Opinion: Corpus didn’t help herself by hiring a big shot D.C. attorney

BY DAVE PRICE
Daily Post Editor

San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus, who is facing removal from office on corruption charges, did herself no favors by adding former Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez to her legal team.

Perez gave a disjointed speech to the county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday (Aug. 12) that included a number of racial slurs, including the n-word and a term for Mexicans that ends with “back.”  

I guess the point he was trying to make was that over the years Corpus had encountered cops who used such language. But that point was lost on the audience, who collectively gasped when he started using these slurs.

He apologized, but in 2025, if you’re going to quote somebody who used a slur, you never repeat the actual slur — you use a phrase like “he said the n-word.” You’d think Perez would have known better, having headed organizations steeped in political correctness. He was labor secretary for former President Obama and then head of the Democratic Party for four years. 

Maybe you can get away with those slurs behind closed doors in D.C., but they’re not acceptable here.

Simply put, Perez can’t read the room. That’s going to be a real problem if he is the main litigator for Corpus in the hearings that begin today. 

Litigators have to pay close attention to ensure the case they’re presenting is reaching their audience. Usually the audience is a jury, but in the case of the removal hearings, it will be a retired judge who is serving as a hearing officer and the five members of the Board of Supervisors who will make the final call.

When Perez began firing off these slurs, I wondered if he had run this speech by his client first? Had she approved it?

Ironically, witnesses have said that Corpus had twice used the n-word to describe her predecessor, Carlos Bolanos, a Latino. And she twice sent text messages using a homophobic slur to describe a former elected official, according to a report by outside investigator and a firm hired to verify that the messages came from Corpus.

Perez, with his national Democratic credentials, was hired for one reason: making the all-Democrat Board of Supervisors worry that they might not have a future in party politics if they go against his client. But Perez destroyed any credibility he might have had in these hearings with those racial slurs.

Editor Dave Price’s column appears on Mondays in the Daily Post.

Correction: An earlier version should have said that the former elected who was the subject of a homophobic slur by Corpus is not a lesbian.