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Vietcong Ambulance Chaser Derek Tran VS GOP Michelle Park Steel
By Melanie Mason
09/18/2024 08:55 AM EDT
LOS ANGELES — Derek Tran, a Democrat running for one of the most competitive House seats in the country, has touted his career as a trial lawyer to portray himself as a champion of underdogs. But some of his former clients could become a political liability, including one man who was fired after displaying a noose in his office.
The first-time candidate’s work representing plaintiffs in wrongful termination, discrimination, harassment and personal injury cases has come under the microscope as he mounts a vigorous challenge to Republican Rep. Michelle Steel of California in one of the races that could determine control of the House.
As the race heats up, Steel has looked for chances to rough up the image of a novice candidate who is still introducing himself to voters. Steel’s team has lobbed a series of attacks aimed at Tran’s credibility, even questioning his fluency in Vietnamese — a selling point with a key voting bloc in the Orange County district.
Now, Steel is increasingly homing in on a handful of cases where Tran represented less-sympathetic legal clientele, including a man who said he was wrongfully fired after sexual assault complaints, to poke holes in her rival’s pitch to voters.
“It’s despicable that the guy who says he’s involved ‘in every aspect of every case’ pro-actively represented not only an alleged sexual predator but also a racist who admittedly hung a noose in his office,” said Lance Trover, her campaign spokesperson. “Voters deserve answers.”
The barbs have become more pointed as Tran shows momentum, with a strong fundraising showing and two nonpartisan campaign prognosticators shifting their race rating in his direction.
Tran’s campaign declined to comment on the individual cases. Instead, his spokesperson pivoted to attacking Steel’s record on women’s reproductive health issues, which has emerged as the Democrats’ primary message as they try to oust the two-term congressmember.
“From twice co-sponsoring a national abortion ban without exceptions that would outlaw IVF and contraception to voting against the Violence Against Women Act, Michelle Steel’s record of disregard for women’s safety and rights speaks for itself,” said Tran spokesperson Orrin Evans. “Derek Tran would be happy to contrast his record of standing up for women and survivors of sexual harassment with Michelle Steel’s entire tenure in Congress — but she refuses to step onto a debate stage.”
Tran has been an attorney since 2014 and started his own Huntington Beach firm in 2020. The Tran firm focused on personal injury and employment law, according to its now-defunct website.
He has made that experience, along with his status as an Army veteran, a centerpiece of his campaign biography. His website says he eschewed “high paying jobs in corporate
The message wars in this race underscore the pitched battle for female voters, much like in other pivotal contests throughout the country. Tran has spotlighted Steel’s past support for a bill that declared life began at conception, effectively amounting to a sweeping national abortion ban that did not include exceptions for rape and incest.
Steel rescinded her support for that measure earlier this year, saying her about-face was due to the lack of protection for IVF, which can involve the destruction of fertilized embryos. Her ads, which Democrats say are misleading about her record, make direct appeals to women voters, only subtly jabbing at Tran.
“For some, protecting women is a campaign issue,” Steel says in one ad. “For me, there’s nothing more important.”
There’s some irony to the Steel campaign’s digs at Tran for his law career, given that her husband, Shawn Steel, is himself a personal injury lawyer and Steel once worked as chief financial officer for his firm. But Steel, unlike Tran, never represented clients or made that legal work a centerpiece of her campaigns.
A law career is a tried-and-true springboard to elected office. But the reality of legal work — including an attorney’s obligation to zealously represent their client, often in nuanced cases — can also be a campaign liability, offering fertile ground for opposition research and pointed attack ads.
Whether the scrutiny on Tran’s clients will carry much traction with voters is unclear.
“People understand that being a lawyer means being part of an adversarial system where you represent clients whose beliefs you don’t always hold,” said Jessica A. Levinson, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University specializing in elections. “Having said that, there is a certain amount of discretion that most lawyers have in terms of which clients they’re going to represent.”
Levinson said Tran’s description of his work history is part of a well-worn tradition of candidates putting rose-colored lenses on their resumes as they jump into the political fray.
“I don’t think a selective sampling of clients rises to the level of a campaign lie,” she said. “It rises to the level of a campaign airbrush.”
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