Democratic Congressional Candidate Dave Min Once Advised Campus Branch Of Conservative Law Group

California state Sen. Dave Min (D) is running to succeed Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) in Congress. He has Porter's endorsement, but some Democrats are nervous about his bid.

California state Sen. Dave Min (D), a candidate in California’s 47th Congressional District, has a résumé befitting a rising Democratic star. 

A former law professor specializing in financial regulation, Min has worked for Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and the Center for American Progress.

His endorsers in the race to succeed Rep. Katie Porter, who is running for U.S. Senate, include California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, Attorney General Rob Bonta, a host of progressive groups and labor unions, and perhaps most important, Porter herself. 

Given all of that, there’s one aspect of Min’s curriculum vitae that stands out as an outlier.

As a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, Min served as faculty adviser for the campus’s chapter of the conservative Federalist Society from 2014 to 2016, according to a copy of his résumé while he was still on the university faculty.

The campus group’s national parent in Washington is known for vetting Republican judicial nominees, and in so doing, shifting U.S. courts to the right. As a result, the Federalist Society is widely credited with setting in motion the judicial appointments that led the Supreme Court to overturn the federal right to abortion in June 2022.

EMILY’s List, which supports pro-choice Democratic female candidates, is backing attorney Joanna Weiss over Min in the Democratic primary. The group suggested that Min’s work advising the Federalist Society is cause for concern.

“There is a direct line from the Federalist Society to our present reality — Republicans passing draconian abortion bans and criminalizing women and their doctors,” Ben Ray, a spokesperson for EMILY’s List, said in a statement. “Any candidate who has spent time bolstering their resume with and advising this extremist organization should explain their association.”

The criticism of Min for holding the post comes as he is the early front-runner for the Democratic nomination in the blue-tinted swing seat, one Democrats dearly need to hold to win back the House in the 2024 election. A top House Republican said that the seat, where former GOP state lawmaker Scott Baugh is again running, is “probably our best pickup opportunity in the country.”

Some California Democrats fear Min’s recent arrest for driving under the influence, of which the California Highway Patrol has released video to the public, makes him a weaker candidate than Weiss. Min, who attracted police attention for having his headlights off at night and running a red light, had nearly twice the legal limit of blood alcohol content for someone driving.

Min’s allies see the attacks as thinly veiled attempts by national groups to push aside an Asian-American candidate, who made a one-time personal error, in favor of someone who can self-fund a campaign, but lives just outside the district and is untested at the ballot box. What’s more, some labor advocates are wary of Weiss and her husband Jason’s work in the private sector representing companies accused of harming workers.

“Joanna Weiss is trying to distract from the fact that she is self-funding her campaign with money earned from a career working against the labor movement and hard-working California workers,” said Oscar Lopez, the political director of SEIU California, which has endorsed Min. “Dave Min’s progressive record speaks for itself.” 

Joanna Weiss, an attorney and co-founder of an Orange County Democratic women's group, has the support of the influential pro-choice group, EMILY's List.

Both Min’s and Weiss’ campaigns delegated the harder-hitting responses to surrogates.

Weiss, a founder and past president of the Orange County Democratic group, Women for American Values and Ethics (WAVE), was less direct than EMILY’s List in her criticism of Min’s faculty advisory role.

“My time as the president of the Public Interest Law Foundation chapter at my law school and a volunteer for legal nonprofits instilled in me a deep commitment to ethics and paying opportunity forward,” Weiss said in a statement. “I’ve brought the values I learned from those organizations into my work throughout my career, especially my pro bono legal work with domestic violence survivors and students with special needs.”

Min’s congressional campaign responded with indignation at the suggestion that Min’s volunteer work, borne out of respect for intellectual pluralism, undermines his progressive bona fides.

In a statement, campaign spokesperson Isabel Ocampo noted Min’s years of work in Democratic policy circles, as well as perfect ratings from Planned Parenthood and NARAL as a state senator.

“State Senator Dave Min’s progressive record and accomplishments speak for themselves — the real question here is why his political opponent is resorting to these kinds of desperate negative attacks to distort Senator Min’s record in bad faith?” Ocampo said.

The campaign also shared a statement of support from Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. Chemerinsky, a progressive jurist who hired Min onto the UC Irvine School of Law, served as the first faculty adviser to UC Irvine’s chapter of the Federalist Society.

“When Dave Min joined the faculty of UC Irvine School of Law, he was a leading progressive voice on financial regulation and banking policy, and his progressive political leanings were well known to students and faculty alike,” Chemerinsky said. “His role in advising the Federalist Society was consistent with the broader academic mission of promoting robust debate and free speech.”

“In fact, Senator Min was following the example that I set, as I was the very first academic advisor to the Federalist Society at UCI Law,” Chemerinsky continued. “The implication that Dave Min was secretly a closet right winger is absurd and contradicted by the substantial weight of his entire career.”

Discussion of Min’s work with the Federalist Society, however, may add to some Democrats’ existing concerns about Min’s recent arrest.

Following his own decision to withdraw from the race, former Rep. Harley Rouda (D-Calif.) not only endorsed Weiss, but also called on Min to drop out of the race.

Lorraine Prinsky, a publicly elected trustee of the Coast Community College District, recently switched her endorsement from Min to Weiss. Prinsky is the chair of endorsements for the Women in Leadership PAC, which has endorsed Weiss. But she told HuffPost that Min’s arrest cemented her belief that he is the wrong candidate for the seat.

“That was an enormous mistake and that made me rethink any commitment I might have had to him,” she said.

That factor might be a more compelling argument in the Democratic primary than Min’s ideological credentials, not least because of Weiss’ past support for Min.

In July 2020, WAVE — then under Weiss’ leadership — endorsed Min’s bid for the state Senate, alongside a number of other Democratic candidates.

“Each of these races is an opportunity to advance progressive values in Orange County,” Weiss said in a statement at the time.