San Bernardino County DA Ramos Making Run For California Attorney General In 2018

(December 2) San Bernardino County District Attorney has laid the groundwork for a 2018 run for California Attorney General.
A recent addition to the internet, the website http://www.joinmikeramos.com/ heralds Ramos’s 2018 bid, providing visitors to the site with information about Ramos’s philosophy, history and stated accomplishments.
The website celebrates Ramos as a prosecutor “seeking justice for victims. Mike Ramos is working every day to get things done on the issues that matter most to victims of crime and their family members.”
In this regard, Ramos is represented as a bulwark against unlawful gang activity. As San Bernardino County’s top prosecutor, Ramos is quoted: “The rise of criminal streets gangs in this county is a real threat to our communities, but I refuse to allow these local terrorists to determine how we live our daily lives. Coming down hard on gang crime and keeping our citizens safe will always be an important mission of this office.”
The website invites those interested to get involved in the campaign by taking action and donating to his campaign war chest. “Together, we can make great strides addressing issues that impact public safety.,” the web site states. “The strength of any campaign is in the power of the people who come together because they believe in something bigger, something achievable. Together, anything is possible.”
A link on the website allows donors to make contributions by credit card.
On the page’s biographical link, the reader is informed that Ramos was first elected in 2002, and that he was “innovative and persistent in his fight to protect victims’ rights” from the outset of his tenure in office and assumed chairmanship of the “Death Penalty Initiative Reform Committee,” a collective effort to prevent the death penalty from being banned in California and instead “speed up the execution of the 733 prisoners California holds on its death row at San Quentin.”
The website further states that “Mike has also been an outspoken advocate against Human Trafficking at the local and state level” and that he “campaigned heavily in favor of Proposition 35 which voters overwhelmingly passed in 2012” and created a Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit. In an effort to further reduce the demand for victims of human trafficking, he also began releasing the names and photographs of defendants convicted of solicitation in San Bernardino County.
One of the site’s webpages touts Ramos’s efforts at gang affiliation prevention.
“I know from my years in law enforcement in and out of the courtroom, that if we only focus on adult offenders, we will never effectively address the crime problem,” Ramos states on the webpage. “Most adult criminals started by getting into trouble as juveniles and eventually dropping out of school. It is in those early years when we have the best chance of steering them back on course. A ten percent increase in graduation rates would reduce murder and assault rates by about twenty percent. The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office takes truancy very seriously. We know that it is often the “gateway” to juvenile delinquency and, later, more serious adult crime. Making sure that kids go to school and stay in school is very important to me for two reasons.”
The quotation of Ramos continued, “One is because as district attorney of San Bernardino County I want kids to stay out of trouble and out of the court system. The best way to do this is by making sure kids stay in school. The second reason is that, since I served seven years on the Redlands’ School Board, I know how important a good education is to a child’s future. Successful students generally make productive, law-abiding citizens in the long run. If we don’t invest in education programs now, we’ll have to pay more to incarcerate later.”
In a video posted on the website, Ramos said he was opposed to Proposition 47, which reduced drug possession crimes from felonies to misdemeanors because it “takes away the initiative for people to attend drug programs.” Proposition 47, Ramos said, amounts to “a get out of jail free card. This approach is not the answer.”
Ramos’s declaration of his intent to run for state attorney general comes four years before that election will be held. He was reelected to a fourth term in office as San Bernardino County District Attorney in June. Kamala Harris was reelected California Attorney General this year as well. Under California’s term limits, she cannot seek reelection in 2018.
In addition to his early declaration of candidacy, Ramos embodies other potential strengths as a candidate for state attorney general. He is a Hispanic Republican, a relative rarity in California. His ethnic identification could attenuate the advantage a Democratic opponent might otherwise have over him in 2018, given that an overwhelming number of Latino voters in California are registered Democrats. And while Republicans are the state’s minority party, he has built political bridges to the Democrats, in particular Harris and Governor Jerry Brown, the former attorney general, whose office co-prosecuted with the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office some high profile cases. Ramos and Harris endorsed one another in this year’s election.

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