Get Used to It: Ep. 127, "Voices of Our Lives: Zeke Zeidler"

(typewriter sounds) (upbeat music) - Hi, welcome to "Get Used To It". I'm Sheila Kuehl. I'm your guide through this wondrous hour as always. Today, we have a special guest, every so often we have one in a series that we call "Voices Of Our Lives," where we interview a person from our wonderful LGBT community who is of interest I hope nationally and internationally. You'll have to judge when you watch the show. And today my guest is the honorable Zeke Zeidler who is a judge in the superior court of California in Los Angeles county welcomes Zeke. - Thank you. - Well, we've been friends for a lot of years seeing each other in a lot of avatars. - [Zeke] It's true, lot of different capacities between us. - Lot of different capacities. Well, I think one of the things I like to do is kind of get a sense of how people sort of started out, because I don't think we've ever interviewed a gay judge on this show in all the 12 or 13 years we've been doing this show, but there are quite a few in our judicial communities in the various states these days, are there not?. - There are more and more. We were even discussing maybe it's time in California, just for us to have our own statewide lesbian and gay judges association. - I think it should. Well, California has the first LGBT legislative caucus, and there's only six of us. So you could do it anytime you like. But let's start kind of at the beginning. Where'd you grow up? - I grew up in Topanga. It's the mountains above Malibu in Los Angeles and then moved to west Los Angeles, Brentwood. - So went to school all through school there? - All public school in Los Angeles county, first Topanga Canyon Elementary School, kind of a hippie community at the time and probably still a little bit today. I think that might be in your Senate district and... - Yes it is. - And then Brentwood West LA Palisades High School, Pacific Palisades right up from the ocean. - So Pacific Palisades where governor Schwarzenegger now lives? - [Zeke] That's right. - Yes, quite a star studded community. So tell me a little bit about your folks. - My parents are really unique people. My father owned a men's clothing chain that he had started with his brother from the ground up that turned into a 20 store chain. I learned a lot from my dad, he was a great example. His clothing chain catered to a broad spectrum of communities and had a lot of diversity of personnel. When I was growing up in school, all the white kids who wore OP shorts didn't even know what Zeidler and Zither was, but the black kids were all wearing Z and Z slacks and members only jackets and I was a star. So I really, you know, I grew up with a good experience of diversity around me from my father and my mother started her own little, her own little business in some ways as a cook and cookbook author at one point. She was a stay-at-home mom who started making strudel for the local restaurant and then started writing LA Times Jewish holiday food articles. And now is about to do her second television show, "Judy's Kitchen" on the new Jewish television network that's starting up. - And but what were they like? Well, did you have siblings? - [Zeke] I'm the youngest of five. - Youngest of five. - I think by then my parents had mellowed a little as parents. (Sheila laughing) My oldest sister, I think, felt that they were a little strict in the beginning and by the time they got to me, I had free range. My dad, I think a lot of my professional voice I've gotten from my father. He's a caring person, who also is a very smart business person and so I think I've gotten a lot of my speaking voice from him. My mother's very caring and committed to her friends and family. So I was lucky to get a little bit from each of them. - And were they, were they active in the community, political, you know, any associations, those sorts of things? - It's interesting, my father was active at first in food and wine. He was one of the early members of the Hollywood Wine and Food Society. My mother got involved with Hadassa and some of the Jewish philanthropies and as time's gone on, they've really created an interesting niche for themselves. They're into wine and food, they're into contemporary art and they're into Judaica. So they've become philanthropists within the arts community and the Jewish community, the scribal Jewish cultural center in Los Angeles, my dad started their major donor program, the restaurant there is Zeidler's cafe at the scribal. So they've taken all of their interests and turned it into philanthropy. - So what was your life like as a kid? How would you characterize it? - I was a little bit of that kid that didn't fit in, kind of went... - [Sheila] Did you know why at the time? - I didn't know why. I had a very early consciousness of fairness and justice issues. I had a neighbor, Jimmy Wiley. And Jimmy Wiley was native American. And whenever we played Cowboys and Indians, I was always upset because he got to be the good guys because he was Indian so he always got to be the Indians. And for some reason I knew the Indians were the good guys. (Sheila laughing) I don't know where that came from. And I was also the only Jewish kid in my elementary school. My mom always remembers back to me at Passover time, being really proud to explain to the other kids what that was about. So I just, there were so many parts of me that were just a little different, including later on, as I was starting to understand my sexual orientation. - So, and how did that come about? I mean, you people always say to me, "When did you first know you were gay?" And I actually can't really say. It's not like it comes to you as a thunderbolt. I think, you know it. And then when you really know it, for me, at least, it's a little frightening because you think, "Oh, that's over. No one's ever gonna like me again in the whole of the world." But sometimes it's different for guys. I noticed the consciousness a little earlier in life. Tell me a little about your journey on that. - There were crushes that I don't know that I identified as crushes at the time. I knew that it was the cutest boy in elementary school. I think my real first awareness was rushing home from junior high and turning on the TV to watch "Wild, Wild West" (Sheila laughing) to see if Robert Conrad took off his shirt that episode. And then as I got into high school, the realization started coming more. I had a friend who I knew was a lesbian and she was the first person I ever came out to. We're still friends today. I sat down with her and I said, "Lera have something to tell you." And she looked at me and she said, "You're gay." And I'm like, "Wow, that was easy." (both laughing) So that's my first coming out story. - And did you talk to your folks right away or? - I didn't. My mom actually asked me at one point if I was gay and it was a very bad time in family dynamics to say yes. When I eventually came out to her, she actually was upset that I had denied it the first go round. I got involved in a program called brotherhood, sisterhood camp, which