A Sonoma County Superior Court judge received a public reprimand Wednesday after engaging in inappropriate political activity and social media conduct related to a proposed high school renaming, a court said judicial conduct commission.

A lawyer for the judge said the judge was simply exercising his 1st Amendment rights on a matter of public, not political, concern.

After a local school board approved a controversial consolidation of Analy High School in Sebastopol and its longtime rival, El Molino High School in Forestville, in 2021, local tempers flared, including for Judge James G. Bertoli, a former student of Analy’s 1978 Commission on Judicial Performance said.

The Analytical Alumni Assn., where Bertoli served on the board, opposed the change and led rallies, fundraisers and recall campaigns for school board members.

Bertoli even performed with his band, Court ‘n’ Disaster, at a fundraising event opposing consolidation – a band he promoted with his court title and for which he was separately chastised in 2021. A reprimand is the least severe disciplinary action taken by the Judicial Commission. Performance may be an issue.

The judge also met with an attorney to discuss possible legal remedies to block the school’s name change, the commission said, creating a legal case that could have ended up in Sonoma Superior Court.

“The protests focused on a highly controversial issue, in which Judge Bertoli’s participation could reasonably undermine public confidence in the justice system,” the commission wrote.

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At a rally against the name change in 2021, Bertoli reportedly said the school board had no “idea what it’s going to cost” to rename the existing Analy campus, reported the democratic press. The article and the judge’s quote were called inappropriate by the Judiciary Committee in the reprimand. Although he never publicly called for the recall of school board members, his involvement in organizing the rallies was problematic, the commission ruled.

“As the organizer and speaker of the rally, Judge Bertoli’s participation in the group created the impression that he supported the group’s stated goals and activities, including the recall of all five school board members,” said the commission.

The commission rejected the argument that Bertoli did not participate in political activities, saying that opinions on government affairs, such as the decisions of elected school board officials, could be considered political. After the name change was rejected, the commission noted, Bertoli publicly described the victory as a democratic function of government: “Those who are in the minority in the results, as members of a democracy, must learn to accept results as the vote dictates. “This is how we the people operate,” he wrote.

Bertoli’s speech was also not protected by the 1st Amendment, the commission said, because the Code of Judicial Conduct requires judges to agree to additional restrictions on their speech that might be embarrassing to others for the sake of ‘equity.

James A. Murphy, Bertoli’s attorney, told the Times that he believed the commission overlooked Bertoli’s long-term ties to the school — his parents were both educators and he worked at the school as a volunteer coach and announcer for football and baseball games, Murphy said. The judge’s concern was not just about the name change, Murphy said, but also about the children who would face overcrowding due to consolidation.

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“The relationship between Analy (high school) and the Bertolis remains significant,” he said.

The name change and consolidation, which Bertoli opposed, Murphy argued, was a matter of public interest, not politics. Murphy said the decision amounted to punishing Bertoli for the political views and actions committed by his next-door neighbor.

Murphy suggested that the decision, which is public, could have a significant chilling effect on other justices seeking to express their rights under the 1st Amendment, blurring what constitutes a political question versus what is a question of public interest, independent of politics.

The commission also denounced several public posts by Bertoli on Facebook, some of which included Peanuts and Hagar the Horrible comic strips. “Judge Bertoli made disparaging remarks about public officials, engaged in rhetoric that inflamed the passions of the community, and made profanity-laced remarks,” the commission wrote. Commentators frequently referred to him as a “judge” and some thanked him for his “legal brains”, leading the commission to believe that he lent the prestige of his judgeship to his cause, which is also contrary to the code of ethics.

In one post, Bertoli shared a Hagar the Horrible comic strip in which Hagar comes home wounded in battle and his wife comes home also beaten — but from a school board meeting. “West Sonoma County Union High School District board members and Superintendent Toni Beal returned home late last night,” Bertoli wrote in the caption. In another article, he called a school board member’s statement “myopic, unanalytical and self-aggrandizing.”

In yet another instance, he posted a photo of himself announcing a football game at Analy High School and, in response to a comment, wrote, “I told them where they could put their microphone until they are restoring the Analy name.” He used other examples of profanity and derogatory language, the commission wrote, and spoke derisively of those who disagreed with him.

Bertoli is expected to retire from the bench on January 5.

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This story was originally published in Los Angeles Times.