes and Christine Hanley, Times Staff Writers
Turning up the pressure on Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona to step aside, the county's district attorney on Friday urged the county's top lawman to take a leave of absence while he fights sweeping corruption charges. Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas sent a letter to the Board of Supervisors asking them to pass a resolution asking Carona to step aside and appoint a qualified member of his command staff to take over.
OPINION
February 12, 2011 | Tim Rutten
From the hysterical reaction of two local prosecutors, you'd think Southern California suddenly had become Paris in 1848 ? or, maybe, contemporary Cairo. In Los Angeles, City Atty. Carmen Trutanich, who seems to have formed his notion of prosecutorial discretion during an earlier career as a schoolyard bully, has reversed his office's policy of treating arrests during the course of nonviolent political protests as infractions that could be resolved in informal hearings resulting in fines.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
September 7, 2010 | By Raja Abdulrahim, Los Angeles Times
Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas has fired the man he was grooming to succeed him and, in a departure from what he promised voters earlier this year, will run for reelection in 2014. Rackauckas had previously announced that 2010 would be his last term. Five years ago, he said the same thing about the 2006 term. Todd Spitzer, a former assemblyman and Orange County supervisor, was at one point Rackauckas' hand-picked successor and has worked at the prosecutor's office since last year, moving between assignments apparently to get on-the-job experience.