Her opponent is Hal Brown, an insurance broker who's been a Marin County supervisor for the past 16 years. Brown is a member of California's most illustrious political family - nephew to Pat, first cousin to Jerry and Kathleen - but is decidedly less impressive than the other Brown officeholders. On the Marin Board of Supes, however, Brown has been a fiscal conservative and an environmental activist, toughening the county's toxic-waste statutes, and taking on cable-TV companies and Firemen's Fund Insurance when it dropped its fire coverage (well, what would you expect Firemen's Fund to drop?) of Marin homeowners. He criticizes Quackenbush for ignoring the mandates of Proposition 103, calls for an end to ZIP code- based insurance rates, and wants the commissioner to get jurisdiction over HMOs, whose practices he'd like to subject to a patient's bill of rights. Brown may lack some of the luster of his celebrated cousins and uncle, but he'd bring the right values and a steady hand to an important position. He's the only one of the major candidates who can be counted upon to work conscientiously for the consumers, motorists, homeowners and patients of California.
MEMBER, STATE BOARD OF EQUALIZATION, 4th DISTRICT - John ChiangChiang was chief deputy to eq-board member Brad Sherman when Sherman moved on to the greater glory of Congress. Since then, Chiang has served as acting member from Sherman's old district, which comprises most of L.A. county. A tax attorney who's worked at various times for Barbara Boxer, Gray Davis and Kathleen Brown, he combines the requisite expertise with a generally progressive approach to tax issues. Though he lacks Sherman's ineffable aura as Tax Nerd of the Western World, he nonetheless is more than amply qualified for the job.
UNITED STATES SENATOR - Barbara BoxerCan a principled liberal stay true to her beliefs and still be effective in a Republican-run Senate? To her considerable credit, Barbara Boxer has. She remains among the handful of genuine progressives in the upper House - holding fast for civil liberties, for the idea of public responsibility for the jobless poor, for all manner of unfashionable causes. She is the Senate's strongest champion of environmental protections and women's rights. At the same time, she's pushed for tougher a standards for drinking water and for pension-fund management, and is now embroiled in a struggle to require child-safety locks on handguns. As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, she's been relentless - and relentlessly successful - in winning funds for such projects as quake relief, L.A. harbor expansion and the Alameda Corridor. Boxer is a profile in courage and pragmatism, which takes some doing.
The Republican most likely to be Boxer's opponent this fall is, by numerous accounts including that of his onetime business partner, a dangerous thug. Even were he not, Boxer would have our enthusiastic support.
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