Gavin Newsom Nominates First Latina as California Chief Justice

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday that he was nominating Supreme Court Associate Justice Patricia Guerrero, 50, to be the state’s Chief Justice. If confirmed, Guerrero would be the state’s first Latina Chief Justice.

Guerrero, who lives on the island of Coronado in San Diego, is the daughter of Mexican immigrants who worked on farms in the sweltering Imperial Valley. She worked in private practice, then rose through the judicial ranks. She has only been on the California Supreme Court since March.

The San Diego Union-Tribune notes:

She became the first Latina to occupy a seat on the seven-member court and will now be the first to lead both the court and act as the chief administrator of the state’s sprawling court system.

She replaces Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, who announced on July 27 she will not seek a second 12-year term in November and will retire at the end of the year. She has served as the chief since 2011.

…

Guerrero grew up in the Imperial Valley, where her father worked as a farm worker in the fields. She graduated from Imperial High School, got her undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley and then a law degree from Stanford University in 1997.

Newsom’s pick may face less opposition than other nominees because of the historic nature of her appointment. However, Guerrero’s short tenure on the California Supreme Court may raise some eyebrows.

In 2014, when then-Gov. Jerry Brown nominated Leondra Kruger to the California Supreme Court, making her the first African American on the court in a decade, some observers complained that while she grew up in California, she had not practiced law in the state.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.