Let me say this about that
—By Gene Klare
Aaron Brown honored
THE LABOR HALL OF FAME has welcomed retired Oregon Judge Aaron
Brown as a new honoree. He earlier worked as a member of the Brotherhood of
Sleeping Car Porters, AFL-CIO. The Labor Hall of Fame is sponsored by the
Northwest Oregon Retirees Council, an affiliate of the Portland-based NW Ore-
gon Labor Council, AFL-CIO.
Brown, now 81, retired in 1995 as a District Court Judge at the Multnomah
County Courthouse in downtown Portland. He later presided as a Circuit Court
judge in a number of Oregon counties.
Retired judges are expected to serve
where needed to reduce case backlogs.
District Court was merged into the Cir-
cuit Court.
JUDGE BROWN became Oregon’s
first black judge in 1968 when then-Port-
land Mayor Terry Schrunk appointed
him a pro-tem Municipal Court judge.
Within a year, Schrunk made the ap-
pointment permanent. Municipal Court
was housed in the old Police Bureau
Building at SW Second Ave. and Oak St.
Brown, who started practicing law in
1959, was reluctant to accept the ap-
pointment because it meant an income
cut, but decided that he could do a lot of
good as a judge, and that the pay cut
AARON BROWN
would be offset by a salary increase his
wife Avenice was receiving because of her promotion to a supervisory post in the
phone company.
“AS A JUDGE, I was able to do something about the injustices I saw,” Brown
said.
Those injustices included keeping accused people in jail over a weekend if
they could not afford to pay a bail bondsman to arrange for their release until they
went to court. Also, jail prisoners often were hauled off to pick beans and other
crops on farms whose owners were politically-connected. Judge Brown pushed
for a reform to release defendants on their own recognizance so they weren’t at
the mercy of the bail system.
IN 1971, Portland’s Municipal Court was merged into the District Court, and
then-Gov. Tom McCall appointed Brown to the District Court bench. Judge
Brown’s populist views made him a popular speaker at various labor functions.
“I always felt at home around union people,” he said. The labor movement sup-
ported Brown in his election campaigns, but only once did he have an opponent.
Union leaders also supported him for governor appointments to the Circuit Court
bench but behind-the-scenes political shenanigans kept that from happening.
Later, the two courts were merged.
Aaron Brown’s pro-people viewpoints were a natural result of his upbringing
in a home in Houston, Texas, where a picture of the great Democratic President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt held a prominent place on a wall in the living room.
Brown was also heavily influenced by living under the ugly oppression of racial
segregation where Jim Crow prevailed. Racial discrimination prevented his fa-
ther, Aaron Brown Sr., from getting a good job. Young Aaron’s education came
at under-financed all-black schools. Aaron Jr. was born in Bell, Louisiana, on
Sept. 20, 1926, and the family moved to Houston four years later, settling in the
Fifth Ward, which is still a black enclave.
YOUNG AARON left Houston for the U.S Army in 1946 after being brutal-
AFSCME backs Clinton despite Western
leaders’ call for no early endorsement
Calling her “the Democrat with the
strength and experience who will al-
ways stand up for working Americans,”
the American Federation of State,
County and Municipal Employees, the
largest union in the AFL-CIO, endorsed
Sen. Hillary Clinton on Oct. 31 for the
Democratic presidential nomination.
The endorsement was made despite
opposition from all of the union’s inter-
national vice presidents on the West
Coast. That includes Ken Allen, execu-
tive director of Oregon AFSCME
Council 75, and Greg Devereux, exec-
utive director of Washington AFSCME
Council 28.
Allen said the vote came after a
nearly two-hour debate. The final tally
was 23 to 10 in favor of the endorse-
ment, split along regional lines.
Allen said member leaders in AF-
SCME’s Northwest region — Oregon,
Washington, Montana and Alaska —
have been opposed to the endorsement.
“Polls for our region do not support
an early endorsement for president,”
Allen said. “So many of our members
are unsure and there is division among
the top three candidates.”
b h
m k
In fact, a presidential straw poll
that’s been running for weeks on the
Oregon AFSCME Website has consis-
tently had Clinton running fourth.
While not a scientific survey, Clinton
has trailed (in order) John Edwards,
Dennis Kucinich and Barack Obama
from the poll’s outset.
Fred Thompson leads the Republi-
can primary with 28.4 percent of AF-
SCME members supporting his cam-
paign.
AFSCME representatives from
Georgia, Hawaii and Illinois backed
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).
Clinton welcomed the endorsement
from the 1.4-million-member union,
especially when International President
Gerald McEntee promised to mobilize
AFSCME members in Iowa and try to
turn out as many of its 30,000 unionists
there as possible for the first-in-the-na-
tion caucuses on Jan. 3.
“When it comes to fighting for
America’s working families, I’ll go 10
rounds with anybody,” Clinton de-
clared, referring to both the other De-
mocrats seeking the nomination and to
the Republicans. “This endorsement
Bennett Hartman
Morris & Kaplan, llp
Attorneys at Law
means the world to me.”
AFSCME joins the Machinists, the
American Federation of Teachers, the
Bricklayers and several smaller unions
in backing Clinton. Sen. John Edwards
of North Carolina is backed by the
Steelworkers, the Mine Workers and
the Carpenters, an affiliate of the
Change to Win labor federation. The
Fire Fighters are supporting Sen.
Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.).
AFL-CIO to host
‘Labor Campaign
School’ Dec. 14-15
SPRINGFIELD — A two-day “La-
bor Campaign School” is planned for
Dec. 14-15 at the Plumbers and Fitters
Local 290 Training Center here. Candi-
dates, campaign managers and cam-
paign treasurers will learn the nuts and
bolts of running for office, including
budgeting and expenditure reporting,
volunteer recruitment, and how to com-
municate with voters and the media.
Class materials and meals will be
provided at no charge to candidates who
are accepted to participate.
The training is sponsored by the
Lane County Labor Council and the
Oregon AFL-CIO.
For more information, call Pat
Riggs-Henson, executive secretary-
treasurer of the Lane County Labor
Council, at 541-915-3100.
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NOVEMBER 16, 2007