Brown’s Judge Appointments

The Times’ article implying a link between Jerry Brown’s judiciary appointments and financial contributions to his political campaigns is grossly unfair and just plain wrong. As a volunteer, I served on the finance committee for then-Gov. Brown’s 1978 reelection bid. This is a period The Times cites as a basis for its article. My task was to organize Los Angeles area attorneys as a fund-raising and support unit.

The experience was a real eye-opener. It seemed like there was hardly an attorney in town who didn’t want to be a judge. The request that I “whisper in the proper ear” occurred on a daily basis. But my marching orders from the Brown campaign and from Tony Kline, the governor’s legal appointments secretary at the time, were very clear: Jerry wanted to know who was talented, energetic and had good ideas. He most definitely did not want to know who contributed what financially. In fact, it was sort of an inside joke that to let Jerry know that a judicial candidate had been a contributor could doom the appointment.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Brown’s integrity is remarkable and untarnished. If The Times dredged up a statistical similarity between campaign contributions and judicial appointments, it can only be attributed to the fact that attorneys tend to be involved politically at all levels. After all, they deal with law which is a product of the political system.

SABRINA SCHILLER

Pacific Palisades