was an intensive one week in the summer. Dealt with racism, sexism, homophobia, all the isms, prejudice and stereotyping. And so I went to brotherhood, sisterhood camp knowing they dealt with gay and lesbian issues. And that was my chance to come out in a large group. And that was when I was about 17 or 18. Then I went off to college and it was during college that I ended up coming out to my parents. - So were you out at all in high school or right at the end? - [Zeke] Out to a couple friends. - So where'd you go to college? - [Zeke] Went to Cal State University Northridge. - In the San Fernando valley? - Internationally people know it because of the earthquake. - Right, Northridge. - And that was after I was at Northridge. So I went to Cal State Northridge, got active very quickly on campus. I got involved with the Alliance for survival chapter that was being formed there, antinuclear group. And they were trying to get their charter so they needed people to sign saying they'd be members. And then they called me and said, " Well, would you be willing to be secretary? And oh, by the way, we have to go to the student Senate meeting where they have to approve us, will you come and sit in the audience?" And I kind of sat there and said, "Gosh, I could do this." (both laughing) - So would you characterize your years in college as more about activism than about academics? I mean, I know you did well 'cause I know what you did after college but... - I kind of combined the two because my undergraduate degree was English, Literature and women's studies and so much of that has to do with activism. So I think that it was both happening at the same time. A lot of the classes that I was in had a way to bring activism into the classroom environment too. But no, my time was mostly spent with activism. When I was student body president, we divested the campus foundation funds from South Africa, declared sanctuary for central American refugees, I debated nationally against a publisher of a pornography magazine because of the issue of the connection between pornography and violence against women. There are articles in USA today about things we were doing at Northridge around that issue. And then we also hosted the Western States Lesbian and Gay Student Conference, the year that I was student body president. So there was just a lot going on within that couple of years. And after I was student body president, I headed up. We changed lesbian and gay awareness day to multicultural lesbian and gay awareness week and I headed that up. I produced a Chris Williamson concert while I was in college. It was an incredible experience. (Sheila laughing) - I'd say. Now what makes somebody run for student body president? - You know, when I was in junior high, I first got to junior high and there was student council elections. And I thought, oh, that would be neat. You know, I like being involved in helping. So I ran for student council and got elected. I would keep running for officer positions and never gotten them. But what I saw was how electoral politics made an impact on who was in office to do work. And I always saw in junior high that the student council members did all this work and the officers did almost nothing. They were just the popular kids who became student body president. By the time I got to college, it really was about understanding that you could use that electoral process to then have some position to be able to make change in society. And I think that's really what it was all about. - And what led you to want to study women's studies. - At the time there weren't lesbian and gay studies programs, - [Sheila] Right. - I viewed homophobia as being intricately connected to women's issues and feminism and sexism. That gay, at the time my theory was that gay men are discriminated against because they're viewed as being like women, giving up power to be like women and if you would make it okay to be feminine and be a woman, then in turn, you could lead that to say that it's okay to be a gay man. - Did I hear something about sorority rush? - Yeah. - Yeah, tell us that story. - Well, that's my other coming out story. I decided to go through sorority rush while I was at Northridge. And the same year there was a guy at UCLA who went through sorority rush. He wore a dress. I wore a suit and you would go from room to room where each sorority had a party and one member would square off with each of the people who was rushing. And each time I would get to the front door, the membership director would come from the other corner and take me. And at the end of the whole process, they were doing what would've been a fifth page human interest story. "Gay guy goes through, the guy goes through sorority rush." And in the middle of the interview, person said, "Why'd you go through sorority rush?" I said, "Well, I'm interested in getting involved in campus things and involvements and the fraternities drink beer and talk about girls and I'm gay and not really into that, so I figure it makes sense to sit with the girls, talking about guys." And it turned into a first page article of a student Senator goes to sorority rush, comes out. And it was really interesting actually, because after that process, I was up for re-election as a student Senator. And I had run with a multicultural slate. And as we were all preparing our papers to run for the reelection, people kept asking the people one's in charge of the slate, "What's happening, what's happening?" They kept saying, "Don't worry, don't worry." Finally, I put my application in and they ended up putting the slate on without me on it. And the other members of the slate, made them reopen the election process. They had a majority in the student Senate, they found a flaw in the noticing requirements, had them reopen the election process to get me back on the slate, the other guy off. And I ended up coming in first with the highest number of votes and, you know, the gay issue just wasn't the thing that was gonna do it. - Well, I wonder whether it's, I mean, what you're saying is the gay issue wasn't held negatively against you. But I wonder it it's interesting to me sometimes when I was running, it's like you get, if you come out, you have a reputation for courage and truthfulness and that's a thing that any politician would want to have a reputation for. And I wonder whether people don't, it's not that they admire you for being gay, it's that they admire you for saying and being honest about a difficult thing as they see it, I think. So I'm not surprised that they would wanna vote for you. - I agree with that. And the other thing is when there's homophobia used against you, I think it benefits us. When I ran for student body president less than a year later, the morning of the student body election, seven out of eight of my billboards in campus had the word fags spray painted on them. And I was walking onto campus and the campaign manager came running up to me saying, "Don't worry, we're taking care of it. We're gonna paint over it." And I said, "Don't, you dare paint over it. And we are leaving it