The Commission on Judicial Performance broke precedent when Lawrence J. Simi was elected its first non-lawyer chairman in March 2012.
Simi has a bachelor of arts degree in political science from San Francisco State University and a master of arts in government from California State University, Sacramento. He was a program manager for San Francisco Mayors Joseph Alioto, George Moscone and Dianne Feinstein from 1972 to 1980.
He left government in 1980 and joined Pacific Gas & Electric as a public affairs representative, rising through the ranks to become public affairs manager, regional public affairs director, division manager and then director of community relations and local government relations.
In a moment of striking candor about his employer, Simi was quoted in 1992 in the San Francisco Bay Guardian. “In order to supply the electricity needs of California, we burn fossil fuels, we discharge hot water into San Francisco and Monterey bays and the Pacific Ocean, we cover open hillsides with noisy, ugly windmills, we dam wild and scenic rivers, our power lines emit electronmagnetic fields—and we run a nuclear power plant. And you think your clients have image problems?”
Simi became PG&E’s director of legislative and regulatory projects in 1997, and its director of governmental relations and political resources in 2004. He retired in 2010.
While working at PG&E, Simi participated in numerous nonprofit and community organizations. He was a board member and San Francisco County chairman of United Way of the Bay Area from 1993-1997, on the board of Saint Vincent de Paul Society of San Francisco from 1996-2000, president of the St. Ignatius Pastoral Council 2002-2006, on the board of directors at the Coro Center for Civic Leadership 2008-2010 and board president of the Pine View Housing Corporation 1991-2011.
Simi was first appointed to the Commission on Judicial Performance by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2005 and was reappointed in 2009.
Lawrence J. Simi (LinkedIn)
Schwarzenegger Reappoints Lawrence Simi to CJP (Metropolitan News-Enterprise)
