In a crucial district, the Republican and Democratic candidates engage in a heated exchange, with the Republican attacking the Democrat over the 'MeToo' court case.
Derek Tran was accused by Rep. Michelle Steel's campaign of using a "MeToo" defense for a client to shift blame onto the victim.
The Democratic attorney opponent of a California Republican congresswoman is being criticized by her campaign for intentionally crafting a legal defense for a client that blamed victims for their alleged sexual harassment, and the challenger is responding with a counterattack.
Derek Tran is challenging Rep. Michelle Steel, whose Orange County seat is a vital Republican hold in November.
Recently, Tran, an attorney and military veteran, defended a former employee of a warehouse market chain who was being accused by two women.
According to court documents, Luis Pacheco claimed he was unjustly dismissed from his job at a warehouse market in San Bernardino County after being accused of sexual harassment by two women with whom he had been romantically involved and remained on good terms.
Pacheco alleged that the market and other defendants conducted a "sham investigation and automatically terminated him because of his gender."
The "Me Too" movement and political climate led to discrimination against plaintiff Pacheco based on his gender, according to the documents. Pacheco believes that the defendants unfairly sided with the females without considering his explanation of events due to his gender.
Lance Trover, a representative for Steel, stated that Tran's campaign centered on safeguarding women, yet he ultimately sided with an accused sexual assaulter.
He stated that he wanted to provide an explanation to voters, not as a defense attorney, but to benefit both himself and his client, who is a representative in Congress.
The "Me Too" references have been used by the Steel campaign to criticize Tran's legal defense strategy in campaign advertisements and correspondence.
The new leadership took over active cases, including Pacheco's, after Tran sold the firm partway through litigation.
The California Superior Court has ruled that Pacheco's case has merit and will proceed to trial, as stated by Tom Feher, the current attorney of record on the case.
"Despite the corporation's attempts to deny our client access to justice, my job as a workers' rights attorney is to uphold the law and win justice for workers. It's not about politics."
Derek Tran has spent his career fighting to do what?
Michelle Steel prioritizes corporations and political extremists over women's rights throughout her career. She voted against stronger protections for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault by opposing the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act in 2021 and led efforts to ban abortion nationwide without exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the woman, a spokesperson for Tran's campaign stated.
Steel opposed a "partisan" Violence Against Women Act iteration, but supported ensuing compromise legislation, according to Trover's response regarding the votes.
The Cook Political Report classifies Steel's district as D+2, indicating that she is among a small group of Republicans defending seats in districts with a majority of Democrats. The district's boundaries were slightly altered following the 2020 census.
Recent polls depict the race as a dead heat.
politics
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