there." And I truly believe that put me over the top in that election. - People are kind of outraged. I mean, they don't wanna stand up in public and make a big deal out of anything. But if someone else does something offensive, I've seen the same thing. people rally kind of toward you, not everyone. And it's not that easy. So you were student body president, you graduated from college, where'd you go from there? - I went to law school. I took a year off and then went to Loyola law school in Los Angeles. Somewhere in between, I had... While I was still at Northridge, just getting ready to leave, I started getting involved in community gay and lesbian politics, Stonewall Democratic Club, and MECLA, the municipal elections committee of Los Angeles, which was the first gay lesbian political action committee. I ended up getting involved with them and I was very young at the time. And it was such an incredible opportunity because at the time I couldn't be on the board of MECLA, I couldn't raise money, but I got to be on their political committee, which interviewed candidates. And as a 19, a 20, 22 year old to be sitting in the room as these candidates are coming in, having an opportunity to meet congress members was just an amazing process. And I think that gave me a bug to continue lobbying. I'd started lobbying as a student, but it gave me a bug to get into the lobbying process and affecting legislation. Really gave me a chance to meet a lot of incredible legislators and years later, because I met them so early, I've had incredible endorsements when I've run for office because of the history that they know from me. - So you've always been interested in public policy. - Yeah. - You said, very young, interested in issues of justice and fairness and you know, most kids are. I mean, that's the main thing they say, "That's not fair," but mostly they mean about themselves, but certainly you've taken it much farther than that. Were you always certain that you wanted to go to law school or did you see it as something connected to something you were beginning to think you wanted to do? How did it happen? - In junior high I either wanted to be a teacher or a lawyer. And when I got to college, I wanted to be a theater major. I wanted to be an actor. And my dad's like, "You know, you can't be a theater major. You have to do something that's make money." And so then I wanted to be a social worker, but that wasn't gonna work either. I started as a psychology major, switched over to theater and realized it was that childhood dream but not what I wanted. Still didn't know what I was gonna do, I ended up becoming an English major because one day at eight o'clock in the morning, I was sitting on my bed, typing out a paper for a nine o'clock class and realized this comes easy to me, just major in it. And it wasn't until as I was getting towards the end of my college career that I really decided it was either be social work, education or law, something in there. And law, I think I was doing so much lobbying and stuff. It's really interesting. One thing that's been really important for me in all of my political involvements and organizational involvements is I've really understood bylaws, Robert's rules, procedure, how to impact the system. So law really ended up being the natural progression of all of those different things. - Well, it really is. I don't think people quite appreciate how much procedure can drive substance. I mean all the way from who gets into court. Those sort of basic rules of standing and you don't get into court, doesn't matter how good you think that the case is, you're not the person there to bring the case. So I think all that procedural stuff stands us in good stead. - Yes. - So what was life like for you in law school? Were you continue to be an activist? - Actually, you know how much of an activist I was because you were a professor at my law school. I audited your class my last year. And we were pretty activists that year. It's funny when I was applying to law school, there was a city council member who tried to, I was on a wait list for USC and he was trying to get me into USC, but he made me promise that if I got in, I was really gonna focus on my education and not all of this other stuff. And I was so glad I didn't get into USC because while I was at Loyola, on campus I was doing a lot of things. We had a really great... It was national coming out day. We got the student bar association to give us money for buttons that said, it was the word homophobia with the circle and the slash through it. We had literature that we passed out to people about myths about homosexuality. So I was doing things like that on campus. Plus we had a coalition of the minority student groups. And at the same time, I was still doing things in the community that year. One of those years was the election where there were two different us Senate seats up at the same time because of a special election. That was when Diane Feinstein and Barbara boxer first got elected. - [Sheila] Right. - And through MECLA I put on a candidate's form where I was the only one to get all five candidates in one room at the same time during that election. So I was doing that at the same time, I had a couple great internship opportunities. I didn't do the traditional ones. My first summer I did the ACLU where I worked with John Davidson, who's now at Lambda Legal, doing gay, lesbian and AIDS issues. And then my second summer was I went to Washington DC for a summer and did opposition research, not the average law school internship? - No, but again, in the political arena, the policy arena. - [Zeke] Yeah. - So did you know what you wanted to do when you got outta law school? - Originally I wanted to be a civil rights attorney. And so I realized there weren't a lot of jobs. (Sheila laughing) - [Sheila] Three or four. Well, LA county has the Southern California chapter of the, ACLU and they have, you know, like 15, maybe 20 staff attorneys out of the hundreds of thousands of attorneys in California. I wanted to be a public defender and it was the year when there was a hiring freeze. And I actually did an internship in the DA's office because Loyola had a great program, one semester, it was an intensive class in trial advocacy, the next semester that professor placed you in the DA's office. And I was a certified law student, which meant I could do cases as long as there was an attorney next to me. My first week there, I did a jury trial and the attorney next to me had done five jury trials in her life. She didn't say a word. So it was really a great experience. And I did at least realize I could be a prosecutor, but it was also the hiring freeze. And that was also another right place, right time. Because I ended up in the Torrance office and Gil Garcetti he was the head of the Torrance office. Most people know him because he was the district attorney of Los Angeles during the OJ Simpson case. But at the time he was there, I got to know him. One of the things that impressed me was, he came to me and he said, I was this intern. He came to me and he said, "I