Governorship of Ronald Reagan


Ronald Reagan was the Governor of California for two terms, the first beginning in 1967 and the second in 1971. He left office in 1975, declining to run for a third term. Robert Finch, Edwin Reinecke, and John L. Harmer served as lieutenant governors over the course of his governorship.

1966 nomination and election

California Republicans were impressed with Reagan's conservative political views and charisma after his "A Time for Choosing" speech for the Goldwater presidential campaign in 1964. David S. Broder called it “the most successful national political debut since William Jennings Bryan electrified the 1896 Democratic convention with the ‘Cross of Gold’ speech." Reagan assembled advisors and financiers and in late 1965 he announced his campaign for governor in the 1966 election. Incumbent Governor Pat Brown intervened indirectly in the Republican primary to undermine former San Francisco mayor George Christopher, thinking that Reagan, as a politically inexperienced movie actor, would be easier to beat. Christopher lost. Against Brown, Reagan emphasized two main themes: "to send the welfare bums back to work," and, in reference to burgeoning anti-war and anti-establishment student protests at the University of California, Berkeley, "to clean up the mess at Berkeley." He was elected to his first term on November 8, 1966, with more than 57% of the vote, defeating the two-term incumbent governor by nearly a million votes.
Reagan was sworn in on January 2, 1967 at ten minutes past midnight--starting early to prevent Brown from naming judges at the last minute.

First term: 1967-1971

Staffing

Reagan's efficiency as governor depended on his three support groups. His high visibility Hollywood supporters included Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Dinah Shore, George Burns, James Cagney, John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart, as well as producers Walt Disney and Taft B. Schreiber of MCA. His campaign was managed by the well-known firm of Spencer and Roberts. Funding came from California businessman and financiers including Union Oil chief executive A.C. “Cy” Rubel; auto dealer Holmes Tuttle; Henry Salvatori; Alfred S. Bloomingdale; Leonard Firestone; and Justin Dart. The governor's key staffers included chief of staff Philip Battaglia, Lyn Nofziger, Thomas C. Reed, William P. Clark Jr., Edwin Meese, Michael Deaver and personal lawyer William French Smith. Nancy Reagan, the foundation of his emotional support, was the most important member of the team.
When his advisers discovered that chief of staff Battaglia was an active homosexual partnering with junior staff, nine went to Reagan as a group and demanded Battaglia be fired. Reagan was at ease with the gay community in Hollywood, and was not homophobic; he was too trusting and hands off to notice what was going on. The California electorate was less tolerant and certainly the national electorate was homophobic. That had been demonstrated in October 1964 when President Lyndon Johnson had no choice but to fire his top aide, Walter Jenkins, after he was arrested for soliciting in the men's room at the YMCA. Reagan chose Clark to replace Battaglia, and the story lost momentum.

Tax increase

Reagan campaigned as a tax cutter, promising to squeeze, cut and trim. Once in office he froze government hiring but increased spending by 9%. He worked with Democrat Jess Unruh, the Assembly Speaker, to secure a series of tax increases that raised rates and balanced the budget, while also cutting property taxes. The sales tax was raised from 3% to 5%. The highest income tax bracket saw a rise from 7% tax to 10%. Taxes on banks, corporate profits and inheritance were increased slightly. Liquor taxes jumped from $1.50 to $2.00 per gallon; and cigarette taxes from three cents to ten cents per pack.

