In Filner case, tangled tale of four GOP leaning judges
By representing himself in court, Democrat Filner steps into a clubby world of
Republican judicial cash and big business ties
Matt Potter
San Diego Reader
March 5, 2013

San Diego mayor Bob Filner - who appeared before San Diego Superior Court
judge Timothy B. Taylor today to unsuccessfully argue against an expedited
hearing of the lawsuit brought against him by hotel moguls - is more familiar
with the halls of Congress than the tangled netherworld of the local judicial
benches of both state and national government.

Though Taylor's ultimate decision in the case is far from certain, and last month
he ruled against the city's so-called Plaza de Panama project - effectively killing
it when San Diego's richest man and Qualcomm founder Irwin Jacobs pulled his
long promised cash from the deal - Filner's legal road is virtually sure to be
crowded with plenty of insider intrigue, most of it of the Republican variety.

Even in his historic ruling against the city in the Jacobs case, Taylor expressed
sympathy with its plight:

The loss of the generous funding offered by [Jacobs] will be a sad day for San
Diego, because no other funding source has been identified, and the City's own
perilous (and partially self-inflicted) financial problems have been well
documented and likely preclude public funding of any significant alternative
project.

The elderly Jacobs is a liberal-leaning Democrat, a multi-million dollar donor to
Barack Obama, and not especially well loved by the local GOP establishment.

The same cannot be said for C. Terry Brown, Bill Evans, and Richard Bartell,
the triumvirate of well-connected hotel magnates who are the apparent prime
movers behind the lawsuit against Filner.

Appointed judge here in January 2005 by Republican Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger, Taylor was a lawyer for two decades with the big firm
Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton, which frequently lobbies city hall for well-
heeled corporate clients. The Association of Business Trial Lawyers of San
Diego described his path to judicial power in its Fall 2012 newsletter:

Prior to taking the bench, Judge Taylor practiced as a civil litigator in
environmental, unfair competition, and trade regulation actions, frequently
representing large companies.

His favorite part of being a litigator was oral argument with an active bench,
and he considers a hotly contested law and motion calendar as a highlight of
his current assignment.

First, he is prepared and likes to be active in oral argument. Sometimes this is
confused with (or, on occasion, overlaps with) impatience with attorneys, but he
views oral argument as an active exchange of argument and ideas.

Taylor has often ruled for big business; in April of last year, he tossed a
complaint against a Walmart complex at the old Farmers Market building
between Sherman Heights and Logan Heights that plaintiffs claimed hadn't
received sufficient environmental review.

Taylor's background bears more than a few similarities to that of San Diego
Republican city attorney Jan Goldsmith, an advocate of the wealthy hoteliers
who have helped pay for his political campaigns for decades.

Goldsmith, who like Taylor was a resident of tony Coronado before Goldsmith
moved into a small apartment across the bay to run for city attorney, was
appointed a judge here in December 1998 by Republican Gov. Pete Wilson,
the former mayor of San Diego who also was cozy with the hotel moguls here
and derived heavy campaign funding from them.

Reported the Union-Tribune at the time:

During summer legislative hearings on scandals uncovered in Wilson's
Department of Corrections, Goldsmith was the top defender of the
administration, aggressively questioning critics of Wilson.

And Goldsmith and Taylor have at least one more thing in common: their wives
are both judges.

Christine Goldsmith, a former deputy district attorney, was appointed to what
was then the Municipal Court bench here in January 1987 by Republican Gov.
George Deukmejian.

In 1986, she sued Goldsmith for divorce, alleging in part that he:

began yelling and screaming at me in obviously uncontrolled anger. He then
gave me a hard shove in the chest and cocked his fist in an extremely
threatening manner. All of this appeared in front of the children causing them to
be extremely upset and telling their father not to hit their mother. He then began
throwing items off the kitchen counter in his continuing rage. I could not leave at
that time without further aggravating the situation and exposing myself to
potentially further harm.

The next day, she said, she slept at her sister’s house with the children.

I am afraid to go back to the house the Respondent is still there as I feel his
anger may once again get the best of him and he may, in fact, cause physical
danger to myself and irreparable harm to both myself and our minor children.

The couple subsequently reconciled and the divorce case quickly terminated.

Taylor's wife is U.S. Bankruptcy court presiding judge Laura Taylor, who was
named to the court by the 9th District Court of Appeals in September 2007.

She, like her husband, was a lawyer with Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton.
Superior Court Judge Timothy B. Taylor
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Timothy Taylor minute order
responding to Reader article
10/24/08 09:00AM
C-72    
Taylor, Timothy           
   
Trial Readiness
GIC865228                  
  
D)POWAY UNIFIED
SCHOOL DIST Daniel
R. Shinoff
March 23, 2013  

Filner Has Judge's Backing on TMD
Voice of San Diego

The most interesting man in San Diego politics these days may not be the new
mayor.

The one who really seems to be making his mark in 2012 is Judge Timothy
Taylor. He
killed the plan to remake Balboa Park. He put a giant roadblock in
the way of a 40-year transportation plan for the entire region.

And on Friday, he finalized his
ruling that Mayor Bob Filner did not have to sign
an operating agreement with the Tourism Marketing District.

With that, the mayor received an infusion of leverage in his standoff with hotel
owners over a 2 percent surcharge on hotel rooms that funds promotion of the
city as a tourist destination. The legality of the tax, another contested issue, is
separate.

Presumably, the Tourism Authority, the main beneficiary of the tax and the
marketer of San Diego to the world is still on track to lay off dozens and cancel
marketing campaigns. The judge did say that the City Council could pass a
resolution forcing the mayor's hand, but, yes, the mayor could veto that as well.

The council would need six votes to override him. Here's the most simple
possible explanation of the standoff you could find in a short video.

Here's NBC 7 San Diego on the final ruling.

Here's U-T San Diego on the City Council's decision whether to force the mayor
to sign. The paper also
compared the compensation of the CEO of the Tourism
Authority ($435,000) to counterparts at other places around the country.