wanna do a mandatory sexual harassment training. Do you know Sheila Kuehl, can you have her come?" So I said, "Sure, I'll call Sheila." So I had you come. But the thing about that was I really believed he was someone who talked the talk and walked the walk. And when he went to run for DA, I helped get him his first democratic club endorsement, which was the Stonewall Democratic Club. And to this day, Gil knows that the first democratic club endorsement he got was from the gay and lesbian community. But when I went to run for school board, my get out the vote postcard was a picture of me and Gil Garcetti talking about safety issues and student safety issues. So, so much of right place right time. But so I did the internship in the DA's office, but they also weren't hiring. - So what was your first placement? - I was looking through the book of organizations and law firms that were coming to interview on campus and I saw, I was looking for a non-profit, I saw dependency court legal services and I had to ask someone what it was. - Maybe you should explain it actually for the viewers too. - The juvenile dependency court is the court where foster care cases come in. Child abuse and neglect. When a social worker feels that a child is at risk, they remove them from the parent and come to the court, explaining, filing a petition, showing why the court needs to get involved. And at the time dependency court legal services represented both parents and children in the process. County council represented the social workers, but we represented the parents and the kids. - So it was by appointment by the court. - [Zeke] Yes. - You know, you're gonna represent this kid kind of thing? - Right. And what I liked about it was, represented the parents, which was kind of like a public defender, but also got to represent kids, which was a little more social work. And it was really about helping the parents do what they needed to do to get their lives fixed up. It wasn't about fighting the allegations that they're having drug problems, it was about helping them admit they had the drug problems and get their act together and get their kids back. And with the kids, making sure they were getting the services they needed. - So you went there after you passed the bar? - [Zeke] Yeah. - How long were you there? - I was there about seven years, somewhere in the middle of that, I ran for school board in Redondo beach. - Now why do that? - You know, I had lived in LA county. I was sure I was gonna, I mean, LA city, big city. I was into LA politics and I met someone and you fall in love and you move to wherever they are. And Jay was living in a Redondo beach. So I moved to Redondo beach, California. And I'd been there... - Which isn't actually too far from LA. I mean, most people don't know there's about 80 cities in LA county and they're kind of nestled all next to each other. So not too far away from the city, but not in the city. You're right. - And it's not that far south, 'cause it's still above long beach, which is in LA county. We'd been there about a year and there was a school board election. And all I knew was that three of the six candidates were opposing this elementary school reading series that they said promoted satanism and witchcraft. And one of the things they didn't like was Rudyard Kipling's ricky ticky toffee. So I went to a candidates forum to find out who was who and what was what? Next thing I knew I was phone banking and within three years I was on the school board. It was just, it skyrocketed... I got asked to be on the science curriculum committee when they were choosing textbooks for science curriculum, then I headed up the education foundation, raising money for the schools and then an election happened and I ran. - Well, you know, there's a theme of course. I mean, in terms of, when you think about working anywhere with your law degree and you choose dependency court, just seems like sort of an ongoing concern about kids and about their families. It seems to me to dovetail pretty well with worrying about the school since that's such a major sort of shaping authority. But what was it like for you, out as a gay man, running for the school board in this actually not very big city. - It was interesting. Most people didn't wanna... The people who knew I was gay didn't wanna make it an issue, which meant it also didn't come up for most people to know whether I was or wasn't. It wasn't something I hid. The superintendent in Redondo had met Jay. It was interesting. I'd go door to door and people would say, "Well, do you have kids? And I'd say, "Well, I've got about a thousand," but that's' cause of what I do for a living, you know. "No, I don't have kids." And I think they were so impressed with how much I had done on children's issues. And part of my involvement in children's issues is I had a lot of opportunities when I was a kid and I realized how great they were and it just, my first job out of high school was as a Jewish youth group advisor because I had been very involved in Jewish youth group. So I just understood giving opportunities to other kids that I'd gotten. I stayed involved with brotherhood, sisterhood camp as a staff member, after I was no longer a high school student. So when I ran for school board, it just didn't come up. One candidate had a flyer where she had this innocuous reference to needing to make sure that we're not teaching about alternate lifestyles, but she didn't mention me. So no one would've known what it was. A month after the election there was a problem because Jay and I had already planned our commitment ceremony before I decided to run for school board. So a month after I was elected, we had our commitment ceremony and there was a big headline in the newspaper. "Gay trustees' exchange of vows upsets backers." And we were even worried that there was gonna be newspaper showing up at our commitment ceremonies. So we had to have security there and they talked about a recall, but most times recalls never pan out. And in the end, what people really cared about... What I liked about Redondo beach was, Redondo beach is conservative in that people don't like change. But it's not conservative in a far right religious right mentality. So what I did as a school board member was do my job as a school board member and care about my community and wanna do what's best for kids in my community. We were providing laptop computers, take home laptop computers to every ninth grader. We were doing really cutting edge stuff. And I think that's what people cared about. When I ran for reelection, I was so easily reelected. It was just a great experience. - But were they disappointed that you hadn't told them or been more out? - I don't think so, because the people who knew me knew, so they weren't gonna be disappointed. And the rest of the people just, "Oh, I didn't know." It really turned out to be a non-issue in the end. What were the major issues on the school board when you were there? - Well, budget's always an issue. Teachers salaries are always an issue. Some of them were just little local things