A Sacramento Superior Court judge ruled Friday that Flojaune Cofer cannot use the word \u201cdoctor\u201d on the county election ballot even when immediately followed by the qualifier \u201cpublic health.\u201d Cofer, a candidate for Sacramento County Supervisor of District 1, had sought to appear before voters with the designation \u201cDoctor, Public Health.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lawsuit was brought by resident Richard Dwyer against the Sacramento County Office of Registrar on Monday, March 23, alleging that the designation violates state election law because it refers to Cofer\u2019s academic degree rather than her occupation. Dwyer was represented by attorney Brian Hildreth, who challenged the label under California Elections Code Section 13314.<\/p>\n
Judge Jennifer K. Rockwell ruled against Cofer on two grounds: that a reasonable voter seeing the word \u201cdoctor\u201d would assume a medical physician, and that ballot designations must reflect a candidate\u2019s profession or vocation, not credential.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this country, the common person, if I say this person is a doctor and don\u2019t say anything else, what people will assume is that they are a medical doctor,\u201d Rockwell said. Cofer\u2019s designation, however, included the qualifier \u201cpublic health.\u201d She has never misrepresented herself as a medical doctor.<\/p>\n
Rockwell also acknowledged that \u201cDoctor of Public Health\u201d would have been a more precise and less confusing designation, but California law limits ballot labels to three words. As a result, Cofer opted for a comma in place of the \u201cof.\u201d Rockwell said that without the word \u201cof,\u201d the comma alone is not sufficient to dispel the assumption of medical training.<\/p>\n
Cofer, who holds a doctorate in epidemiology from the University of Michigan and has spent over two decades working in public health policy and research, argued that the designation accurately reflected her work. Currently self-employed, she spends much of her professional time speaking, consulting, and engaging on public health issues.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When Cofer ran for mayor of Sacramento in 2024, her ballot read \u201cPublic Health Professional,\u201d but she said she felt her current designation better captured her expertise.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am specifically describing the type of work that I do. It\u2019s not just the degree that we\u2019re concerned with, but also the work that I do as an epidemiologist,\u201d Cofer said.<\/p>\n
The court found no intent to mislead on Cofer\u2019s part and has agreed to the alternative label \u201cEpidemiologist, Public Health.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to ignore that this challenge wasn\u2019t about voter confusion. Each year we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and no one assumes he\u2019s a physician. This was about diminishing the expertise I bring as the only public health candidate in this race,\u201d Cofer told the OBSERVER, following the court proceeding.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cofer\u2019s main challenger for the Sacramento County Supervisor of District 1 is current Sacramento Councilmember, Eric Guerra. The election is set for June 2, 2026.<\/p>\n
\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Sacramento Superior Court judge ruled Friday that Flojaune Cofer cannot use the word \u201cdoctor\u201d on the county…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[912,989,13,121,123,122],"class_list":["post-240758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-carousel","tag-elections","tag-politics","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}