The group of Republican volunteers that filed the  original failed lawsuit challenging Jerry Brown’s qualifications to be Attorney General has been allowed to amend their complaint in Sacramento Superior Court, and they are now getting a second try to keep Brown from taking office.  Their complaint centers on the fact that Brown allowed his official status with the state bar to become "inactive" for a few years while he was serving as Mayor of Oakland.
  
The prohibition the Plaintiffs are relying on puts form before substance in determining the qualifications of a candidate for Attorney General: it is California Government Code section 12503, which states, "No person shall be eligible to the office of Attorney General unless he shall have been admitted to practice before the Supreme Court  of the state for a period of at least five years immediately preceding his election or appointment to such office." 

Brown was admitted to the State Bar of California in June 1965 but was an "inactive member" from Jan. 1, 1997, through May 1, 2003, bar records show. 

I didn’t vote for Brown in the election, but I believe the legal action against Brown has been ill-conceived from the start, and that the Plaintiffs are just going to lose their case once again.  Applying the rule of "common sense," it is abundently clear that Brown is qualified to be California’s Attorney General.  He went to Yale Law School, has served as Governor of the state and Mayor of a major city, and has been a lawyer in California for over 40 years, with just a few years as "inactive."  California bar rules specifically allow a lawyer to go on "inactive" status voluntarily when, for example, one takes a government job, even a legal job, as I did when I was appointed General Counsel of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission during the Reagan Administration.  The real idea behind the status is to relieve the lawyer from having to be placed in the higher dues structure, which contemplates the lawyer is working for paying clients rather than a government agency.

In my opinion, an attempt to enforce California Government Code section 12503 against Jerry Brown will be found unconstitutional as applied to him, because the purpose of the law is to ensure qualified Attorney Generals, and Brown, no matter what you think of his politics, is qualified.  Given the additional fact that he won the election over Poochigian roughly 56% to 38% percent, no Judge, in my opinion, is going to disqualify Brown in taking office at this late stage over a such a "technicality," because the people spoke very clearly in the election, and Judges are not prone to upsetting election results.  I think this lawsuit has taken politics too far, but it is going to be a loser in any event.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 15th, 2006 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.