that wouldn't be worth explaining. You know, it's interesting actually, when I was elected to the school board, at the time I really didn't know how big it was. Once I'd been elected. The victory fund discussed me as being only the 10th, openly gay lesbian school board member in the country. And I really, when I was running, just had no idea how special that was. - Well, I know they always used to mention it about Jackie Goldberg. We know which he was on the school board and then of course she was on the LA city council and went on to the assembly. But it's very rare from what I understand too. - [Zeke] Yeah. - So here you are on the school board for which you don't really get, it's not a full-time job, and you're in the dependency court representing folks. What happened next? - I ran for state assembly. There was an election for state assembly and I decided to make a stab at it. I didn't have to give up my school board seat at the time. It was an incredible experience. And best thing that ever happened to me was losing that election. If I'd gotten elected to the state assembly, it would've been budget crisis, energy crisis, budget crisis, recall. That would've been my six years, eight years. - Quite familiar with the whole scheme as it were. - So I didn't win. And right after the election, there was an opening for what we call superior court referees. We have judges and commissioners in the court system. - Now in California, the superior court actually is the entry court. The sort of court of first resort as it were. Even though it's called superior. - At the time, actually there was still a municipal court. So superior court was a little higher level case. And it was always interesting because juvenile wasn't given a lot of credit, but it was superior court, so it was still a little higher up. So they have judges and commissioners in juvenile court. There's also a limited number of referees, there's specific judicial officers in the juvenile court. - So not appointed like judges, but... - They're appointed by the presiding judge at the juvenile court as opposed to presiding judge at the entire superior court. - And what do the referees do? - The referees, in our courthouse, we have 20 courtrooms, all doing child abuse cases. We've got about six judges, eight commissioners and six referees all doing the same exact thing for the most part. In my courtroom, when I was a referee, I had a commissioner in one courtroom and a judge next door on the other side, all doing the same caseload. So it's the same duties, but you only had to have five years experience as a lawyer, instead of 10. Having the juvenile experience gave me a leg up. So I applied for a superior court referee position. And in the beginning, when I got appointed for the first year, it was kind of substitute judge. I would go to dependency court, delinquency court, juvenile traffic court for the day, if they needed me. And within a year I got a full time assignment. So I've been in my courtroom now for seven years. - It must be a very different experience though, to sit on the bench than representation. I mean, virtually every judge has been an attorney and virtually every judge will say I had no idea. I just had no idea. So can you tell us a little bit about your experience that first week, that first couple of weeks as a referee. - You know, I'm next door to the judge whose courtroom I practiced in. After about six months I walked in and I said, "I just wanna apologize for anything I ever did as a lawyer." It's a lonely job. And the transition's very hard when you stay in the same courthouse especially because it's that people not knowing exactly what to call you in the hallway. Attorneys you've known for years, suddenly it's whether I call you judge, do I call you Zeke? You can't do the advocacy anymore. Plus it curtails all your political involvements. - So you're under the same code of ethics as our judges? - Yes, for the most part. And what's really interesting is that it's the loneliest job in the world because you can't talk to anyone about your job half of the time. And I'm lucky in that we've got a very collegial courthouse and every Wednesday, probably half of us have lunch together every Wednesday. Just talk about case law, talk about cases, talk about things going on. And it's a real great stress reducer. - And were you treated, well, I guess there would be a number of differentiations. Were you the only gay judicial officer in that court? - Actually, when I started out of 20 courtrooms, we had two lesbians and two gay men. - Really? - The juvenile court, especially I think for some reason we're attracted to helping families and helping where it matters instead of the big civil cases all the time necessarily or criminal. For some reason, I don't know why it is, but I see it throughout the state. So many gay and lesbian judges in juvenile assignments. So I wasn't the anomaly there, it was very interesting. - Well, it is interesting. I wonder if it has something to do with being a wild speculation and I'm not a psychologist. Although I played one on TV once, that if we had a dysfunctional family experience, it makes us want to help. And if we didn't as gay people, we feel so lucky, so blessed because so many others did. Were rejected by their families or criticized by their families or split the family or whatever. But I think you and I had pretty much the same experience. A lot of support, good rapport. Still, I feel the same way half the legislation I carry is something to do with children. Protecting them from abuse or protecting them, getting their own counsel in custody cases, whatever. So it could be, so it was a, you weren't a brand new thing for that court. - No, it's very interesting. It was very comfortable. - So how did you feel then being a referee? I mean, I understand the loneliness of it. Like, you know, the G stands alone, but were you surprised at any of the aspects of the work? - You know, I wasn't, because I knew the system so much already. And what was great about my courthouse was it's a very collegial place. I think when I was out dealing with other countywide or statewide, it was interesting seeing the differentiation between judges, commissioners, referees. If I went to national things, no problem. I was a judicial officer. I was one of 40 judicial officers from around the country at a national council of juvenile and family court judges conference. And it was like one of the only places outside of my courthouse where I really felt there was no differentiation. So there was that little bit of differentiation there. Plus being in juvenile, I've always said that I really think that the way the juvenile court is dealt with, partially has to do with sexism. It's families, children, it's the realm of the women, but it also has to do with class issues. It's not about money. And yeah, the big things that are sexy are money and civil and things that are not necessarily the family in the realm of the women. And so I really thought that we needed to make sure that we're increasing the image of the juvenile court and the