Governor Reagan: a reappraisal.(Ronald Reagan)

Today's Republicans seem devoted to a political apotheosis of Ronald Reagan. Determined to ensure that the "judgment of history" will rank him among the "greats," they react strongly to anyone challenging the standard assumption that Reagan demonstrated unique political gifts during his first foray into politics as governor of California and further displayed those talents as president of the United States. (1) This essay challenges only the former of these two assertions, which, nevertheless, may strike a raw nerve among the self-appointed curators of Reagan's legacy, even though the popular Great Man himself often seemed uneasy when recalling his days in the governor's chair. In his autobiography, for example, he devoted a mere five percent of its pages to those eight years 0967-1974 inclusive). (2)

The probable reason for Reagan's diffidence about his gubernatorial years is an open secret rather than a puzzling mystery: the seemingly startling disconnect between ideological principle and gubernatorial practice. Campaigning as a rightwing ideologue in 1966 and a sworn enemy of big government and high taxes, he repudiated not only Pat Brown and the "spendthrift" Democrats but the entire California political system engendered in the previous half-century. Ironically, that system had been perfected almost entirely by Republicans, especially Hiram Johnson and Earl Warren. While it was complex, often inchoate, and always incrementalist, its notable success was twofold: It was activist in seeking solutions to public problems and it was pragmatic in devising and applying them. (3) Reagan, as a right-wing ideologist, was a sworn enemy to both activism and pragmatism. Another open secret is that he made pragmatic compromises between ideology and political reality, but the extent of these compromises and their consequences has been largely unexplored. Furthermore, Reagan almost never acknowledged in public having compromised, and his rhetoric ceaselessly reiterated his devotion to ideological principles that his compromises undermined. Finally, he always won this ideological-pragmatic shell game, and few among his admirers called him to account for his derelictions from ideological purity.

Reaganites have another reason to discourage inquiry into his governorship. They already benefit from an existing rationale that minimizes and justifies his wanderings, a rationale that, curiously and gratuitously can be traced to liberal and moderate pundits. The most persistent of these is journalist and author Lou Cannon, who has written five books on Reagan. Cannon posits that Reagan quickly overcame his ideological rigidity and ignorance of the state's political system by employing his prodigious memory, quick-study methods acquired in his acting career, and an extremely sound set of basic political instincts. So equipped, Cannon believes, Reagan turned himself into a gifted political leader early in his governorship. Left-wing journalist Robert Scheer even denies that Reagan was ignorant in the beginning, arguing that he

 
   spent years familiarizing himself with the 
   state government's workings before announcing 
   his 1966 campaign for governor. 
   I interviewed him at the time, and there 
   was no question about his being prepared. (4) 

Reagan defenders have disagreed, such as Cannon and Lyn Nofziger:

 
   Reagan knew little about the legislative 
   process when he was elected--"We were 
   not only amateurs, we were novice amateurs," 
   said his communications director, 
   Lyn Nofziger--and he made many mistakes. (5) 

Cannon nevertheless insists that Reagan soon overcame his amateurishness and quickly became a forceful and talented political leader, and he is seconded in this view by fellow journalist George Skelton along with historians Matthew Dallek and Kevin Starr. (6) The latter surprisingly elevates Reagan to rank alongside Hiram Johnson, Earl Warren, and Pat Brown as "four previous--and great governors." Starr ascribes Reagan this high rank 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." (7) Aside from the extremely conservative Senator Hugh Burns, one wonders about the identities of those "key Democrats" with whom Reagan was allegedly so compatible. Certainly such words do not apply to the most crucial Democrat, Jesse Unruh, who sometimes cooperated with Reagan for political reasons, although their relationship was far from "good humored." Others agree with Starr, that Reagan's billion-dollar tax increase of 1967 was a gutsy departure from both his 1966 campaign promise and his basic ideology. Skelton, for example, said the increase, "Never hurt him: Saved the state." (8) Elsewhere Skelton notes that Reagan actually raised taxes twice, (9) so that his 1967 savior behavior was brief. In reality, Reagan presided over three tax increases.

