The Clerk’s Damning Testimony
The most powerful testimony came from Wendy Williamson, Bordeaux’s former chief clerk, who worked closely with him for years. She told the panel that she repeatedly pushed him to speed up his rulings, but he “refused to accept responsibility for the backlog.” She added, “The only time something happened was if someone filed a mandamus or a JQC complaint.”
Her words cut to the core of the problem: the judge only acted when his hand was forced. That’s not diligence — that’s dereliction. Williamson’s vantage point as a close staffer gives her testimony weight that outside critics could never match. And in fact, Bordeaux himself inadvertently validated her credibility, admitting, “It is in the court’s absolute best interest to have her there, and frankly, sometimes that’s all that matters.” He may not have realized it, but he effectively reinforced the truth of her claims against him.
To me, her testimony reveals that Bordeaux’s inaction was not mere oversight. It suggests a deliberate choice to do less, perhaps in protest of a county government that, in his mind, failed to fund his office properly. If that’s true, it points to an ethical breakdown: instead of working harder under constraints, he made things worse — so bad that litigants were forced to beg higher courts to intervene.
