Capitol Weekly’s Top 100: Karen Getman

82. Karen Getman

Karen Getman is a political attorney knowledgeable about the intricacies of political and campaign finance law, which is why powerful Democrat politicians come to her for counsel in droves. Gov. Gray Davis named her the first women chair of the California Fair Political Practices Commission in 1999 after she had been an attorney in Joe Remcho’s political law firm. As FPPC chair she toughened enforcement campaign disclosure laws and worked to simplify some of the agency’s rules. After her four-year term ended, she returned to Remcho’s firm, around the time when the political legend died in a helicopter accident in 2003. The Remcho law firm merged with another Democratic political law firm in 2020; Getman was named the first managing partner of Olson Remcho. Getman boasts an undergrad from Yale and a law degree from Harvard, where she also served as editor-in-chief of the Harvard Women’s Law Journal.

Updated Aug. 15, 2023