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Transcripts - 01/09/1973, 01/16/1973, 01/30/1973, 02/13/1973, 03/13/1973
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Transcripts - 01/09/1973, 01/16/1973, 01/30/1973, 02/13/1973, 03/13/1973
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Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
Digital Library Collections
This is a PDF of a folder from our textual
collections.
Collection: Reagan, Ronald: Gubernatorial Papers,
1966-74: Press Unit
Folder Title: Press Conference Transcripts -
01/09/1973, 01/16/1973, 01/30/1973, 02/13/1973,
03/13/1973
Box: P04
To see more digitized collections visit:
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Contact a reference archivist at:
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Citation Guidelines: https://reaganlibrary.gov/citing
1/9
\\
PRESS CONFERENCE OF GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
HELD JANUARY 9, 1973
Transcribed by: Governor's Press Office (FEB)
(This rough transcript of the Governor's Press Conference is furnished
to the members of the Capitol press corps for their convenience only.
Because of the need to get it to the press as rapidly as possible after
the conference, no corrections are made and there is no guarantee of
absolute accuracy.)
Q. Governor, as we move through the year people increasingly are
asking you about your political future. I hesitate to do so again but
Henry Salvatori said yesterday he is counselling you not to run for any
office in 1974 and you ought to keep your powder dry for 1976. Have you
any comments on his remarks?
A. No. No. I don't know that Henry Salvatori said anything of that
kind so obviously that is a subject that has come up so often so no
comment.
Q. On Bill Clark did you put him through the procedure you say you
have been using where different review committees review his credentials?
A. No, that procedure is not used in that case. I followed the same
procedure I used in the only other appointment I had to the court and
this was not just occasioned by the tragic death of Justice Peters, he
had written me that he was going to resign so we have been reviewing a
great many names, a great many individuals, discussing them with people
in the legal profession just as we did with regard to the chief justice's
appointment so it simply moved up the time of appointment, the tragedy.
Q. INAUDIBLE
A. It is one of not only reviewing all of the names but seeking out
those people that we think can give information. Of course, in the case
of Bill Clark I had a greater personal knowledge than I had of most others,
He was an appointment by me to the Superior bench but after he had served
here in this administration where I had the closest possible contact with
him and, therefore, have the greatest confidence in his integrity because
I have seen him in action and his ability.
Q. If Justice Peters had written you that he intended to resign when
did that communication transpire?
A. Last year. It was quite some time ago.
Q. Is it a fact you have a state qualifications committee to pass
on this?
A. That is right. It is a state qualifications panel that passes on
these contrary to just the regular judicial appointment.
Q. What about his only having four years on the bench, is that
sufficient?
A. I think he has actually had a legal career that has been pretty
outstanding for about 15 years. He served on the bench with 150
decisions, none of which was ever overturned. It was a rather unusual
record. After he had been appointed to the Superior Court he then had
to stand for election and after he had served there in that area people
reelected him by a 3-1 margin. He has handled and participated in some
250 cases as an Appellate Justice and I think I knew all about him. I
have complete confidence that he is going to become one of the outstanding
Supreme Court justices in the history of the State of California.
Q. Did you communicate with Judge Clark prior to the death of
Associate Justice Peters regarding the appointment?
A. No. He was just one of the names.
Q. How many other names were there?
A. I can't give you an actual number but there was a great number of
names not only of other appointments in mind but other individuals,
people who from time to time are suggested even when there is no
apparent vacancy, they are suggested for future reference. There was
quite a list of names. I never have actually added up the total.
Q. You don't think it was a case of personal favoritism toward someone
working on your staff?
A. No. I think it was a plain case of having an opportunity of knowing
him and seeing him there. If he had not impressed me as having those
qualifications on the staff then he would not have been appointed. I
have to add this, and I think I would be speaking for anyone who has ever
been in this job or will be, I think that it is too serious. I don't
think you ever are tempted to that in a position of that kind. Too much
hangs on it and you have too much of a feeling of responsibility to the
people of the state to be guided by friendship or personal favoritism.
Q. In the past you have said you wished the makeup of the court were
somewhat different. Is this going to create a court more like what you
think it should be?
- 2 -
A. Obviously the philosophy of the man is taken into consideration
and again I am aware of his philosophy as well as his integrity that
was a factor. As I look at particularly his work in the Court of Appeals
I have to say that I think he has demonstrated not only an understanding
but a great respect for the law and for the Constitutional principles.
Q. You said the same thing about Donald Wright?
A. Yes. The record proved it. Maybe sometimes it also proves that
people change their views or outlook as time goes on.
Q. Has he been a disappointment to you?
A. No. I am not going to criticize the Chief Justice. I have spoken
out very openly on particular decisions and continue to do that, but I
think it is my right and responsibility to do that. No I have no
criticism of any of the members of the court.
