| Let's get the disclaimers out of the way first: - This post does not constitute an endorsement from Burnt Orange Report.
- BOR offered a dual endorsement of both Karen Sage and Mindy Montford for the 299th District Court for the March 2nd election, and have not yet endorsed for the runoff.
- I voted for Karen Sage the first time around.
- 11:48am update: I updated this post in the last 20 minutes b/c I originally published an unfinished draft....
I've spoken at length with many people involved with this race, including Karen Sage (who requested a meeting with me), Mark Littlefield and Rick Cofer (both supporting Mindy Montford), as well as my fellow BOR writers. I've actually spoken to Sage on multiple occassions, including at our Netroots 'N 'Boots bash last fall, when she took twenty minutes of her evening to talk with myself, my finacee, and two of my best friends about why she was a qualified candidate. I wish I had recorded my conversations with Karen. She is simply a phenomenal person. Her experience goes far beyond what is written on her campaign website. As she writes on her website, she helped prosecute "the largest car insurance fraud in history at that time" while working in New York. But it's another story she tells that really captures my interest in Sage...a story that talks about Karen's character, and the work she's done, and how sometimes it matters more what work you choose to do and how you come to accept your life of public service than anything else. From Karen's website: Prior to working in the US Attorney’s Office, Karen served as Counsel to the Mayor of Los Angeles for three years...She assisted in negotiating deals between the city and property owners to enable Magic Johnson to begin his movie theater company, which operates theaters in underserved neighborhoods and has become a great success. It was in this job of working for the mayor that Karen found her true calling of public service.
The creation of the Magic Johnson movie theaters is to this day a major, major, major deal. As Magic Johnson himself said in a recent 2008 interview: LC: When you decided to take that challenge, you took it in the form of building a movie theater in a very densely populated but crime-ridden neighborhood, where the only other theater had a metal detector. Most people would have run screaming from an idea like that. You ran toward it. Why?
MJ: It was an opportunity to make a difference. When I did my research on minorities, at the time they made up 35 percent of all moviegoers—an extremely high number. So I said, “Wow, if African Americans are going but there are no theaters in that community, if I build one, they will come.” And I’m going to help them understand that if violence happens, this theater will close. So I’m just gonna say, “Hey, look, I’m building a brand-new theater. We’re gonna employ people from this neighborhood, and this is for you.” And I talked to both gangs, and they told me they would not do anything bad in the theaters. So we hired some gang members on the construction crew. LC: So smart.
MJ: A lot of them got permanent jobs. And that was at a time when nobody was investing in the emerging market, black or white. So I came in early, and that theater is still one of the most successful. It still has not had any graffiti on the building or crime inside the theater. It’s been a sense of pride for South Central. And I’m so happy I started with that movie theater.
Karen Sage helped make that movie theater happen. I've heard her tell the story of all the negotiations, of all the various business entities who never thought building a movie theather in the middle of South Central would ever work -- and didn't believe it was even useful. Yet Karen stuck with it, got it done, and today describes that work as the time when she "found her true calling of public service." Here's the thing: Karen has stories like this from all of her jobs and all the places she's lived. Whether it's the class on the Ethics of Criminal Law at the University of Texas that she has designed and taught, or her time fighting white collar crime in New York, it doesn't matter. Listening to Karen Sage speak is getting an opportunity to hear the stories of someone who has committed her entire life to improving the quality of life of any community in the country. Do these experiences automatically qualify her to be a judge for the 299th District Court? I think so, yes. Because being a judge is about having a broad range of experience to pull from. It's about the ability to think creatively for every case and think about the unique ways the community can support and enforce justice. I consider the work of a judge to be most about character and commitment -- which Karen has in spades. And maybe that's what impresses me most about Karen. She could have (and has) lived almost anywhere in the United States, but she chose Austin. She wants to make a difference here. She wants to improve our communities here. When she moved to Austin years ago, she was appointed by Rosemary Lehmberg (Travis County DA) to "develop and formulate the Mental Health Court Docket" and is on Mayor Lee Leffingwell's mental health task force. Karen may not be a lifelong Austinite, but she has already put her considerable talents to work in our community. I support Karen Sage because she is a tireless champion for public service and will be an outstanding judge on the 299th District Court. |
