Governor Brown Announces Appointments

Published: Feb 21, 2018

SACRAMENTO – Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today
announced the following appointments:

Shannon McKinley, 38, of Sacramento, has been
appointed deputy secretary of legislation at the
California Business, Consumer Services and
Housing Agency. McKinley has been legislative
director in the Office of California State
Assemblymember Tim Grayson since 2016. She served
as legislative director in the Office of
California State Assemblymember Cheryl Brown from
2012 to 2016, senior consultant in the Office of
California State Assemblymember Sandre Swanson
from 2008 to 2012 and committee assistant in the
Office of California State Assemblymember Mervyn
Dymally from 2007 to 2008. McKinley was a
research assistant in the Sacramento State
University Office of Development from 2005 to
2006, day camp director at the Hilltop Young
Men’s Christian Association from 2002 to 2004 and
a sales associate at the San Francisco State
University Bookstore from 2001 to 2004. McKinley
is chair of the California Capitol Black Staff
Association and a member of the Black Youth
Leadership Project Board of Directors. She earned
a Master of Arts degree in government from
California State University, Sacramento. This
position does not require Senate confirmation and
the compensation is $129,804. McKinley is a Democrat.

Dennis Cuevas-Romero, 33, of Sacramento, has been
appointed deputy director for legislation at the
California Department of Consumer Affairs.
Cuevas-Romero has been government relations
director at the American Heart
Association/American Stroke Association in
Sacramento since 2016. He was legislative
associate at the Hernandez Strategy Group from
2013 to 2016 and a post-graduate law clerk at the
Sacramento Regional Fair Housing Commission in
2012. Cuevas-Romero was a legal intern at
Refugees International Japan in 2012 and at
Opening Doors Inc., California Rural Legal
Assistance and the University of the Pacific,
McGeorge School of Law Immigration Law Clinic in
2011. He was a Peggy Browning law fellow at the
National Day Laborer Organizing Network in 2011
and at the Working Hands Legal Clinic in 2010.
Cuevas-Romero was legal intern at the Sacramento
Regional Fair Housing Commission from 2010 to
2011 and director, coordinator and lead tutor of
Wrap-Around Services at Lionel Wilson College
Preparatory Academy from 2006 to 2009. He earned
a Juris Doctor degree from the University of the
Pacific, McGeorge School of Law. This position
does not require Senate confirmation and the
compensation is $115,008. Cuevas-Romero is a Democrat.

Christine M. Ciccotti, 36, of Davis, has been
appointed deputy director, chief counsel at the
California Department of State Hospitals.
Ciccotti has served as a deputy attorney general
in the Correctional Law Section at the California
Department of Justice, Office of the Attorney
General since 2014. She was a trial attorney at
the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Contract
Management Agency from 2012 to 2013 and an
assistant general counsel at the U.S. Department
of Justice, Federal Bureau of Prisons from 2009
to 2012. Ciccotti served in several positions for
the U.S. Air Force Judge Advocate General’s Corps
at Nellis Air Force Base and Travis Air Force
Base from 2006 to 2009, including trial counsel,
chief of contract law, chief of civil law, chief
of adverse actions and chief of claims. She
earned a Juris Doctor degree from the Georgetown
University Law Center. This position does not
require Senate confirmation and the compensation
is $177,900. Ciccotti is a Democrat.