Garrett Named to Fair Practices Post

August 14, 2009 10:39 AM

Elizabeth Garrett, USC vice president for academic planning and budget, has been appointed as a commissioner to the Fair Political Practices Commission, California’s independent political watchdog.

Garrett, the Sydney M. Irmas Professor of Public Interest Law, Legal Ethics, Political Science, and Policy, Planning, and Development, succeeds former commissioner Eugene Huguenin, who was appointed by Secretary of State Kevin Shelley. Garrett’s appointment ends on Jan. 31, 2013. She also co-directs the USC-Caltech Center for the Study of Law and Politics and serves on the board of directors of the USC Initiative and Referendum Institute.

The Fair Political Practices Commission is a bipartisan (and in practice, a non-partisan) independent body of five members. Two commissioners are appointed by the governor: the full-time chairman and one other member, who must be a registered voter of another political party. The secretary of state, the attorney general and the state controller each appoint one commissioner.

If all three constitutional officers are members of the same political party, the state controller selects the new commissioner from a list provided by another qualified political party. There is no confirmation process for commissioners. Each commissioner receives a $100 per diem payment for time spent on the commission’s matters, as well as reimbursement of travel expenses.

Before joining the USC Gould School of Law faculty, Garrett was a professor at the University of Chicago. She has been a visiting professor at several institutions, including Harvard Law School and the Interdisciplinary Center Law School in Israel. She is a fellow of the American Law Institute and the American Bar Foundation, a member of the editorial board of the Election Law Journal and a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy.

Garrett has authored or co-authored many legal texts, articles and book chapters analyzing campaign finance laws, courts and political parties, lobbying regulations, congressional procedures, the initiative process and California’s gubernatorial recall. Her primary scholarly interests include direct democracy, tax policy, the federal budget process, the study of democratic institutions and statutory interpretation.

She graduated with special distinction from the University of Oklahoma with a B.A. in history and earned her J.D. from the University of Virginia.

Career highlights include clerking for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall; serving as an appointee of President George W. Bush to the bipartisan Tax Reform Panel; staffing Sen. David L. Boren (D-Okla.) in key legal and legislative roles; and serving on the National Governing Board of Common Cause.

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