Q. I thought I heard Dan Rather say that President Nixon consulted
with you before he decided to renew the bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong.
Is this right or wrong?
A. You thought you heard Dan Rather say that? No. The President
did that without bothering to consult with me. I approve of his decision
even though he didn't consult me.
Q. According to the subdivision map it indicates you are putting up
for sale your 700 acre property in Riverside County. What is the
situation?
A. On that property I am not sure. I have followed the practice that
some of the other owners have done, having it zoned so that it can be
sold in smaller parcels if it comes to that. I have a problem, wondering
whether I have got the time to start from scratch as I hoped to do but I
bought the property with the idea in mind that I had enough so that if I
wanted to dispose of some of it I would still have a ranch ample for my
needs but this makes good sense to have this engineering work done to have
this zoned for smaller parcels in case you want to sell off.
Q. What is your present plan? Do you expect to establish a ranch and
eventually or is it uncertain, or what?
A. I am just wondering. I am getting a little impatient about having a
ranch and the thought has entered my mind that I might have to look for
one already established instead of starting from scratch.
Q. Too many problems in building?
A. The power hasn't come in and so forth.
- 3 -
Q. How do you feel about the reorganization of the legislature and the
fact that they can proceed with appropriation bills before the budget
is signed?
A. We are speaking of something now with regard to this new two-year
idea. Any appropriation bill that is passed I have to then review it on
the basis of whether it will fit within the revenues because that is a
responsibility I have that there can be no deficit. I think they are
taking a chance, a risk it may be a program, no matter how worthy, that
we can't fund.
Q. Governor Rockefeller proposed life sentences for offenders who are
pushers of hard narcotics. What is your attitude toward that kind of
approach, do you favor that?
A. I feel with regard to pushers that almost any penalty is justified,
I think it is one of the worst and most evil of all crimes. The only
reason I hesitate and don't give you a flat statement is that we
ourselves are working on our whole comprehensive drug program and I
haven't yet sat down with the people we have had on that as to what their
views might be and what they might be contemplating, so I would rather
not comment but I certainly don't disapprove of what he said. I think
the battle against the drug culture which has swept over our land is one
that is going to take the best that's in us.
Q. Do you contemplate stiffening penalties?
A. I can't comment. With all the things that have been going on I
haven't sat down with our people on this entire subject.
SQUIRE: Thank you governor.
######
- 4 -
1/16
PRESS CONFERENCE OF GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
HELD JANUARY 16, 1973
Reported by
Beverly D. Toms, CSR
(This rough transcript of the Governor's press conference
is furnished to the members of the Capitol press corps for their
convenience only. Because of the need to get it to the press as
rapidly as possible after the conference, no corrections are made and
there is no guaranty of absolute accuracy.)
000
GOVERNOR REAGAN:
Anybody got any suggestions for moving
the rain from the north to the south down there? We need it. That
is my opening statement for this morning. In lieu of anything else
we talk about the weather.
O.
Governor, is there any chance you may withdraw your nomina-
tion of Mr. Clark because of the things that have been disclosed about
his educational background?
A.
As far as I'm concerned, nothing has been disclosed that
I didn't know already.
It's been part of the consideration that --
in the appointments that have taken place so far. No, there is not
a chance in the world that I would withdraw that. I think that
what is -- let me just put it simply as this, what kind of a fuss
someone is trying to raise about it, I think that Bill Clark is
an example of something that's in the finest American tradition.
Millions of people have had distinguished careers in this land of
ours and who had to work their way through school and get an
education and work at the same time as he did Supporting his fan ily.
It's made their getting an education more difficult. His appointment
is based on not on how he performed as a student, but the results
of his studying which have been indicated by a 15-year brilliant law
carrer and the fact that two judicial appointments that I made of
him prior to this he was screened in the regular process and by his
contemporaries in the law was found unanimously and overwhelmingly
qualified for those positions. And I would just like to point out
to those individuals that are trying to say that an appointment should
be based on thediploma that a man received back in his days as a
student; I can think offhand of at least a half a dozen individuals
who on that basis would be eminently qualified for the appointment
but we'd have to wait for them to get out of jail.
Q.
Who?
-1-
(Laughter)
A.
I'll protect their privacy.
O.
Governor, I've been doing a little figuring with your -- the
850 million dollars ---
Q.
I've got another question on Clark. Did you know that when
he applied to take his bar exam that he said he graduated from
Stanford?
Actually --
A.
He did not, the never did.
Q.
Never did what?
A.
He never said that he graduated. No, as a matter of fact
it has now been revealed that he himself had forgotten that when he--
the card which only said "graduate of what law school," and when he
had written the schools down there that he himself had crossed out the
word "graduate" and that has since been brought to light by the State
Bar.
O.
