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chaPTer 10 The legacy of the democratic Party renaissance “california,” wrote political analysts Michael Barone, Grant ujifusa, and doug Matthews in 1975, “just a few years ago the most noticeably right-wing major state, has now become a leftish state politically.”1 in fact, california remained as unpredictable as ever in political terms, electing ronald reagan governor in a landslide in 1966 and a republican assembly and senate in 1968, but also electing alan cranston senator that same year against arch conservative superintendent of schools Max rafferty, and then in 1970 throwing out rafferty, the republican legislature, and GoP senator George Murphy while reelecting reagan. it is true, nonetheless, that left-leaning democrats statewide managed in the late 1960s and early 1970s to make the state’s legislative system work for them to pass landmark social rights legislation, to limit the capacity of Governor reagan’s administration to roll back the welfare state, and to launch the careers of a new generation of democratic politicians who would maintain california as the home of the most uncompromisingly progressive members of the party in the nation. The strengthening of the links between new social movements and liberal politicians in the Bay area and los angeles helped to make party politics a meeting ground for a diverse range of interest groups that bridged the divide between welfare politics and social equality politics, but it also encouraged a proliferation of competing voices for political patronage that made it increasingly difficult to speak of one liberal movement. The rise of radical right causes and the growing economic crisis of the early seventies also threw up major obstacles to the continuation of a benevolent state government. This chapter will analyze case studies of democratic political and legislative activity during the reagan governorship to shed light on the extent to which the rise of the democratic Party in 240 chapter 10 california between the early 1950s and the 1970s had in fact established the party as the promoter of a particular ideological and programmatic focus, with lessons for the more recent past. The limits of the republican ascendancy: The supreme court The legacy of the policy innovations and political changes of the Brown administration was substantial. This was due not simply to the political knowhow of party strategists and activists but also because the structure of state institutions encouraged an idea of social citizenship to become embedded in law. legal and political historians have long recognized the importance of judicial activism in shaping the contours of governmental power and public policy.2 in the mid-1960s the california supreme court’s liberal majority played an important role in throwing the weight of constitutional jurisprudence behind the concept of equal rights that had framed the policymaking of the Brown administration and liberal legislators. according to the Wall Street Journal in 1972, the california supreme court “over the past twenty years has won a reputation as perhaps the most innovative of the state judiciaries , setting precedents in areas of criminal justice, civil liberties, racial integration and consumer protection that heavily influence other states and the federal bench.” associate Justice Matthew tobriner argued that the Golden state’s highest court was “a dynamic institution” that needed to “respond to and reflect the society in which it lives.” tobriner’s version of sociological jurisprudence was shared by a majority of court members in the mid-1960s, a court that included former Brown attorney General stanley Mosk, archliberal raymond Peters, and chief Justice roger traynor. The Wall Street Journal noted that “many judges outside california pay them close attention because of their reputation for clarity and sound scholarship.” The california court had “more opportunity than most to break new legal ground because of the large number and wide variety of cases it hears,” and was a trailblazer in the field of class action suits, enshrining in state law the idea of social rights for the community as a whole as well as for individual plaintiffs.3 one legal scholar argued that the california court under roger traynor became “the most prestigious state bench in the united states,” where “the individualistic spirit of the common law has been giving way to an entirely different spirit, which emphasizes the welfare of the community, even at the cost of individual rights of property, contract, and the like.”4 The court kept the rights agenda alive even as the party political landscape became more difficult to negoti- [18.118.140.108] Project MUSE (2024-04-16...

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