Reagan's 1967 tax increase was among the first of a long series of significant departures from a right-wing agenda that continued throughout his governorship. Seven weeks earlier, Reagan's first budget had exceeded Pat Brown's last one by nearly one-half billion dollars, instead of staying the course by inaugurating a policy of "squeeze, cut and trim" as promised. (10) If this 9 percent increase was upsetting to conservatives, the billion dollar tax increase bill must have been an outright shock. Senate Bill 556 raised sales taxes from three to five cents on the dollar; the maximum income tax from seven to ten percent; bank, corporation, and inheritance taxes from 5.5 percent to six percent; distilled liquor taxes from $1.50 to $2.00 per gallon; and cigarette taxes from three cents to ten cents per pack. (11) The bill was designed not only to increase revenues and to put the state's finances on an even keel, but also it began a substantial tax shift from an over-reliance on the property tax to the more "progressive" income and sales taxes. Since Assembly Speaker Jesse Unruh had long been dedicated to exactly this kind of reform, he lent his support to the bill and played a major role in steering it through the legislature. (12) Unruh had long been the bete noire of most Republicans and all of the state's ideological conservatives, who must have blanched at the thought of Reagan making a political "alliance" with him.

The governor retained some ideological respectability in connection with this tax bill by prevailing over Unruh's wish to include a provision for income tax with-holding. The governor adamantly repeated the right-wing mantra that "taxes should hurt," and when the speaker eventually capitulated on this issue, Cannon declares this to be a major Reagan victory and insists that " ... it was Unruh who gave up the most" in the encounter. (13) This is dubious since the entire tax bill was the realization of some of Unruh's fondest dreams, and Cannon concedes that the law in toto looked as though " ... it had been crafted by a New Deal Democrat." (14) Unruh was probably content to grant the governor this limited and ephemeral "victory," and Reagan soon changed his mind on the withholding issue.

Reagan did not limit his 1967 compromises to fiscal affairs alone. During his 1966 campaign, he had demanded the repeal of the Rumford Fair Housing Act. This 1963 milestone in California's civil rights movement had been shelved by Proposition 14, the white backlash initiative, in 1964. This measure in turn was invalidated by the courts in 1966, placing the Rumford Act back in operation, which caused Reagan to pledge himself to secure its repeal as a violation of "sacred" property rights. (15) When the conservative Democrat and president pro tempore of the state senate, Hugh Burns, obliged Reagan by originating a repeal bill and pushing it through his house, Assembly Speaker Unruh led the opposition against it, citing the Rumford Act's "symbolic" significance to the black community and hinting at the fearful specter of a repeat of the 1965 Watts riots. Reagan, similarly uneasy about repeal by this time, let it be known that now he wanted only amendments to the Rumford Act and perhaps preferred that Burns's bill be killed in the assembly. Unruh and liberal Republican assemblyman William Bagley did this and passed a substitute measure so mild that both probably realized that the issue would be stalemated in the Senate, which is exactly what happened. A year later, during his brief bid for the presidential nomination, Reagan flatly opposed another effort to repeal the Rumford

Act, specifically repeating Unruh's language of the measure's "symbolism" to the black communities. (16) The governor gave no attribution to Unruh, and neither does Cannon, who concludes his account of the affair with the following homily: "Reagan was a conservative beyond a doubt. He was also a practical and resourceful politician." (17) At the time, in the spring of 1968, however, some conservatives had begun to harbor some doubts on the genuineness of Reagan's conservatism, as will be shown.

In 1967 the abortion issue aroused the governor's enormous discomfort. At the time, his greatest disadvantage was that no right-wing, left-wing positions had emerged to guide him. Surprising to recall, most non-Catholic conservative Republicans were in favor of abortion liberalization, as were many liberals in the California legislature. The Therapeutic Abortion Act of 1967, for example, authored by liberal Democrat Anthony Beilenson, passed with five republican votes out of seven in the crucial Senate Judiciary Committee. (18) Reagan signaled that he would accept his party leaders' desires on the subject if the bill passed the legislature, but when it did so he went through agonies of indecision before finally signing it into law. Within a few years, especially after the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision of 1973 strongly supporting California's act, the right-wing nationwide had swung overwhelmingly into the anti-abortion camp. Reagan, of course, did too, and he became effusive ever after in his mea culpas for having signed the legislation.

