It’s barely the middle of 2019, and a Republican has already stepped forward to announce a primary challenge to incumbent Assembly member Bill Brough (R-Dana Point). Brough, 52, has represented the 73rd District since 2015, but in the last few months multiple women (mostly fellow Republicans) have stepped forward with accusations that Brough had sexually harassed them.
On June 25, we put up this post outlining the charges from three women against Brough (one of them is Orange County Supervisor Lisa Bartlett). The next day, the Los Angeles Times published this story detailing even more allegations of harassment against Brough:
A fourth woman, who is a Democratic activist and former registered lobbyist involved in Orange County politics, told The Times she was in Sacramento for a lobbying day in March 2018 when she attended a dinner with several Orange County elected officials, including Brough.
Following the dinner, the woman said, she accompanied some of the attendees to a bar near the Capitol. While there, the woman said, Brough followed her to the bar when she went to order a drink and put his arm around her shoulder. After she turned and backed away, the woman said, Brough put his hand on a wall behind her, blocking her from moving, and began touching her face and neck with his other hand.
The woman said Brough then propositioned her, saying, “We should get out of here. Do you want to have fun with me? You look like the kind of girl who would like to have fun.”
Brough denies all the allegations. “I have been on the end of many political attacks but I will not stand for personal attacks on me and my family,” Brough told the Times, even though there have, as yet, been no allegations against his family. “I have done nothing wrong.”
Now Republican Melanie Eustice, the Chief of Administration at the Orange County District Attorney’s office, is saying she will run against Brough in the 2020 primary election. Here’s how Eustice put it in a July 3 press release from the Glendale-based consulting firm Thomas Partners Strategies:
Today I’m proud to announce my run for the 73rd Assembly District. My work throughout the years as an elected school trustee, chief of staff to an Orange County Board of Supervisor and now fighting for public safety from the District Attorney’s office has prepared me to represent the people the 73rd District. I’ve made progress on the major challenges that face our community: ending homelessness, keeping violent criminals behind bars, fighting against taxes and government overreach, ensuring good jobs can be created right here in our community and working with our local schools to provide afterschool programs for our kids.
Eustice says her experience in the DA’s office standing “up for women and people who have been victims of sexual predators” helped her decide to run against Brough. “After hearing the numerous allegations swarming around Assemblyman Brough, I can no longer stand by,” she said in her July 3 statement. “I’m stepping up to be a voice, yet again, for the voiceless to say, ‘enough.’ We need change and I’m stepping up not just for women, but every parent who has a daughter in the workplace. Assemblymember Brough’s alleged conduct is not only disgusting, it’s unacceptable.”
Reached by phone, Eustice added that the extensive coverage in both the Times and Register of the allegations against Brough convinced her that she should run. “When this came up in the Democratic Party, they decided that people should step down,” Eustice said. “I don’t see the same thing happening with the Republican Party. I see this as an equality issue–men and women deserve to be in a workplace where they feel safe.”
Before Eustice went to work for DA Todd Spitzer this year, she worked for Orange County Supervisor Todd Spitzer as his chief of staff. In 2004, Eustice was elected to the Board of Trustees of the Western Placer Unified School District. Today she lives in Rancho Santa Margarita. She has a husband (Jeffrey) and four children (Landon, Kaleb, Brayden, and Jaren).
Anthony Pignataro has been a journalist since 1996. He spent a dozen years as Editor of MauiTime, the last alt weekly in Hawaii. He also wrote three trashy novels about Maui, which were published by Event Horizon Press. But he got his start at OC Weekly, and returned to the paper in 2019 as a Staff Writer.
Good for her.