Byron Sher, a Stanford law professor who served on the Palo Alto City Council and the state Assembly and Senate, has died at his ranch near Placerville, Calif. He was 98.
He was known for groundbreaking environmental legislation including his 1989 bill that mandated cities and counties to divert 25% of their solid waste by 1995 and 50% by the year 2000.
Sher served two terms as mayor of Palo Alto during his nine years on the City Council. Sher, a residentialist, was recalled from office in 1967 but was reelected six years later.
Byron Sher was elected to the California State Senate in 1996 in a special election. He was subsequently re-elected to two four-year terms, and served as the first chairman of the Senate Environmental Quality Committee. Sher served for over 15 years in the State Assembly, where he chaired the Natural Resources Committee and the Criminal Law and Public Safety Committees.
Sher, a native of St. Louis, graduated from Harvard Law School in 1952. He held academic teaching positions at the law schools of Harvard, Southern Methodist University and the University of Southern California, as well as Stanford.
In addition to his recycling law, he authored bills to stop water and air pollution, require industries to measure their greenhouse gasses and limit advertisers false claims about the environmental benefits of products.
“The heat is on,” Sher said, according to the Sacramento Bee on May 5, 1989. “The state can either ignore what science is telling us, or we can respond to this challenge in a responsible way.”
He helped lead the effort to preserve ancient redwoods in Headwaters Forest in Humboldt County in 1999, pushing the state and federal government to buy it from Texas financier Charles Hurwitz, who owned Pacific Lumber Co. and was preparing to log it, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Among the students who passed through Sher’s Stanford classrooms was Newsom’s father, William Newsom, who became a state court of appeals justice, the Times noted.
Sher’s wife of 62 years, Linda Bowser Sher, died in 2014. He is survived by three children, five grandchildren and a great-granddaughter.
Be the first to comment