As a public school student in Meriden, Connecticut, in 1975, Karen Getman was advised by a school counselor to attend the nearby public university, where those few students who were college-bound in the working-class community usually went.

One of three children, Getman worked after school as a checkout clerk for a supermarket. Her work background and her aptitude for science (she received the Bausch-Lomb Award for outstanding high school science student) attracted the attention of numerous colleges, including Yale.

Against the counselor's advice, she applied to and was accepted at Yale, commuting from New Haven on weekends during her freshman year to work in the Meriden supermarket, as well as working in the university cafeteria. During the summers, she worked in the supermarket and did office work at a local manufacturing plant.

Getman eventually decided against a career in science, turning instead to the growing feminist movement at Yale and pursuing a Women's Studies major she helped to design. One of her mentors at Yale was legal scholar Catherine MacKinnon, who advised the young, intellectually curious Getman to "question every single assumption you have."

After earning her bachelor's degree with distinction in 1980, she worked as a paralegal for Judith Vladeck, a New York labor lawyer who pioneered litigation on behalf of victims of race, sex and age discrimination and sexual harassment.

Getman earned her J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1985, serving as editor of the Harvard Women's Law Journal, a Volunteer Advocate in the Immigration Unit of the Jamaica Plains Legal Services Center near Boston, Mass., a summer law clerk for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., and as a clerk for 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Arlin M. Adams in Philadelphia, Pa.

Fourteen years later, in 1999, she would become the first woman to chair the California Fair Political Practices Commission, created by the Political Reform Act of 1974.

Appointed by Governor Gray Davis to the five-member commission, Getman is the only full-time commissioner and heads an 80-person agency responsible for interpreting and enforcing the landmark initiative passed by 70 percent of California voters as Proposition 9. (Under the Act, the Governor makes two appointments to the commission; the Attorney General, the Secretary of State and the Controller each make one appointment.)

Getman began her legal career as a recipient of a Revson Women's Law and Public Policy Fellowship, serving as a staff attorney for the Women's Legal Defense Fund in Washington, D.C. She then joined the Washington, D.C. firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, where she worked as an associate defending individuals and businesses charged with federal securities law violations. She also did major pro bono legal work for the American Civil Liberties Union's Reproductive Freedom Project and the Congressional Caucus on Women's Issues.

In 1988, she moved to California, working initially as an associate for the San Francisco firm of Altshuler, Berzon, Nussbaum, Berzon & Rubin, specializing in employment rights and union-side labor litigation with an emphasis on the First Amendment rights of public employees. In 1989, six months pregnant with her son, Max, now 11, she joined the prominent political law firm of Remcho, Johansen & Purcell.

During her eight years with the Remcho firm, Getman represented the California Legislature in litigation over the scope of the constitutional spending cap; the Senate Rules Committee in a case concerning the scope of the confirmation power; and the California Teachers Association in a challenge to the constitutionality of Proposition 98 funding appropriations. She also represented local school districts in right-to-vote and equal protection issues; political committees in ballot pamphlet litigation; and officeholders and businesses in election law challenges and FPPC enforcement matters. And she had her second child, a daughter, Katharine, now 9.

"I love constitutional issues about separation of powers in government," she told the Daily Journal in an interview. "What makes election law interesting is that very often you are doing something where there is no precedent. You have to invent it as you go."

Getman, 43, commutes to her Sacramento office from her home in Alamo, Contra Costa County, where she lives with her two children and is an active parent volunteer in their schools.

At the FPPC, Getman has chaired the commission during the protracted legal defense of one campaign finance reform initiative, Proposition 208, passed by voters in 1996, and the implementation of another, Proposition 34, which largely invalidated Prop. 208 when voters passed it last year. During her tenure, she has also overseen the defense of the agency in several other major court challenges to key elements of the Act.

She has shepherded completion of the conflict-of-interest regulatory improvement project and the initiation of expedited enforcement programs for reporting violations in the areas of major donors, Statements of Economic Interest and late contributions. And she was successful in obtaining funding last year for a Public Education Unit within the FPPC.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Los Angeles Times, Getman cautioned against excessive tinkering with the original charge of the Political Reform Act, which has been heavily amended by the Legislature over the years, with multiple layers of regulatory changes. "Sometimes I think people are too quick to think there is a problem needing a new law or a new regulation," she said.

"The mission and purpose of the FPPC, set in statute by Proposition 9, haven't changed in 25 years," she added. "At the heart of it are the campaign-finance and conflict-of-interest disclosure statements, with their very strong intent that we force politicians and people in public office to tell the public what's happening with their campaign money and personal funds - where it's coming from and whether some sort of financial interest will be influencing their actions in office."