Senator Burton Yields Floor to Term Limits
SACRAMENTO — It was the day after the election and, as always, John Burton, the Democratic leader of the California Senate, didn't mince words, though his trademark spray of vulgarity was surprisingly absent.
He called the California Chamber of Commerce, which had just successfully pushed an initiative to overturn one of Burton's signature pieces of legislation, "a bunch of selfish, greedy individuals that are for nothing that helps anybody who's an average working stiff."
He expressed bemusement at the postelection victory boasts of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose legislative candidates by and large lost. "There's nothing better than a guy who believes his own baloney," Burton said.
After six years as the Legislature's most powerful lawmaker -- 40 years after his first stint in the Assembly -- Burton steps down as Senate president pro tempore on Tuesday, finally forced back to his San Francisco home by term limits. Sacramento veterans say it is unlikely that another legislative leader will wield as much power or do so as effectively.
"John Burton helped keep alive the New Deal in the new millennium," said Kevin Starr, state librarian emeritus, a historian of California. "He has to go down as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, Senate pro tems in terms of his mastery of parliamentary procedure and his ability to maintain a relationship with not only his own party but with the Republicans as well."
Burton departs as Sacramento's most outspoken proponent of liberal activism. Always willing to push the envelope in his tactics, he pressed for stronger child-support laws and to bolster unions of all stripes, to aid California's weakest citizens -- the homeless, the poor, farmworkers, prisoners and Indians -- and to impose responsibilities on corporations that he believed were more concerned with their bottom lines than with the health and welfare of employees, customers and the environment.
But to the surprise of many, Burton's Senate reign was appreciated by Republicans, lobbyists, state officials and others for the traditional -- some might even say conservative -- values he exemplified in his daily exertions.
In an age when politicians who avoid being boxed into commitments are admired for their dexterity, Burton, 71, was renowned for taking blunt positions and keeping his word.
