It looks like the primary for city attorney will yield two finalists: Incumbent Michael Aguirre and Jan Goldsmith. A poll reported in the San Diego Daily Transcript showed Aguirre and Goldsmith likely winning the primary; Aguirre has solid support from among 28 percent of the probable voters; Goldsmith has a little less. However, in the final heat, Goldsmith could top Aguirre.

Here’s why.

Much like former Mayor and Judge Dick Murphy, Jan Goldsmith is a Republican and a judge. While some voters, after the Murphy experience, may not think judicial experience is helpful for much else but sitting on a bench, Goldsmith, unlike Murphy, also spent years in the California Legislature in the mid-to-late ’90s, when conservative Republicans took momentary control.

Goldsmith represented what was then the 75th Assembly District, which was a Republican-leaning district, and, while Goldsmith is regarded as a moderate, while in the California Assembly he was a lapdog for right-wing fundamentalists.

In fact, in April 1997, he joined anti-gay Republicans and cast a negative pivotal vote on AB 101, the bill that would have made it illegal for schools to discriminate against students based upon sexual orientation. Goldsmith said that he couldn’t vote for the bill because he represented such a conservative district (a voting record that will come back to haunt him, especially with the recent killing of Lawrence King, the teen who was openly gay and shot in cold blood by a fellow student).

Also, in 1996, the rabidly anti-gay newspaper News Notes praised Goldsmith because he “voted 100 percent pro-life in ’96,” and supported measures to ban or regulate Medi-Cal-funded abortions.

Consequently, Aguirre will, no doubt, paint Goldsmith as a socially conservative Republican who will return the office of city attorney back to the days when former city attorney Casey Gwinn used the office to advance conservative causes and politicians. And it’s going to be difficult for District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis to convince the GLBT community to vote for a man who sided with those who said “gay kids don’t exist” and that gays and lesbians are not entitled to equal rights.

Yet Goldsmith has begun to reach out for GLBT support. And, in fairness, there’s reason to think he is sincere in his support of equality.

For instance, he broke ranks with conservatives and voted to add sexual orientation to the list of categories covered for “hate crimes” in California.

If Goldsmith can convince us that he would be as supportive of GLBT issues, as Aguirre has been, he could easily pick up our support – especially because, as a practical matter, Goldsmith is really the perfect candidate for the post of “city counsel.”

Let me explain.

Goldsmith once taught a course at California Western involving political and legislative law. He’s an extraordinary professor, and that’s vital to running the city attorney’s office, where one is training attorneys. More critical, Goldsmith is also an expert on government practice and legislative law-making. It’s really refreshing to see someone who has “passion” for civil governance, and both of these experiences make Goldsmith perfect for the role of “city counsel.”

And that’s the job that the City Council (and the voters by charter amendment) should create for him.

Currently, such a role does not exist. Instead, San Diego is one of the only major cities that has a city attorney post in which the city attorney is “adviser” one day and “prosecutor” the next. The two roles are completely inconsistent with an attorney’s first duty: the duty of undivided loyalty to a client.

The city should retain the “city attorney” post to prosecute misdemeanors and infractions. Most importantly, the city attorney should continue to play the role that Aguirre has emphasized: being a watchdog on city corruption.