What to make of Marni von Wilpert calling herself a prosecutor? – San Diego Union-Tribune

In her bid for Congress, Marni von Wilpert understandably emphasizes her role as a San Diego City Council member and former deputy city attorney.

In a matter of political linguistic intrigue, she occasionally refers to herself in campaign material simply as a former “prosecutor” and at times a “civil prosecutor.”

The one could be seen as shorthand for the other — or perhaps something more.

The term prosecutor is almost always attached to government attorneys who litigate criminal cases. Von Wilpert didn’t do that.

This may seem like a small matter, but it wasn’t six years ago. In a nuanced decision, then-Superior Court Judge Robert Strauss ruled that von Wilpert couldn’t use the word “prosecutor” as her ballot designation in her first City Council race. Instead, she had to settle for “deputy city attorney.”

(A different judge ruled her Republican opponent overreached with his ballot designation and also had to change it.)

In his decision, Strauss noted that von Wilpert did indeed prosecute corporations in civil cases, according to an article in 2020 by David Garrick of The San Diego Union-Tribune. But. . .

“Defining her occupation as ‘prosecutor’ is misleading because it implies criminal experience that Ms. von Wilpert does not have,” Strauss wrote.

Von Wilpert disagreed with the ruling and challenged it, but ultimately accepted the change.

To be clear, there’s no legal issue about the Democrat’s current ballot designation for the 48th Congressional District. Her designation listed by the Secretary of State is “Councilwoman/Health Advocate.”

For a while, how another candidate described himself in campaign materials became the central focus of the race. Ammar Campa-Najjar, one of von Wilpert’s Democratic rivals, portrayed himself as a “Navy officer,” but he did not mention that he is a “reserve” officer. That became national news and the Navy told him he ran afoul of regulations. Campa-Najjar began adding “reserve” to his campaign materials.

Fights over ballot designations and how candidates portray themselves and their records are legion in politics. Campa-Najjar has further been scrutinized for his toggling between conservative and progressive positions in the past.

The first line of von Wilpert’s biography on her campaign website says, “Marni von Wilpert is a San Diego City Councilmember, lifelong public servant, and former prosecutor . . .”

Two paragraphs later, it says, “Marni served as a civil prosecutor in the City Attorney’s Office.”

In a recent interview, von Wilpert said the earlier court ruling gave her no pause in using the solo term “prosecutor” in this campaign.

“Not at all,” she said in an interview.

“When I was a deputy city attorney, I was a civil prosecutor prosecuting corporate lawbreakers,” she added. “. . . I explain to people what I do. I’ve never held out to be prosecuting criminal law.”

Von Wilpert was involved in the city’s litigation against alleged polluters and opioid manufacturers that resulted in big settlements for San Diego and numerous other jurisdictions as part of class-action lawsuits across the country.

“I prosecuted Monsanto when they poisoned our waterways with toxic chemicals,” she says in a campaign video advertisement.

The first suit was filed in 2015, before von Wilpert joined the City Attorney’s Office, where she served from 2018 to 2020. More than a dozen had been filed in the following years across the nation in class-action litigation.

Von Wilpert was part of the city attorney’s Affirmative Civil Enforcement Unit involved in the case against Monsanto regarding the pollution of San Diego Bay with PCBs.

In 2020, then San-Diego City Attorney Mara Elliott singled out von Wilpert and other attorneys in the unit, along with a private law firm that worked on the litigation, in announcing the proposed $550 million nationwide settlement from Monsanto Company and related subsidiaries.

Von Wilpert’s campaign biography also says she prosecuted the opioid manufacturers “for the addiction and devastation they caused.”

Von Wilpert’s unit in 2019 sued pharmaceutical companies the city claimed “created and are profiting from the opioid health crisis in San Diego and the rest of the nation,” according to another statement from Elliott. Again, that was part of class-action litigation involving numerous other jurisdictions.

In a nationwide settlement, various drug companies are expected to pay up to $21 billion over 18 years. The San Diego City Attorney’s Office estimated the city should expect to receive $40 million over 18 years. As of 2023, San Diego had received $4.4 million, according to KPBS.

In that year, Councilmembers von Wilpert and Raul Campillo sought to have some of that money directed to drug treatment. She has further helped expand mental health services and create an addiction-recovery partnership with UC San Diego Health.

On the council, von Wilpert also successfully pursued an ordinance to ban untraceable “ghost guns.” She was among the members in May 2022 who brought forth a resolution to declare San Diego a “safe city for reproductive freedom and access to abortion” in anticipation of the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, which established a constitutional right to abortion.

All of this is highlighted in von Wilpert’s campaign and by independent expenditure committees supporting her, which also call her a “prosecutor.” How much that word registers with voters, or how they interpret it, is anybody’s guess.

In 2020, Judge Strauss may have required that the word “prosecutor” be deleted from von Wilpert’s ballot designation, yet her official candidate statement that year listed her as “deputy city attorney/prosecutor,” and it remained unchanged.

Ironically, despite all the attention to Campa-Najjar’s status in the reserve, he will be listed on the June 2 primary election ballot as “Navy Officer/Educator.”