Therese M. StewartIncumbent

Candidate for Court of Appeal Justice, California Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, Division 2, Seat 1

Therese M. Stewart is Presiding Justice of the California Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, Division Two. She earned a B.A. from Cornell University in 1978. She earned a J.D. from the UC Berkeley School of Law in 1981. She then clerked for Judge Phyllis A. Kravitch. Kravitch served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Stewart clerked from 1981 to 1982. She then worked at a San Francisco law firm, Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk and Rabkin. She was an associate there from 1982 to 1988. She became a partner there in 1988. She served as Chief Deputy City Attorney of San Francisco from 2002 to 2014. In that role, she argued the marriage-equality cases before the California Supreme Court, on behalf of the city and county of San Francisco. She also helped lead the city's part in the federal challenge to Proposition 8. Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. appointed her an Associate Justice of Division Two in June 2014. She took office that August. She became the first openly lesbian justice on the California Court of Appeal. Voters retained her in 2014. Voters retained her again in 2022. Governor Gavin Newsom appointed her Presiding Justice of Division Two in 2022, and the Commission on Judicial Appointments confirmed her in November 2022. She was appointed to this new office after the last governor's race. So she is on the November 3, 2026 ballot. It is a nonpartisan yes-or-no retention vote. There is no opposing candidate.

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