Back when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger gave his first budget address on Jan. 10, 2004, the Orange County Register sent me to Sacramento to cover it. While there, I visited the office of then-state Sen. Tom McClintock, now a U.S. House member. His staff took me down to the Senate floor. The Senate president pro tem at the time was Sen. John Burton, who died Sept. 7 at age 92.
I only remember Burton’s profanity, which was something of a trademark of his.
Alongside Gov. Jerry Brown and former Assembly speaker and San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, Burton was among the most influential Democratic California politicians of the last half century. First elected to the Assembly in 1964, Burton then held, serially, offices for U.S. House, Assembly again, then state Senate, becoming president pro tem from Feb. 5, 1998 to Nov. 30, 2004.
Even a crack cocaine addiction, forcing him to leave Congress in 1982 to kick it, only briefly sidelined his career. When term limits finally forced him out of the Senate, he became chair of the state Democratic Party from 2009-17.
I remember he became Senate president because, after Bill Lockyer left the job due to term limits, the Democratic factions couldn’t decide on a moderate. So they picked the decidedly left-wing Burton.
FlashReport Publisher Jon Fleischman wrote Burton was “California’s leftward architect…. Burton was a champion of big government in every sense. Under his watch, taxes went up, regulations multiplied, and spending ballooned. He was instrumental in empowering the public employee unions that dominate Sacramento to this day.”
How has California fared with him wielding so much power over so many decades?
In the 1960s, the Golden State’s K-12 school system was the nation’s gold standard. On the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress, released Sept. 9, for grade 4, only 35% of students scored “at or above proficient” and 29% on reading. For 8th graders, it was 25% on math and 28% on reading.
In 1965, Burton’s first year in the Assembly, California’s top middle-class income tax rate was 6%. Today it’s 10.4%. The top income tax rate paid by rich people was 7%. Businesses flocked here and built giant aerospace and computer industries. Today it’s 14.4%. The aerospace sector has declined. Silicon Valley and San Francisco still are strong for computers, now with AI wizardry. But many companies, have fled to Texas, with its 0% income tax rate, and other locales.
Worse, China, a starving Maoist hellscape in 1965 beginning its Cultural Revolution, now is a computing powerhouse giving no quarter to a U.S. state that overtaxes its companies and whose K-12 schools can’t produce adequate STEM graduates.
This is what happens when you empower public sector unions and government power over freedom.
In 1965, Cal State and the University of California charged no tuition at all for in-state students. Student loans were unheard of. Today, Cal State’s tuition is $7,488 and UC’s is $15,384. Students commonly run up huge debt that takes many years to pay off.
Again, with all the administrative bloat and wasteful spending, this is what happens when bad ideology takes over.
Friends of mine bought their house in Huntington Beach in 1970 for $20,000 and paid the mortgage with one income. Today it’s worth $1.2 million. The Mortgage Calculator calculates that would require an annual family income of $263,988.
It’s not wonder California’s population boom has stalled and people are looking elsewhere for the American dream.
This is what happens under one-party rule. Burton’s Democrats have controlled the Senate every year since 1975. And they’ve controlled the Assembly every year since 1970, except for 1996.
Thanks to Burton’s policies over five decades, so many of my friends and their children keep leaving this beautiful place. Policies have consequences. It’s enough to make one let loose a torrent of Burtonesque profanities.
John Seiler is on the SCNG Editorial Board
