Professor tapped for D.C. post

—Elizabeth Garrett to join Treasury Department

From USC News

Elizabeth Garrett, USC’s vice president for academic planning and budget and a professor at the USC Law, has been asked to join the Obama administration in Washington, D.C.

The White House announced on March 28 that Garrett, the Sydney M. Irmas Professor of Public Interest Law, Legal Ethics, Political Science, and Policy, Planning, and Development, is to be nominated as assistant secretary for tax policy at the U.S. Treasury Department.

Garrett, who is also the co-director of the USC-Caltech Center for the Study of Law and Politics and on the board of the Initiative and Referendum Institute at USC, has worked in public service on the national level before. In 2005, she was appointed to then-president George W. Bush’s nine-member bipartisan advisory panel on federal tax reform. She also is chair of the finance committee for Common Cause, which she has served as a board member for the past four years.

In her vice president’s role at USC, Garrett is part of the provost’s office. USC Provost C. L. Max Nikias said that he and the university feel “immense pride in Beth and sadness that such an outstanding leader will be taking a leave from USC.

“Her impact at USC has been astonishing. She has brought energy, wisdom and brilliance to her many responsibilities here.”

Robert K. Rasmussen, dean of USC Law, said: “Beth Garrett is a superstar. She excels in everything she does—scholarship, teaching and administration. I am happy for our country that Beth has agreed to take on this challenge.”

Garrett graduated from the University of Oklahoma and the University of Virginia Law School. She clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court and served as legal counsel and legislative assistant for tax, budget and welfare reform issues for U.S. Sen. David L. Boren. Before joining USC in 2003, she was a professor at the University of Chicago Law School. Her scholarship centers on law and the political process.