Abortion issue

Early in 1967, the national debate on abortion was beginning and attention focused on California. The American Medical Association, the American Bar Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the California Medical Association, the California Bar Association, and numerous other groups announced support behind new laws that would protect doctors from criminal prosecution if they performed abortions under rigid hospital controls. A bipartisan majority in the California legislature supported a new law introduced by Democratic state senator Anthony Beilenson, the "Therapeutic Abortion Act". Catholic clergy were strongly opposed but Catholic lay people were divided and non-Catholics strongly supported the proposal. Reagan consulted with his father-in-law, a prominent surgeon who supported the law. He also consulted with James Cardinal McIntyre, the Catholic archbishop of Los Angeles. The archbishop strongly opposed any legalization of abortion and he convinced Reagan to announce he would veto the proposed law since the draft allowed abortions in the case of birth defects. The legislature dropped that provision and Reagan signed the law, which decriminalized abortions when done to protect the health of the mother. The expectation was that abortions would not become more numerous but would become much safer under hospital conditions. In 1968 the first full year under the new law that were 5,018 abortions in California. The numbers grew exponentially and stabilized at about 100,000 annually by the 1970s. It was abortion-on-demand, as 99.2% of women who applied for an abortion were granted one. One out of every three pregnancies was ended by illegal abortion. The key factor was the sudden emergence of a woman's movement that introduced a very new idea--women had a basic right to control their bodies and could choose to have an abortion or not. Reagan by 1980 found his support among anti-abortion religious groups and said he was too new as governor to make a wise decision.

Berkeley protests

Reagan was involved in high-profile conflicts with the protest movements of the era. On May 15, 1969, during the People's Park protests at UC Berkeley, Reagan sent the California Highway Patrol and other officers to quell the protests, in an incident that became known as "Bloody Thursday." The student newspaper headlines blared:
Reagan then called out 2,200 state National Guard troops to occupy the city of Berkeley for two weeks in order to crack down on the protesters. W.J. Rorabaugh argues that Reagan was unable to break the power of liberal faculty and administrators, or of radical students. However those groups were astonished by Reagan's popularity, and drastically underestimated the force of conservative reaction against higher education.

China issue

Reagan, as governor and president, had been a supporter of Taiwan. Following a 1971 vote in the United Nations in which several delegates voted against the US and decided to recognize the People’s Republic of China, Reagan, in a call to president Nixon, vented his anger at the Tanzanian delegation: "To see those... monkeys from those African countries—damn them, they're still uncomfortable wearing shoes." Nixon told his deputy national security adviser Alexander Haig to cancel any future meetings with any African leader who had not voted with the United States on Taiwan.
and First Lady Pat Nixon in July 1970

Presidential affairs

Shortly after the beginning of his term, Reagan tested the presidential waters in 1968 as part of a "Stop Nixon" movement, hoping to cut into Nixon's Southern support and be a compromise candidate if neither Nixon nor second-place Nelson Rockefeller received enough delegates to win on the first ballot at the Republican convention. However, by the time of the convention Nixon had 692 delegate votes, 25 more than he needed to secure the nomination, followed by Rockefeller with Reagan in third place.

Second term (1971–1975)

An unsuccessful attempt to recall Reagan in 1968 was supported by senior citizens, educators, and organized labor. Reagan was re-elected in 1970, defeating "Big Daddy" Jesse M. Unruh on November 3 with 52.85% of the vote. He chose not to seek a third term in the following election cycle.

Capital punishment

One of Reagan's greatest frustrations in office concerned capital punishment, which he strongly supported. His efforts to enforce the state's laws in this area were thwarted when the Supreme Court of California issued its People v. Anderson decision, which invalidated all death sentences issued in California prior to 1972, though the decision was later overturned by a constitutional amendment. The only execution during Reagan's governorship was on April 12, 1967, when Aaron Mitchell's sentence was carried out by the state in San Quentin's gas chamber.

