Hometown Hero: Sheila Kuehl

You may have seen the 1964 red Porsche Cabriolet 356C being driven around Santa Monica by a shorthaired woman with an impish smile. Originally bought when she was Zelda on the Dobie Gillis show, it now has 523 thousand miles on it. If you’ve seen the car, you’ve seen Sheila James Kuehl.

Many of you know her as the Assembly Member and State Senator representing Santa Monica. “Being in the legislature was the best job I ever had. It was an opportunity to do big, overarching change in family law, domestic law, and environmental law. The canvas is so huge. The sheer variety of the issues is compelling.”

When she was in the Senate, Sheila twice introduced a bill for single payer health insurance, once in 2006 and again in 2008. Each time the bill passed out of both houses of the California Legislature. Each time Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill.

“We moved the concept of single payer insurance from a pie in the sky idea to a credible, well drafted, fully developed, serious concept. And our work has had an effect on other states. Now California needs a governor who will sign a single payer health insurance bill.”

When asked about working with Governor Schwarzenegger, Sheila said, “He is an irresponsible governor because he doesn’t understand the virtue of the law. His administration is chaotic. And, unlike the Wilson or Davis administrations, his staff doesn’t work with legislators to resolve differences in bills.”

Sheila’s path to acting and politics started when her family moved from St. Louis to Los Angeles. Sheila was two. By the age of eight she was taking lessons in drama and tap dancing. The instructor told Sheila’s parents that their child was talented and asked if Sheila could read for a part on the Penny Williams radio show. That was the beginning of Sheila the actor. Sheila loved acting and she loved school.

Acting gave her confidence. She went to public school and she had a teacher on the set. She worked 16-17 weeks out of the year, earning $275 per week. Encouraged by her teacher at the studio, Sheila enrolled at UCLA in 1957 with a major in Theater Arts, the first in her family to go to college.

She became famous playing Zelda on the Dobie Gillis show. That job ended and the pilot for a show written especially for Sheila wasn’t picked up. “I worried that my acting career was over and I was devastated. It was the lowest point in my life. Since I was 8 all I had ever wanted was to be an actress.” The gossip in Hollywood was that the network executives thought Sheila seemed ‘too gay.’

“ I was in my late twenties and, like most humans, I didn’t know much about myself then. My sexuality was confusing to me and my political ideas unformed.” Needing work, she took a job at UCLA, at the height of the student movement, advising student organizations and said she felt “it kind of saved my life.” Her students advised her to go to law school. She started Harvard Law in 1975.

“Harvard was a revelation to me. It was the best intellectual training of my life. I became a disciplined thinker, thinking clearly and creatively. Justice is an exciting endeavor.”

Thurgood Marshall was the Presiding Judge at the Harvard Moot Court when Sheila was awarded ‘Best Oralist’ and Justice Marshall came off the bench and said to her, “Lady, I like your style.”

Also, at Harvard, she had a relationship with another law student who was openly lesbian. It was because of that relationship that Sheila felt “she was able to come out, slowly, to family and friends, one at a time.”

She returned to LA and a series of jobs in law firms working on family law, domestic violence and other legal issues where she could combine her love of the law and her commitment to social justice. But it was the California Women’s Law Center, which Sheila co-founded, whose purpose was to develop feminist theory and apply it to the law, that gave her a place to use all her legal and organizing skills working with local, state and national organizations on shaping laws regarding domestic violence.

Sheila and her then partner, Torie Osborn, lived on Pearl Street, where she still lives. She volunteered for the Sojourn Shelter for Battered Women. In 1979 she was asked to form the Sojourn Board, which she chaired for 15 years.

“Late January1994 Assemblyman Terry Friedman announced he wouldn’t run again. Filing date was two weeks away, on February 9. Folks were encouraging. Feb 9 is my birthday. I decided it was a good omen.”

Sheila served for six years in the assembly and eight in the Senate. “Because I had a safe seat, I raised money for other democratic candidates. The most fun was when I wrote the lyrics for a “Wizard of Oz” fundraiser. Even the Los Angles Times pronounced it ‘very clever’ and we raised lots of money.”

“My plan for the far future is to run for Zev’s seat when he is termed out in 2014. Right now, I’m looking for my next job. But I will always be committed to the issues of social justice.”

What Say You: Ken Genser, Community Champion

The language of Politics is one of images and ideals as well as practicalities and compromises. Our culturally shared image of the ideal of the “people’s politician”, as expressed by the Frank Capra movies, was expressed in real life by Ken Genser. In Ken, Santa Monica truly had a public servant, a representative of the people. He paid attention to and cared about the problems of each individual who asked him for help. He loved Santa Monica, he identified with Santa Monica, and he dedicated himself to its present and its future.

In a time when communication is depersonalized and voice mail and being on hold are ubiquitous, Ken answered the phone himself. He came to the house to talk to you, to see the problem firsthand. He interceded, respectfully, on your behalf, if that was necessary. People believed he was their champion and, in turn, they championed him.

So it is only right that we honor Ken’s memory. He will be credited, and rightfully so, with contributions to housing and city planning, to saving Sea Castle and to promoting renter’s rights, to supporting education and city/school partnerships. These are issues. How issues are decided and how they are implemented impact our daily lives. But in my mind his most valuable contributions were to the continuation of our identity as a community, as a place where individuals are important and where there is attention to every voice and a place for all to participate in self-governance.

These intangible qualities make an everyday difference in how connected we feel to one another and in how connected we feel as citizens of Santa Monica. The continuation of these values is how I want to honor Ken Genser’s memory.

In the coming decade the Expo line station will be built in downtown Santa Monica. The Expo line will bring people to Colorado and 4th. When they arrive, they will see the stores of the new Santa Monica Place, redesigned after a lengthy and robust public process; it will connect City Hall and the Civic Center to the 3rd Street Promenade. Across from City Hall will be a new park, the ‘front yard’ to City Hall, connecting City Hall to the Beach, the Pier and Palisades Park. And, under discussion right now, is the possibility of building a new museum near the Civic Auditorium for the Broad collection.

If we do all this work right these projects will be designed to be physical connectors between the major public buildings and places in the City. We will have created new buildings and public spaces that express our spirit and our values. For that to happen we must continue our current high level of public participation in our City decision-making process. We must continue our commitment to being a community.

Wonderfully, if we choose to honor Ken Genser by staying strong as a community of people, by making sure that all the work that is to come expresses our values and our spirit, we will also protect our collective future.