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Four months after Gov. Kate Brown's general counsel, Misha Isaak, declined an appointment to the Oregon Court of Appeals, Brown has filed the empty seat.
The governor today announced she's appointed Jacqueline Kamins to a seat previously held by Judge Erika Hadlock.
Kamins is currently working as an attorney at the Portland commercial litigation firm Markowitz Herbold PC. She's a former prosecutor who's done stints at the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office and the Oregon Department of Justice.
The appointment closes the book on an odd saga. Brown appointed Isaak to the appeals court last August. A week later, the state's public records czar, Ginger McCall, abruptly quit—and alleged that Isaak tried to subvert McCall's efforts at transparency in order to aid the governor politically.
That allegation revived questions about the unusual way Brown has chosen her own general counsel as an appointee to the bench, flouting the normal selection process. A retired chief justice of the Oregon Supreme Court, Edwin J. Peterson, was among those who criticized the choice. "It doesn't smell right, it doesn't look right and it is not right," Peterson told WW.
Four days later, on Sept. 17, Isaak withdrew.