Tara Flanagan Elected Judge Without Runoff

Bay City News — Oakland attorney Tara Flanagan has won election to a vacant seat on the Alameda County Superior Court bench, defeating two other candidates in a three-way race.

Flanagan will replace Judge Carl Morris, who is retiring.

In final semi-official results released late Monday, Flanagan, 48, had 50.8 percent of the vote; Andrew Wiener, 53, had 30 percent; and Catherine Haley, 60, had 18.6 percent.

Flanagan only had 49 percent of the vote on election night, so she faced the possibility of a runoff election with Wiener in November. 

But additional ballots counted after the election gave her enough votes to put her over the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff. 

"I'm thrilled to be elected and win outright in June," Flanagan said today.

Flanagan is a former Los Angeles prosecutor who now has her own law practice in Oakland focused on family law cases. She was endorsed by the Alameda County Democratic Party and most current Alameda County Superior Court judges.

She said, "I played rugby for the U.S. rugby team that won the World Cup in 1991 and I approached the judge's race in the same way in terms of preparation."

Wiener, who has a law office in San Francisco but lives in Oakland, formerly served on the Oakland Public Ethics Commission. Haley, a former flight attendant, has practiced law in Oakland since 1993.