School finance reform

The 1971 state supreme court decision in Serrano v. Priest required the state to equalize spending on schools between rich and poor districts. Facing a strong Democratic opposition in the legislature, Reagan negotiated compromises with Speaker Bob Moretti that would be attractive to key elements of the Republican base. He cut deals with Moretti, who wanted to satisfy his Democratic base and also build a leadership image as he planned to run for governor himself in 1974. Reagan's strategy was to keep costs down, cut property taxes for home owners, limit school spending, and provide higher spending for poorer school districts. For support he looked to Republicans, business groups, the school lobby, and some Assembly Democrats. The final legislation as signed by the governor included the main provision of a new annual grant of $454 million to local school districts, of which $229 million was to reduce school tax rates and $220 million was to supplement existing school aid for poor districts. Special assistance of $83 million was allocated to inner city schools, a Democratic constituency. In addition there were side payments to keep other elements happy. The property tax exemption for homeowners was raised from $750 to $1750; this was a Republican constituency. Renters--a major Democratic constituency--received an income tax credit of $25 to $45. Businesses--a Republican constituency--received a cut in the property tax on their inventories. Local governments were paid an extra $7 million a year to set aside open space. This appealed to local officials of both parties and to the new environmentalist movement which at the time was bipartisan. Educators were pleased with $40 million for early childhood education. To pay for all of this, the state sales tax was raised from 5.0% to 6.0%. This probably annoyed Democrats more than Republicans but the reverse was the case when taxes on profits were raised. They went up from 7.6% to 9.0% for corporations and from 11.6% to 13.0% for banks. In addition to new taxes some federal money was used, as well as increased revenue from older taxes. Reagan insisted on adding a major restriction: local governments and school districts could not raise taxes without voter approval. Liberals were upset, but agreed to the restriction. As it happened, property values went up steadily and the same rates produced more dollars every year. The result was victory for both Reagan and Moretti. It gave the governor a reputation for successful deal-making that pleased multiple constituencies. At the same time Reagan's public rhetoric appealed to hard-line conservatives nationally, his actions in Sacramento appealed to moderates.

California Proposition 1

After a string of successes climaxed by a reelection landslide, Reagan in 1973 set his eye on national issues the 1976 presidential election. He decided his signature issue would be to show America he was a hard-liner on cutting taxes and spending by locking that proposition into the California state constitution through Proposition 1--an initiative that would be on the November 1973 ballot. It cut the state tax and made it very hard to increase rates. He overreached. Michael Deaver ran the campaign and since the ballot initiative specified all the details there was no room to negotiate or compromise with the opposition. Reagan had to sell it, all or nothing. Proposition 1 was so complex that even the master salesman admitted on TV that he did not understand it. The opposition was led by Assembly Speaker Bob Moretti who forged a coalition of Democratic activists, labor unions, the League of Women Voters, and other organizations. The need to cut state taxes was never clearly presented. Proposition 1 went down to defeat with 54% opposed. Then in 1974 Nixon resigned in the Watergate scandal and suddenly Jerry Ford was president and had upstaged Reagan by becoming the leading contender for the 1976 nomination.

Governorship legacy

Education

According to Curtis Marez, Reagan became governor partly by vilifying the University of California system, especially Berkeley, as:
During his two terms, Reagan increased educational budgets faster than the rate of inflation, which was 43%. State spending on K-12 schools rose 105% to $2.371 billion in 1974-1975. The budget of the University of California system also rose 105% to $493 million. The State University system rose 164% to $480 million. Community College spending rose 323% to $315 million. Student scholarships and loans rose 915% to $43 million. Enrollments also rose, increasing by 5% in K-12, by 44% in the University of California system, by 78% in the State University system, and by 84% in the community college system.
Shirley Boes Neill concludes the Reagan Administration had many faces:

Welfare

Reagan's terms as governor helped to shape the policies he would pursue in his later political career as president. By campaigning on a platform of sending "the welfare bums back to work", he spoke out against the idea of the welfare state. He also strongly advocated for less government regulation of the economy and against what he believed to be undue federal taxation. With his eye on national politics, Governor Reagan opposed the negative income tax policy recommended by Presidents Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter and developed by Milton Friedman. He offered as an alternative the California Welfare Reform Act.
Reagan's rhetoric about "welfare queens" suggested fraud was a major concern. He believed that increased welfare led to more illegitimate babies. However his fears were not supported by the findings of scholarly analysis of the fertility of women receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children funds. Women did not bear more children when aid was increased, or less when it was decreased. Instead availability of legal abortions--which Reagan supported as governor--seems to be a factor in decreased births to welfare recipients, and that the factors of low education, recent migration to the state, and a welfare childhood experience were more closely related to pregnancies.
Reagan's welfare reform, according to historian Garin Burbank, was a modest success:
Historian Kevin Starr ranks Reagan alongside Hiram Johnson, Earl Warren, and Pat Brown as "great governors" of California. Starr ranks Reagan so high because of his sustained "good humored relations with key Democrats...," and because, after listening to the latter, he "gave Californians the biggest tax hike in their history--and got away with it."

Primary sources