Todd Spitzer

1What can this job do?

The elected District Attorney is the county's prosecutor. When police make an arrest, this office decides whether to file charges, what to charge, and how to argue the case in court — for everything from petty theft to murder across Orange County. The DA also runs programs on consumer and environmental enforcement and victim services.

✗It does NOT arrest people or run a police force, decide guilt (a judge or jury does), or make the criminal laws it enforces. The DA does not handle most lawsuits between private parties — that is the civil courts.

2What has this person done with it?

We don't yet track a record of this official's actions here. The public record for county offices lives in the Board of Supervisors' agendas and recorded votes, the office's own reports, and campaign-finance filings with the county. Those are the primary sources — we'd rather point you to them than summarize selectively.

We only log matters of public record, in the same format for every official — never opinion or news coverage.

3How does this affect you?

Every resident of Orange County shares this one District Attorney. The DA is the county's prosecutor — the office that decides whether to file criminal charges and then argues those cases in court on behalf of the public. Because it is one countywide office, the same DA's decisions apply to you whether you live in Lake Forest or anywhere else in the county.

4How do you change it?

This is an elected seat with a four-year term, chosen countywide — every voter in Orange County votes for this one official, so your vote is one of well over a million. These races are on the regular June or November ballot. Registration, polling place, and mail ballots run through the Orange County Registrar of Voters (ocvote.gov). Countywide administrative offices like this draw little attention; a reminder near the election helps.

We haven't verified when this seat is next on the ballot — rather than guess, we say so.