President Obama has nominated a conservative Republican lawyer who has made her name challenging affirmative action policies to the board of the Legal Services Corporation.
The nomination of Sharon L. Browne to help run the nation’s largest provider of legal aid for the poor, was recommended by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and is subject to confirmation by the U.S. Senate. By law, the board of the Legal Services Corporation must be bipartisan – no more than six of its 11 directors may be members of the same party. By tradition, the minority leader recommends opposition party members.
Nonetheless, the nomination of Brown, a principal attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation, a Sacramento, CA-based legal group which espouses free enterprise, private property and limiting the role of government, is expected to spur controversy.
A member of the conservative Federalist Society, Browne’s portfolio has included opposing race-based school district assignment policies, and supporting Prop 209, a California ballot initiative to end most affirmative action programs in the state.
Reached by McClatchy News Service this week, she expressed support for the legal-aid program created by Congress in 1974 with support from the Nixon Administration.
“The Legal Services Corp. provides an important service to low-income Americans to help with everyday legal problems,” Browne reportedly said by e-mail, adding that she was “honored” by the president’s nomination.
“If I am confirmed, I hope to enhance the quality of the legal services provided, and ensure that the programs operate efficiently, effectively and with accountability.”
But the Pacific Legal Foundation has challenged the nonprofit group’s work in the past.
“Unlike the Legal Services Corp., we receive no government grant money,” Pacific Legal Foundation attorney James S. Burling noted in 1997 in contrasting the two organizations. “We believe no tax money should be used for cause-oriented litigation.”
One of Browne’s mentors is Ronald Zumbrun, who co-founded the Pacific Legal Foundation in 1973 and was its president and CEO until 1995. Zumbrun himself was nominated to head the Legal Services Corporation by the late Ronald Reagan, after Reagan faild in his efforts to abolish the group altogether. Zumbrun, who worked for Reagan when he was governor of California, is an architect of that state’s welfare reform law and had countered several high-profile lawsuits against the state by legal aid groups. In 1982, the Reagan administration withdrew Zumbrun’s name in the face of stiff opposition from Congressional Democrats.
Zumbrun hired Browne to work for the Pacific Law Foundation in her first job out of the University of the Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law in 1985. She has worked there since, with the exception of a stint from 1991 to 1995 when she was employed by his private law firm.
Zumbrun, with strong help from former Attorney General Edwin Meese III, built the Pacific Legal Foundation into a powerful litigation force with funding from Pittsburgh billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, considered the patron saint of conservative causes. Other big supporters have included Exxon Mobil Corp., members of the Coors family through the Castle Rock Foundation, the now-defunct John M. Olin Foundation and the F.M. Kirby Foundation, according to Media Transparency.
The group’s current chairman is prominent Fresno County rancher John Harris.
President Obama has voiced strong support for the Legal Services Corporation, recently signing a bill that would boost the organization’s budget by $30 million to $420 million.
Click here to sign up for the Muckety Newsletter
0 Comments
There are no comments yet, be the first by filling in the form below.
Leave a Comment