Kalmanovitz Courtroom Hosts Attorney General Candidates Debate
Media from across the state gathered in King Hall's spectacular new Paul and Lydia Kalmanovitz Appellate Courtroom for the debate between California Attorney General candidates Steve Cooley and Kamala Harris. Republican candidate Cooley and Democrat Harris faced off in the new courtroom October 5 in what was their only public debate of the campaign. Voting in the Attorney General's race was extraordinarily close, and a winner has yet to be announced.
Cooley and Harris fielded questions from a panel including Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Morain, Los Angeles Times reporter Jack Leonard, and San Francisco Chronicle reporter Marisa Lagos. Kevin Riggs, KCRA 3's political reporter, moderated the session, which was co-sponsored by UC Davis School of Law and the Sacramento Bee.
The event, which brought widespread media attention to UC Davis School of Law, was representative of the ways in which the King Hall expansion has improved the Law School's infrastructure, enriched the student experience, and raised King Hall's public profile. Endowed by a gift of $1 million from the Kalmanovitz Charitable Foundation, the new courtroom will accommodate real and mock trial proceedings that will provide invaluable training for students, and is expected to bring sessions of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, California Supreme Court, and California Court of Appeal to the UC Davis campus. In addition to the attorney general candidate debut, the new courtroom also has hosted a Gubernatorial Debate Watch Forum on September 28 prior to the debate between Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman in the nearby Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts.
The attorney general candidates debate covered a wide range of issues including the death penalty, same-sex marriage, recidivism and the state prison system, and ballot initiatives that would legalize recreational marijuana use and repeal the state's landmark greenhouse gas emissions law. Video of the event and media accounts of the debate may be viewed by following the links below.
San Francisco Chronicle article
Davis Vanguard web news article
Dean's Blog post by Kevin R. Johnson
AG Debate video (Flash Player)
AG Debate video (Windows Media)