Kern County Supervisor Leticia Perez was charged with two criminal misdemeanors last week over her 2017 vote against a ban on marijuana dispensaries. The DA's public integrity unit investigated the case and found that Perez's husband Fernando Jara had done business with marijuana industry groups before the vote, creating what they claim is a conflict of interest. She denies the charges and has pled not guilty.
To learn more about how conflict of interest cases usually play out in California, we spoke with one of the state's leading experts on government ethics, Jessica A. Levinson, a professor at the Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and editor of the PoLawTics blog.She says the Perez case is unusual, and most often, allegations are first investigated by the state's Fair Political Practices Commission before being referred to a district attorney. She joined us on Valley Edition to talk more about the state's system of accountability for elected officials.