From actor to candidate
Ronald Reagan came to politics through an unusual route. He had been a Hollywood film actor, president of the Screen Actors Guild, and a television host and spokesman for General Electric. He began as a Democrat and moved to the Republican Party in the 1950s. His public breakthrough as a conservative came in October 1964, when he gave a televised speech supporting Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign. A group of wealthy Californian supporters then encouraged him to run for governor.
In 1966 he challenged the incumbent Democrat, Edmund G. “Pat” Brown, who was seeking a third term. Reagan campaigned against high taxes, government spending and the disorder at the University of California’s Berkeley campus, where student protests had begun in 1964. He also presented himself as a “citizen politician” rather than a professional one. Brown’s team tried to cast him as an extremist and an inexperienced actor. Reagan won in November 1966 by a wide margin, with something like 58 percent of the vote, a bigger victory than most pollsters had predicted. The same election saw Republicans do well nationally, as the Johnson administration’s majority in Congress shrank.
Taking office
Reagan was inaugurated in Sacramento in January 1967. He was reportedly sworn in just after midnight on January 2, in a private ceremony, a timing often explained as a way to prevent Brown from making last-minute appointments. A public ceremony followed later that day. The new governor assembled an administration with many businessmen and lawyers, and he brought with him a belief that state government had grown too large.
His first move was to impose a freeze on hiring and to ask departments to cut their spending by about 10 percent. He appointed task forces of business volunteers to look for savings. The result was disappointing to those hoping for a quick reduction. The state faced a large budget deficit inherited from the previous years’ spending, and the cuts that he sought were not enough to close it.
The budget and the tax increase
In 1967, Reagan proposed and the legislature passed a significant tax increase to balance the budget, which included a rise in income tax rates and changes to other levies. It was widely reported at the time as the largest state tax increase in American history up to then, a description that is probably accurate but should be taken as contemporary shorthand. For a governor who had run on tax limits, it was an awkward moment, and conservative supporters complained. Reagan’s explanation was that the state’s fiscal position left him no choice, and he later pressed for spending limits and welfare changes. The episode is a good example of how campaigning and governing differ.
The University of California
The Berkeley campus was a central issue in the election, and Reagan’s relationship with the university was tense from the start. He proposed cuts to the university’s budget and suggested charging tuition, which had not been customary at the public university. Faculty and administrators objected. Reagan also sat on the Board of Regents ex officio.
In January 1967 the Regents voted to dismiss the university president, Clark Kerr, at a meeting held shortly after Reagan took office. Kerr, who had run the university for many years, had been criticised by conservatives for his handling of student protests, and he had also lost the confidence of some Regents. Reagan voted with the majority, though historians continue to debate how much influence the new governor had in the decision. Kerr himself later said that he had been dismissed in part because of the political climate. The episode left a lasting impression of Reagan as a governor willing to confront the campuses, and it connected to the larger student movement and the wave of antiwar protests that grew through the year.
Other early issues
Two other episodes from 1967 are worth noting.
- In June, Reagan signed the Therapeutic Abortion Act, which widened the circumstances in which abortion was legal in California. Reagan later said he regretted the decision. At the time it was a compromise measure that had passed the legislature.
- In May, armed members of the Black Panther Party entered the state capitol building in Sacramento to protest a gun-control bill. The state later passed the Mulford Act, which restricted carrying loaded firearms in public, and Reagan signed it. The event contributed to the national attention given to the Panthers.
Why the first year mattered
By the end of 1967, Reagan had survived a rough first year, and his public standing remained solid among conservatives. In 1968 he allowed supporters to promote him as a possible Republican presidential candidate, though he did not formally campaign in a serious way, and Richard Nixon won the nomination. He was re-elected governor in 1970 and left office in January 1975. He went on to run for the presidency in 1976, unsuccessfully, and won it in 1980. His first year as governor is useful for understanding that later career: a politician with a strong message about government, a willingness to compromise when the numbers demanded it, and a talent for turning confrontations with universities and protesters into political strength.