Andrea Cardenas joins quite the list of South County electeds who have found themselves on the receiving end of the District Attorney’s indictments and the public’s ire.
When people learned last week that District Attorney Summer Stephan’s office was indicting Cardenas and her brother Jesus on a number of fraud and theft charges related to Paycheck Protection Program loans made available during the height of the pandemic, calls for Cardenas’s resignation rang out almost immediately on social media.
No surprise there.
This week, two of her council colleagues publicly called for her to step aside. That, too, is not a surprise when factoring in political considerations.
Unfortunately, Cardenas has an array of examples to help her decide what to do outside the court room.
She can learn from one time Chula Vista Councilman Steve Castaneda. In 2007 he was charged with more than a dozen felonies by former District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis’s office.
He stayed in office went to trial and won, a jury finding him not guilty on most of the charges and deadlocking on the remainder.
Castaneda managed to finish out his first term and then was elected to another four year stint through 2012. Attempts at higher office didn’t pan out, neither did a return to council, but today he sits on a water board.
All that after he was found not guilty.
Around 2012 Sweetwater Union High School District Board members Arlie Ricasa, Pearl Quinones, Bertha Lopez and Jim Cartmill continued to serve after they were charged in the “largest corruption scandal” ever prosecuted by Dumanis prosecutors. Some of those felony charges stuck, others were knocked down to misdemeanors, allowing Cartmill and Lopez to continue serving even after they pleaded guilty. Ricasa and Quinones faded from the glare of the public service spotlight as did Lopez and Cartmill.
Cardenas was set to run for re-election next year, with the primary vote slated for March.
The indictment and trial—if there is one—will undoubtedly dog her throughout her campaign.
If, like Castaneda, she remains in office, beats the prosecution and somehow gets re-elected she wins, obviously. But even if she wins, given the company she has now joined, she loses.
