Jerry Brown’s successor as governor was George Deukmejian. Positioning himself as “tough on crime,” Deukmejian, a transplanted New Yorker and “Gold Coast” Republican conservative who lived near the shore in Long Beach, served California successively in the assembly, the senate, and as attorney general. In 1982 he defeated Los Angeles Mayor and Democratic candidate Tom Bradley in a close-fought gubernatorial campaign, and did so in a rematch four years later. In their first face-off, 6 percent of polled voters admitted that race (Bradley being African American) decided their support for Deukmejian.
When Deukmejian took office in January 1983 California’s treasury was nearly bare. Proposition 13 had cut property tax revenues in half. Government spending coupled with inflation consumed most of what was left. The state unemployment rate stood at 11.2 percent and the treasury surplus of the late 1970s had shifted to a $1.5 billion deficit. Faced with a Democratic-controlled legislature, he changed the criminal justice system, vetoed numerous spending bills, and reduced funding for some government offices. As much as his immediate predecessor, the new governor was a practitioner of the politics of limits with one important exception: Deukmejian spent a lot of money on penal institutions.
To fight crime, Deukmejian promoted the building of prisons, whose purpose was punishment of inmates, not rehabilitation. Strongly supporting capital punishment, he increased prison capacity 250 percent, upped the budget of the Department of Corrections 310 percent, and tripled the number of incarcerates. Before leaving office, Deukmejian had through his judicial appointments secured a three-fourths majority of the judges in the state court system; these appointees had been screened to ensure that their views reflected those of the governor.
Despite his huge increase in the prison budget, the governor kept his campaign promise to not levy new taxes and to hold government expenditures in check. For example, he saw to it that community colleges imposed a $50 student fee, which led to an enrollment drop of 20 percent between 1980 and 1985. State funding for the UCs and CSUs fared better. Like Jerry Brown before him, Deukmejian presided over the state’s deteriorating infrastructure of highways, bridges, and K-12 schools. Moreover, he cut social and environmental program budgets. In the process, workers’ and consumers’ rights suffered erosion, in keeping with the governor’s pro-business, limited government outlook.
Deukmejian liked conservative Orange County’s preference for toll roads rather than state-funded freeways. One naysayer, a Los Angeles Times (July 27, 1987) reader wrote: “The proposal to build a toll road in Orange County is, again, reflective of the mentality which would lower services to the poor and allow the rich to purchase personal services for themselves. When I grew up, this country had a viable middle class, and there was a good deal of opportunity for children of the poor. Public education was strong. Public highways and parks were well supported. Ayn Rand had projected a different kind of world based upon personal self-interest. The ‘toll-road’ concept fits that philosophy.” Ayn Rand, prominent author of The Fountainhead (1943) and other works, favored laissez-faire capitalism and unfettered individualism. Some conservatives and many libertarians have been drawn to her views. The founding of the Ayn Rand Institute, committed to spreading her philosophy, in beachfront Marina del Rey in 1985 and its relocation to Irvine in 1992 exemplifies “Gold Coast” conservatism’s momentum during Deukmejian’s governorship.
Deukmejian’s minimalist approach to government may have been accepted by the public in large part due to the upturn in the nation’s economy during the mid-1980s. Once again, California was a major recipient of federal military spending, which increased dramatically when Ronald Reagan entered the White House. By the late 1980s, both the nation and California slipped back into recession and remained there as Deukmejian left office in 1991.
World History