needs of the people we deal with. - But you wanted to be a judge. - [Zeke] I wanted to be a judge. - So what happened after the years of refereeing? - You know, it's interesting, when Grey Davis got elected governor and there was a Democrat governor, thought there'd be a chance for openly gay and lesbian appointments, I didn't apply for judge right off the bat because I was still between five years and 10 years experience as a lawyer. And I didn't wanna leave juvenile for the municipal court. So when I got 10 years, I put in my application, went through the process, he sent me to the state bar committee that evaluates candidates. They sent their rating to his selection person and I was right up there when he got recalled. - [Sheila] Wow. - So within a year, there was an election and there were five judges who decided not to run for reelection. - So in California normally I guess, you'd be appointed by the governor after all of this vetting. But as an alternative, you can run for a so-called open seat. - Judges rep for reelection every six years. If they stay through the end of their term, the governor appoints, if they retire midterm, the governor appoints. But if that election process every six years has already started, then that seat stays on the ballot. So there were five judges that year who decided not to run for reelection after the election process had started. And in the past, superior court referees and commissioners had not fared well against prosecutors because everyone knows what a prosecutor is. And they see commissioner and they think like police commission. And they see referee and they have no idea what that means. by having right. (Sheila laughing) We had two referees and one commissioner run all at the same time. And I think all three of us repeatedly saying, "Here's what we do. We do the work judges." - Kind of. - It all worked out that all three of us ended up creating enough visibility that all three of us got elected and the commissioner was Donna Groman who's an open lesbian judge. - [Sheila] Right. - So we got elected together, countywide in Los Angeles county. That means that we got almost 1.2 million votes each, which is... - And your work also in the gay and lesbian community, certainly your political work really brought you to a lot of people's attention over the years. You had a lot of friends, a lot of people you'd supported. And so people, seems to me that people were pretty supportive. Although we had to keep flogging them to send in that next 10 bucks. - Trying to get visibility around a judicial election. - I know nobody looks. - You know, it's not sexy for the politicos because unlike where you say, "Oh, I know what the Senator." You don't say, "Oh, I know this judge." And you can't get this judge to do legislation. So there's nothing exciting about getting someone elected to judge. - Quite the opposite. You're not supposed to know a judge in a way that helps you get things done. - Right. So when I ran, my history really helped a lot. And I met Antonio Veragoso the first time he ran for state assembly. You and he had the same fundraiser and there was a group of us that anyone she told us to support, we went to their events and we met Antonio early, early. His first race and when I decided to run for judge, I called him up and the minute I asked for his party, he asked me, "Who else was in the race?" And then endorsed me. There was a Latino can in the race, but I ended up not only getting his endorsement, but also getting the Mexican American Bar Association. Its so many people that really, having had all those involvements, the LA County Democratic Party endorsement and the LA County Labor Federation endorsements really had to do with having shown a history of who I was. Because as a judicial candidate, you can't say here's how I feel on issues. But because of my history, they knew how I felt on issues. - Well and it's more than that too. I think there's really only two things that we have in our life as we go along, our reputation and our relationships and your reputation was one of deep integrity. I mean, you name all of the things that you did as student body president and people think, "Well, I know where to put him on the political spectrum," but it's not about politics. It wasn't about politics. It's really about policy. I mean, I think from what I know, that's what led you to run for student body president even and all the way along. Being a judge is a very different way though, of doing policy. You're doing policy one person at a time. You're not really, although in your own court, as I said about procedural issues, you craft a kind of policy. Are you're litigants being heard fairly, or the young people having a voice when they should have a voice, are their parents having a voice? Are there supportive services? So those kinds of things, it seems to me one can do. - Well, I'm also able to do systemic things. I've been drafting curriculum statewide, anti-biased curriculum for judges and court staff. This year, we did something phenomenal. We think it's the first time in the country. California, I was on a committee. We did a statewide conference on language access to the courts and meeting the needs of non-English speakers and limited English speakers, which was just an incredible concept that we're starting to bring more discussion about and making the judicial officers aware of those needs and ways to be dealing with it. So I can also affect the system and affect other judges. And you know, the coming out process too, just by being an openly gay colleague, as you know so well, makes all the difference in the world. Jay went up to a... My husband's a great guy. He's a lawyer who has been doing civil rights work, gay and lesbian work since before anyone else. He was one of 10 in the country meeting on gay and lesbian civil rights issues and sodomy law reform way back in the day. But he went up to... - [Sheila] He's on death penalty work? - His office handles death penalty appeals statewide and then juvenile and criminal appeals for our appellate district. But he was at a big dinner, a big luncheon up in Sacramento, San Francisco for the court system. And he got to see Donna Hitchens, who's an open lesbian judge who from San Francisco received the highest award a judge gets in California. See the chief justice present her with this award while her partner was sitting next to one of the more conservative members of the California Supreme court. And if those people knowing Donna Hitchens doesn't make a difference, I don't know what can. - Well, I think it's really the only thing that makes a difference. We do this one person at a time anyway. That's how you come out, unless they write about you in people magazine, like they did about me. And then it's not one person at a time. It's sort of like, can't I just take a billboard on sunset and get it over with? But I think it does make a difference. The collegiality of your court though, does that extend to dinners with families or spouses and partners? And do you bring Jay? And how do your colleagues respond to that? - It