Say you're a Court Commissioner (a sort of judge-lite, only able to preside over matters when parties stipulate) running for Superior Court judge, but you've got some problems. You've been tagged as "impatient" and "arrogant," and the Public Defender's office won't stipulate to you hearing trials any more. How can you hope to win under those circumstances?

Well, it helps to run against a racist lunatic.

In this corner, nobody's favorite Commissioner James Bianco. In the other corner, Bill Johnson aka William Daniel Johnson aka James O. Pace, who under the latter name published a book in 1985 calling for the repeal of the 14th and 15th Amendments and substituting this "Pace Amendment" in their place:

No person shall be a citizen of the United States unless he is a non-Hispanic white of the European race, in whom there is no ascertainable trace of Negro blood, nor more than one-eighth Mongolian, Asian, Asia Minor, Middle Eastern, Semitic, Near Eastern, American Indian, Malay or other non-European or non-white blood, provided that Hispanic whites, defined as anyone with an Hispanic ancestor, may be citizens if, in addition to meeting the aforesaid ascertainable trace and percentage tests, they are in appearance indistinguishable from Americans whose ancestral home is in the British Isles or Northwestern Europe. Only citizens shall have the right and privilege to reside permanently in the United States.

Johnson later sought the Congressional seat vacated by Dick Cheney; despite the best efforts of a Klan-organizer campaign manager, he failed. He also failed in a more recent carpetbag attempt in Arizona:

Two years ago, Johnson again sought a congressional seat, this time in Arizona. Billing himself as “a traditional democrat—embracing the views and policies at the historical core of the party,” he competed with five others for the Democratic Party nomination, coming in a weak fifth.

His call for upstepped efforts to send Mexicans back to Mexico, when they had entered the United States illegally, taken by itself was hardly a radical stance. It was a contrast to his earlier extremist position that all “Hispanic whites” should, through a constitutional amendment, be deported unless “they are in appearance indistinguishable from Americans whose ancestral home is in the British Isles or Northwestern Europe.”

Now, what could a lifelong loser and nutcase with a closet packed full of racist skeletons chose as his campaign theme? These days, there's only one choice:

Johnson’s campaign manager in the present campaign is Holly Clearman, who is also state coordinator for the Ron Paul for President campaign. That effort is ongoing, notwithstanding that Paul, a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas, is out of the running for his party’s nomination, with U.S. Sen. John McClain of Arizona having cinched it.

Johnson, 53, is running his campaign in tandem with the pro-Paul drive.

Maybe Johnson can advertise on the blimp. He's laying low for now:

“On March 30, William D. Johnson was reached at his Glendale, Calif., firm, Johnson & Gardner. Not initially receptive to inquiries, he shunted the call to his secretary, who then suggested it was a case of mistaken identity and provided a Wyoming telephone number.”

(Johnson later called back and acknowledged his identities, already reported in that morning’s issue of the Times.)

Here is Bill Johnson's website. I note he doesn't link to this MetNews article in his press section. He does link to a Ron Paul meetup. If you Google him, you'll see that at least one white supremacist site is reporting his candidacy approvingly.

Here's the scary part, as recognized by the linked MetNews article — California judicial elections are such freakshows that it's entirely plausible that the inoffensively named "Bill Johnson" could win over the mildly ethnically named "James Bianco" in this county. And then I could find myself appearing in front of someone who not only secretly thinks that my nonwhite clients should be deported, but has openly written about it. What a system.

More here.

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