Ronal Reagan's legacy as governor of California (1967-1974) is often overlooked. Although he denied his progressive achievements. Reagan practice California's characteristics pragmatism as well as moderate activism while in the governor's office. In this photograph Governor Reagan speaks at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, June 1969.

In the same year Governor Reagan began another long process that would result as his most significant departure from his commitment to conservatism: his environmentalist stance. (19) Misled by his offhand comment during the 1966 campaign that "A tree is a tree--how many more do you need to look at?" environmentalists feared, and developers hoped, that conservation efforts would get short shrift from the Reagan administration. In 1967, however, when he signed a legislative resolution blocking the construction of a dam on the middle fork of the Feather River and a bill creating the California Air Resources Board he inaugurated a series of actions marking him as a consistent, if moderate, environmentalist. In addition to his support for the Save San Francisco Bay Commission, Reagan successfully backed the creation of the Redwood National Park as well as the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, and threw his support to the successful Coastal Initiative of 1972. (20) He also signed bills creating the Wild and Scenic Rivers System, adding thousands of acres to the state park system including two Pacific Ocean underwater preserves, and the California Environmental Quality Act of 1970 which, by instituting the environ-mental impact report system, became the bedrock law of environmental protection in the state. (21)

As important as projects created were others evaded, as Reagan had shown in his opposition to the Feather River dam. In 1968 he successfully opposed the controversial Dos Rios dam on the Eel River, and in 1972 he took the lead in killing a proposed trans-Sierra highway which would have breached the solitude of two federal wilderness areas. In all of these admirable endeavors Reagan enhanced his image as a conservationist but undermined his commitment to pro-business, pro-growth conservatism.

Early in 1967 Reagan also entered into an unlikely and little-known agreement with his arch rival Jess Unruh on the volatile issue of campus unrest. Ever since the 1964 Free Speech Movement outbreaks on the University of California, Berkeley, campus, Unruh had struggled to contain the issue politically and particularly to deter the legislature from holding sensational hearings and demanding repressive legislation suggestive of McCarthyism and the notorious efforts of California's Senator Jack Tenney in 1940s and early 1950s. (22) Until Reagan took over, Unruh had succeeded, but in May 1965 he appeared to succumb to right- wing pressure and agreed to chair a select committee to study problems at the University of California. (23) He was fiercely criticized for this by Governor Pat Brown and many other liberals, who failed to note that Unruh's actions constituted a politics of procrastination and evasion rather than repression and activism. Although he frequently criticized "riotous" students and "rebellious" professors, as did many legislators of all stripes, he played a game of talking rather than acting. Unruh's committee did nothing throughout 1965, and in May 1966 he was still dithering about reconstituting it and about methods of conducting his inquiry. In the meantime, Unruh encouraged college administrators to take charge of their campuses, discipline students, and restore order without legislative interference, which they did despite common misconceptions about continuing campus "anarchy." (24)

In 1967, with Reagan in the governor's chair, Unruh was probably pleasantly surprised when the new governor announced that he wished to postpone addressing his campaign promise to "clean up the mess" at Berkeley. He had promised to appoint Watts Riot investigator John McCone to investigate the institution. Now he declared that other problems such as tuition and hiring a new president at Berkeley were of greater urgency. Unruh enthusiastically seized upon this invitation to prolong procrastination and he pushed through a resolution converting his committee into a leisurely body studying such problems as admissions policy, finance, and the like. (25) In so doing he ensured the state higher education system that it would be largely free of interference from predatory legislators. Aside from some stigma for cooperating with Unruh, Reagan lost nothing by this maneuver. He was now free to profit politically by professing continual outrage at campus upheavals without developing any policy to deal with them. He scored other short-term political victories by scapegoating the university and other college administrations, cutting their budgets, firing University of California President Clark Kerr, and imposing tuition throughout the university and state college system, all over the determined opposition of the Democrats generally and Speaker Unruh in particular. (26) Unruh was the big gainer in forestalling an investigation of the university by the legislature, however, even though most people never realized that Reagan had acquiesced in the bargain.

Beginning with his tax bill of 1967, Reagan initiated yet another political process that also constituted a major violation of his ideological principles. Reagan relied on his Department of Finance, part of the …