doesn't lead to a lot of those things, but there are things, when we go to an annual conference, we all get together, depending on which city it's in, partners might not come. Every so often one will have a party. Donna Groman throws a great Majong party. And so it's nonissue, it's... - I mean your colleagues in your court? - My colleagues in my court, they love Jay. I mean, we are just, yeah, one more couple that they know. And to them it really is no different. - Now Zeke, do you get asked about the sort of gay and lesbian issues of the day by your colleagues or by people? You're not only a judicial officer and people will, you'll be on a panel sort of like that, but do you also still involve yourself in lesbian and gay issues? Are you asked your opinion on these things and since so many are in the courts, how do you handle that? Because our issues are really legal issues these days. - Right. There are some issues I can address and some I can't. One thing we've done in our courthouse when Martha Matthews was at the ACLU of Southern California, she came to me and said, "I'm doing gay lesbian issues. I just came from the National Youth Law Center. I'd like to do something with both of them together. What are the needs of foster youth?" I said, "That's a great question. Here are the names of 10 people you can call to get together in a room to have a meeting." That was three, four years ago. We now had this monthly meeting now of this task force in our courthouse, dealing with the needs of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth. So at times a judicial officer will call me and say, "Hey, I've got this kid in my courtroom with this issue. What do I do?" So those are the types of things that they might call me about. We don't sit around talking about, "What you're feeling on gay marriage?" That none of us can discuss. But they call me about helping them figure out how to handle a case before them meeting the needs of someone. - So, do you encourage other people to think about being a judicial officer as a career? 'Cause I don't know whether people in our community feel that's something to aspire to, something that's really possible. As I said, we don't have vast publicity about all of the gay judges in California. Not that there are so many, but I wonder whether it's something that even lawyers in our community really think they can do. - I've been bringing that up more and more with lawyers, not just in our community, but other communities. I think it is so important for people to get involved in elective and appointed office, openly gay and lesbian people, people of color, women to continue adding diversity to the system. I just went to a dinner for the Arab American Bar Association in LA county. I think we have two and one retired Arab American judges. And I walked up to the president afterwards and I said, "If you'd like me to come talk to your board about what you do to go through the process to get more Arab American judges on the bench, give me a call. I'd love to talk to you about, educate them about the process of becoming a judge." It's not just judge though. It's every level of elected and appoint office, whether it's the water replenishment boards, school boards, city council, state, legislature or judgeship, the more people get to know us, the more our issues become just one other thing out there that's not an issue. - Well, and also the capabilities. We don't get a lot of positive information about gay or lesbian role models. People don't know if they're in the state legislature or sometimes they'll know in the city council in their city, but really I think judges not so much. - And for gay and lesbian lawyers and law students especially, for them to see gay and lesbian judges, last year at the lavender law conference, which is the national gay and lesbian law conference, I was on a panel of judges talking about how we became judges and half the room easily was law students. And I had law students walk up to me afterwards saying, "I go to this law school in the middle of nowhere. We've got a lesbian and gay, not middle of nowhere but lesbian and gay student group, but no judges in our community. How can we get some judges come to talk to us? Because it was so incredible to see all of you on the panel and hear about being a judge and realize I can be one, but to see you as role models." So it definitely makes a difference. - Well, and what about issues for gay and lesbian people in the courts? Over the years in California, the judicial council has had some task forces that are dealing with the treatment of people of color, treatment of women and there was a task force about treatment of gay and lesbian people in the courts. Do you have a sense of how we do in the courts? There's not a lot of recognition about the realities of our lives. And so when we come into court and I'm not saying so much in criminal but in the family law court, in guardianship... - Actually the biggest one is jury duty. - Jury duty, how's that? - Questioning, traditionally it was, are you married? Marital status? You're asking a juror. And I had one friend who sat there he didn't know how to answer. He was so nervous. "What do I say when it gets to me? Do I say I have a partner? Do I say no, I'm not married? How do I answer that question?" And in a very short period I had three friends on jury duty at the same time. And each judge had handled the question differently. And so there's been a lot at the statewide level of creating new ways to do the jury questioning but the biggest part is getting it to filter down to the courtroom judges and having them say, please, if you're gonna ask them about what their relationships are, please discuss any significant people in your lives, who you live with, whether it's spouse or domestic partner or boyfriend or girlfriend, tell us what their name is and what, not what their name is, but what they do for a living. - Sure. And it's relevant information for a jury. My sister might be a police officer if you only ask me if I'm married, that's not gonna help you know whether I'm prejudiced one way or the other. - So our court system is trying to address all of these issues. And we do a lot of statewide trainings. And now we're doing a lot of county trainings of judges on every issue that you can think of. So those trainings really emphasize a lot of diversity. Our statewide judicial education program, every single program is encouraged to have a fairness, an anti bias component to it. And the committee that I'm on right now, that deals with fairness curriculum is actually reviewing all of the other statewide curriculum to see where fairness issues are missing. So my colleagues that, I've gotten four colleagues in my courthouse to go through the juvenile dependency training curricula. And we're going through and saying where fairness issues are missing and how it could be added into that. It's incredible the commitment in our state to fairness issues, access and bias issues. - We're talking about role models and sort of how there's been a real posity at least over the years of