BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
The race to lead the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office is more about a personal feud than politics or prosecutions.
District Attorney Jeff Rosen, 58, of Los Altos, is facing a challenge from a prosecutor who he has fired twice, only to have the firings reversed both times.
Deputy District Attorney Daniel Chung, 31, of San Jose, is getting a $8,525 paycheck every two weeks to stay home while running against his boss.
Rosen has raised 10 times as much money as Chung and has endorsements from six members of congress, seven state legislators, four county supervisors, Senator Adam Schiff, Sheriff Bob Jonsen, more than a dozen city council members and every police and firefighters’ union in Santa Clara County.
Rosen’s legal career
Rosen grew up in Los Angeles and got his bachelor’s degree in philosophy from UCLA. He graduated from UC-Berkeley Law School in 1992 and worked for private law firms before he was hired as a Santa Clara County prosecutor in 1995.
Rosen in 2010 unseated his boss, former District Attorney Dolores Carr, and has been elected three times since then.
In his ballot statement, Rosen said he’s created mental health, drug treatment and veterans’ courts that give offenders a second chance.
At the same time, Rosen said he’s cracked down on retail theft, gun crimes, sex trafficking, domestic violence, elder fraud, drug dealing and online scams.
“Under my leadership, Santa Clara County is one of our nation’s safest counties,” he said.
Chung said it’s time for change.
He said violent crime has gone unpunished, with victims waiting seven years for justice, and he would tackle an “insane” case backlog.
“Repeat offenders harm our neighborhoods because of disastrous policies like the $950 theft rule,” Chung said in his ballot statement, referring to the 2014 state law that made shoplifting under $950 a misdemeanor.
Chung grew up in Milpitas and went to Harvard and then Columbia Law School. He worked as a prosecutor in the Bronx on gun crimes before Rosen hired him in 2018.
The feud between Rosen and Chung went public in February 2021, when Chung wrote an opinion piece that criticized “progressive prosecutors” in the wake of several hate crimes against Asians.
In May 2021, Chung visited the families of mass shooting victims in San Jose without Rosen’s permission.
Rosen had Chung escorted out of the office and fired, but an arbitrator reduced the punishment to a 30-day suspension.
Chung ran against Rosen in 2022 and used his candidacy as a platform to criticize Rosen.
Chung received 79,378 votes to Rosen’s 181,851.
Chung then went to a training seminar in San Diego in April 2023, despite instructions not to do so.
Rosen fired him again. A personnel board reduced the firing to a two-week suspension and reinstated Chung in June.
Chung and his union are suing Rosen for not giving him an assignment.
For this campaign, Rosen has raised $420,239 since the start of last year. Chung has raised $43,052 and taken out a $100,000 loan, campaign finance forms show.
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