Mayoral candidate Flo Cofer put up a yard sign at Land Park resident’s Ashley Osterlund home while out door knocking for voter support Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. Cofer in 2026 is running for the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors
Lezlie Sterling
Sacramento Bee file
Sacramento County must remove “doctor” from the local ballot under the name of Board of Supervisors candidate Flojaune Cofer, a judge ruled Friday.
Sacramento Superior Court Judge Jennifer K. Rockwell granted a petition from a resident Friday that asserted that using “doctor” would lead voters to incorrectly believe Cofer is a practicing medical physician.
“I do think (the planned designation) is misleading,” Rockwell said during her ruling Friday. “I don’t think it was intentionally so … If I just introduce someone as a doctor and don’t say anything else, they think it’s a medical doctor.”
Cofer, who is running for the county’s 1st Supervisorial District, holds a Ph.D. in epidemiology from the University of Michigan and is self-employed.
During Cofer’s 2024 campaign for Sacramento mayor, her ballot designation read “public health professional,” said Ken Casparis, a county spokesperson.
For the 2026 election, however, after leaving her job at nonprofit Public Health Advocates, Cofer submitted a different designation, which county officials approved to appear on the June 2 primary: “doctor, public health.”
Richard Dwyer, a registered voter residing in the district, filed the suit Monday in Sacramento Superior Court. The suit alleges that allowing Cofer to use “doctor” on the ballot violates state election code because it refers to her degree, not her occupation.
“She changed the designation because the credential is more impressive than the truth,” said Brian Hildreth, Dwyer’s attorney, during a court hearing Friday. “The word ‘doctor’ in its plain and common meaning, connotes a licensed medical practioner. She is not one. She has never been one, and she knows voters will read it that way.”
June Powells-Mays, a county attorney, said the county did ask Cofer for additional documentation to justify her designation, which she provided.
“It is undisputed Dr. Cofer earned her doctoral degree,” said Powells-Mays during the hearing, ahead of the ruling. “It is undisputed that Dr. Cofer earned her doctoral degree; it was not in an honorary matter. If she had an honorary doctorate, I would understand concerns about the word ‘doctor’ being misleading.”
As part of her ruling, working with Cofer, Rockwell determined Cofer’s new designation will be “epidemiologist, public health.”
Rockwell said state law requires candidates to use no more than three words for their ballot designations, meaning Cofer couldn’t use her preferred designation — “doctor of Public Health.”
“If anyone wants to suggest to the Legislature to give people a few more words on their ballot designation, that would be great, but we have what we have,” Rockwell said.
The primary will be held June 2, while the general election will be held in November. Sacramento City Councilman Eric Guerra and former state lawmaker Deb Ortiz are also running for the seat, currently held by Phil Serna.
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Theresa Clift is the Regional Watchdog Reporter for The Sacramento Bee. She covered Sacramento City Hall for The Bee from 2018 through 2024. Before joining The Bee, she worked for newspapers in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. She grew up in Michigan and graduated with a journalism degree from Central Michigan University.