role models in our community. Did you have heroes when you were growing up? - I did, but I think mine were just so traditional. It was the... - Do go ahead. - It was the Martin Luther Kings and the Cesar Chavez's and it was really the big ones who made a difference. And one thing that I've always been saddened by in the gay and lesbian community is that we really never had someone at that national level figurehead that everyone knew who they were. I think a lot of us latched onto Harvey Milk after he was killed, but he still wasn't that person who had been a national figurehead like Martin Luther king was. And now government is so big and this country is so big and media is so spread out that I don't know that the world will ever have many other national figureheads ever be able to be formed because of so much media and so different, so many different places. - Well, I think some of it had to do with the really compact beginnings of the civil rights movement. The few men and women who were involved were easy to identify and the same would Cesar Chavez in terms of that was a compact farm workers movement. The gay and lesbian community's always been very diffused. It's not like something you struggle to join, very much like race where you say, "I didn't wanna join this group, I just was one." But it may be that's one of our strengths as well. I'm not sure, but the fact that we don't have one person that we identify, but the fact that our heroes, such as they are, are really very local, very personal people that we knew. Our chance to become our own heroes. To some extent, I think is even greater. I'm in the state senate, yeah it's a big state and there's not very many people in the state Senate. It's a wonderful thing to ascend to, but still it's not like being the president of the world. But I feel like in my ambit and the same with you, in your ambit, people see what you're doing and they think that's a good thing. There's a person, a gay person doing a good thing. Because our movement's been very successful and people say, "Well, why is that?" And I think part of it has to do with sort of the flattened notion of leadership. - Well, our community is so different than others because of the fact of the diversity. That what we have in common is this thing but we come from all of these different backgrounds. And the gay and lesbian community, before anyone else was doing it, except for maybe the women's community, all of our organizations had to be co-gender co-chairs and tried to have diversity of race among the co-chairs. And we really were doing that before anyone else even thought of it that way. And then later on other organizations came to understand the concept of having co-gender co-chairs in a manner... - We had our own struggles. Remember it was the gay community services center and a couple of lesbians snuck out in the middle of the night and put a little lavender carrot and lesbian on the sign. - But we also tend to eat our own. - Well, that's true. We've been a lot of horizontal house hostility as they call it. - And you know, other role models I've had are just the very personal role models. My parents are incredible role models and you and Sheila, you and Jackie for me have been incredible. When I was a high school student, I went to a rally to keep Dan White from being paroled to Los Angeles. Dan White had killed a Harvey Milk and I was a 17 year old at this rally with this sign. And Jackie Goldberg got up to speak. And at the time there was this whole debate, Is Jackie openly gay or isn't she? I didn't know who she was. I'm the 17 year old, she got up to speak and I'm like, "Oh my God, I didn't know if there was a lesbian on the school board." I mean, no one had to tell me she was or wasn't, I saw this school board member speak at a Dan Wright rally and it was like, "Wow, there's a lesbian on the board." - You know who they are of course. So what do you see in your future? You'd be a judge for the rest of your life, right? - Yeah, until 62 or 65, depending on my retirement options by then. I always thought I was gonna be in the legislature and maybe retire to a judgeship. I like what I do, I love being in juvenile. I've had so many people say to me, "Now don't get pigeonholed in juvenile. You wanna get to criminal and then get to civil so you can retire to private judging." Retirement for me as retirement, I don't need to do private judging. So for now I see myself staying in the juvenile court, making a difference on the local level, making a difference in the whole court system statewide, not just juvenile and it'll go wherever it goes. - Well, I know that people are appreciative of your leadership, they always have been. And it's interesting that you sort of have ended up or chosen all along to be in the juvenile area. I don't think people really understand how much judges participate in shaping the way in which the judicial system treats certain kinds of cases. They don't make the law, but it's not just only one case at a time. When you talk about these conferences or you talk about collaborations. I'm assuming that Jay was very happy when you were elected. - He was very happy. It meant that I would not be in the state assembly. I would never run for state assembly. - You wouldn't have to go away to Sacramento and be gone four days a week. - No, that was the big one. And you know what? I'm very lucky that I'm in a relationship with someone who understands the area of why I'm dealing with too. We love talking about different things at home. What's going on in my day, what's going on in his day and being able to understand each other's lives. Still some limits on what I can and can't talk about at home, but he's happy with what I'm doing. I think he's a little proud. - And do you see things getting better for our kids? I know you only see them when they're in troubled circumstances, but our gay and lesbian kids? - There are more and more resources for gay and lesbian kids. There's more training of social workers, probation officers around meeting the needs of gay and lesbian kids. So I think that definitely, there's more out there for them to help them out. Overall I just think our community, not gay and lesbian community, but community at large is so stretched for resources. Social workers are overworked have too high of caseloads. There aren't enough programs, counseling programs out there. There's just not a lot out there. And that's the biggest problem. We need more agencies. We need more government agencies and government resources to be providing the needs to people. - Well, Zeke, it's hard to believe a whole hour went by already while we were just talking to each other, but it has, and really grateful to you for coming on the show and very, very proud of you and proud to know you. So thanks for being here. - [Zeke] Thank you. - Thank you for being here as well. You can see from these interviews, we seem to have every kind of job be every kind of person. From the bench to the legislature to probably your third grade teacher. So I guess you have to just "Get Used To It." (upbeat music)