Candidate for
Council Member; City of Tustin

Ken Morrison is a public-interest attorney, business owner, and grassroots community organizer. He is the founder and president of a retail lighting operation based in Glendale. Since 1990, he also has maintained a private law and consulting practice, specializing in legal and investigative services for federal whistleblowers.

A Southern California native, Ken graduated from UCLA in 1985 with a bachelor's degree in political science. He received his law degree in 1988 from Antioch School of Law in Washington, D.C. While still a second year law student, Ken testified before the United States Congress, warning of dangers in our nation's meat and poultry inspection program (years before the deadly Jack-in-the-Box E. coli outbreak). He was a student law clerk for United States District Judge Robert M. Takasugi in 1987, and for four years worked as a law associate and director of regional development for the Government Accountability Project, the nation's preeminent whistleblower support organization.

In 1990, Ken served as counsel and chief investigator for a United States Senate Governmental Affairs subcommittee, where his highly publicized work exposed fundamental flaws and corruption in the federal Inspector General system's response to whistleblower complaints of waste, fraud, abuse of authority and substantial threats to public health and safety. From 1992 to 1995, Ken was vice president for property management and in-house counsel for a commercial real estate corporation, where he managed daily operations in connection with a dozen office buildings in four states. From 1999 to 2000, he served as special counsel to the City of Irvine, assisting with the City's opposition to the proposed international airport at the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. Ken's Irvine work revealed scandalous accounting practices by the County of Orange in connection with a $9.1 million El Toro planning contract.

Ken has also published scores of articles and letters on a variety of legal and public policy-related issues, including The October Carcass, a nationally-syndicated investigative article that exposed the U.S. Department of Agriculture's secret policy of allowing the illegal release of tuberculosis-infected beef for consumers to eat, primarily in Southern California. Immediate reversal of the illegal policy resulted, followed by a nationwide directive strengthening TB inspection and testing practices.

Ken's volunteer community involvement has included activities with various groups such as the Tustin Pride Committee, where he served as vice chairman and founded the City of Tustin Adopt-A-Block program; Judge Pro Tem for the Orange County Superior Court; volunteer for the Tustin Public Schools Foundation; assistant coach for Tustin youth soccer; graduate of the Tustin Citizen Police Academy; assistant coordinator of the Campaign for a D.C. Public Law School; co-founding organizer of the Metro D.C. Environmental Network; volunteer for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund; regional captain of the District of Columbia School of Law Alumni Association.

Born in Los Angeles in 1961, Ken lives in Tustin with his wife Sheila and their two children Veronika and Tucker.