[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 23 (Thursday, February 9, 2017)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E170]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  THE PASSING OF VAINO HASSAN SPENCER

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. KAREN BASS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, February 9, 2017

  Ms. BASS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to honor the life and memory of 
California Appeals Court Justice Vaino Hassan Spencer.
   A month after Vaino was born in 1920, women gained the right to 
vote. She grew up during the Great Depression, started her professional 
career as a real estate broker, and married fellow broker Lorenzo 
Spencer in the late 1940s. She embarked on a legal career after 
graduating from Southwestern Law School in 1952, and practiced for nine 
years before then-governor Pat Brown appointed her to the Municipal 
Court bench in 1961, the first African American woman to hold a 
judgeship in California. She was elevated to the Superior Court in 1976 
by then-Governor Jerry Brown, who went on to name her as presiding 
justice of Division One of the Second Appellate District Court of 
Appeal in 1980, making her the first Black woman to sit on a California 
appeals court.
   Justice Spencer believed in the concept of ``lift as you climb'' and 
worked to create opportunities for women and people of color, 
especially in the legal profession. She founded the Black Women Lawyers 
Association of Los Angeles in 1974 to provide support to those already 
in the profession, and to assist others with scholarships, mentoring 
and guidance. The very next year, she joined with another Appeals Court 
Justice to coordinate efforts in support of women nominated to federal 
and state supreme courts. That collaboration grew into the National 
Association of Women Judges, which aimed to increase the number of 
women in the judiciary and to address the gender bias problems 
experienced by the few women who were on the bench. President Jimmy 
Carter met with NAWJ in 1980, having appointed nearly four times the 
women to the federal bench (38) than had ever been appointed by all of 
his predecessors.
   In remarks later, she said: ``We have been warmly greeted 
[everywhere], and we've gotten tremendous support, even from local 
judges who were openly resentful of our organizing initially. They have 
come around to be quite supportive. . . .''
   She served one of the longest tenures on the bench in California 
history, retiring in 2007. I salute the life and legacy of Justice 
Spencer, a legacy of service to the legal profession, to the state of 
California and to the nation.

                          ____________________