Governor, you said on your two prior appointments to Clark
he was screened by committees, I don't think that's true. I think
you -- you eliminated these committees when you named him to the
Superior Court because you knew him personally and you remember that
one was objected to by the local bench?
A.
No, we still went ahead and put him through the entire
process and everyone has been put through that process. And I'd
like to --I'd like to just add, as long as you brought this subject
up, if there is one thing that even some of the most die-hard
opponents of my philosophy or my administration have admitted is
that our some 400 juidicial appointments, all of which have been
within the scope of the promise I made of taking the appointments of
judges out of politics. Let me just rehash and remind you that I
tried very hard to get the legislature to make that an official
policy, and when the legislature refused to do this I voluntarily
for six years now have followed thepolicy that I tried to get put
into law, into statute. And these opponents themselves have admitted
that the judicial appointments under that process of this administration
has surpassed anything in the history of the State of California and
have raised the level of the judiciary higher than it has ever been
raised by any administration and Bill Clark was put through that
process and came back rated as high or higher than almost anyone that
has been appointed.
The same was followed with regard to the
-2-
Appellate appointm t. His record stands for tself, he never had
a decision reversed as a Superior Court Judge, and now it seems to me
strange that anyone could believe that having for six years given up
my prerogative to name judges on my own basis that someone would think
that with one of the highest appointments I have to make that I would
depart from that philosophy.
O.
Governor, were you aware that Justice Clark when he was in
the private practice of law in San Luis Obispo County apparently
had a case
1967 case just prior to the time of the
administration where apparently he had a judgment of $236,000 reversed
on him for failure to show due diligence, he served in process, which
apparently he was so criticized by the Court of Appeals?
A.
No, I wasn't aware of any specific of that kind in all
of the cases he hired. I knewhe was a successful lawyer, a well-
thought of lawyer, a highly respected lawyer. I was -- actually
was not very well acquainted with Bill Clark prior to his aming to
work in this administration and it was here that I learned from
personal observation about his integrity and about his ability and
can tell you that there have been few people associated with this
administration who have had a higher, more wide-spread respect than
Bill Clark. I think he's going to turn out to be one of the best
appointments that I made in the judicial field.
O.
Another subject.
A.
Well, if we have, we have got one down here.
Q.
Over here.
A.
Oh, there.
Q.
On your treasury surplus of $850 million, the SB 90
apparently in fmnancing requires $215 million from revenue sharing
and $236 million from budget surplus. If you deduct that it leaves
you $399 million which you could possibly return to the taxpayers.
And if Verne Orr says he might recommend saving a hundred or two
hundred million of that, that leaves you maybe two to three hundred
million that you could possibly return to thet taxpayers. Is that --
VERNE ORR: Governor, the figure he's quoting came from
Alan Post's figures which were published in December, and Alan says
they would have to be updated by the new revenue systems. Alan Post
hasn't done that.
Q.
Which figures?
VERNE ORR:
Alan Post figures that SB 90 takes 250 or
300 million from the surplus.
O.
But it does take some plus revenue sharing?
VERNE ORR: If it does not -- if you come to the briefing
at 11:30 we will try and cover it.
O.
Governor, because of the large state surplus, would you
favor a delay in the enactment of the higher sales tax?
A.
There are a number of alternatives with regard to the one-
time surplus. Let's keep it so there is no confusion, when we talk
numbers. Let's remember that there are two things we are talking.
A tax policy, on-going, the future. And a one-time surplus to be
disposed of. And there are a number of alternatives. That is
obviously
one
of
them. We have not settled on one form as has been
erroneously suggested.
One form of tax rebate is the means of
giving this money back. But we have antask force on taxes that have
been working on a long-range tax program and obviously has taken
this into consideration, this one-time supplus. And we are having
cabinet meetings on this. We recognize there are several ways
that can be -- we have considered all of them and there are several
alternatives that any one of them we think would be just and fair
with regard to returning it. But we haven't made a final decision
yet.
C
Do you think the legislature should make the decision?
A.
That would be included. What's that?
Q.
Do you think the legislature should make the decision?
A.
Well, they have already discussed various ways of not only
spending it but even a few individuals up there have talked about
ways of giving it back. And as I have said, when we finally come down
to the final anternatives, I intend to go andtalk to the legislative
leadership about this. We would -- I want to work with them on
this if we can -- if we can do it in that manner, get it returned.
O.
But you are not --- you are not shutting the door on possible
delaying of imposition of the sales tax?
A.
No, that's one of the alternatives under consideration.
Q.
You have been in favor -- at least you have said you were
going to recommend a reduction in the income tax at one point, have
you not?
A.
Yes, this we have talked of as a on-going way and it is
also one of the alternatives for at least returning part of the
surplus, on a one-time basis. Twice before we have used the income
-4-
tax, as you know,
give one-time rebates of
n per cent and twenty
per cent.
Q.
Governor, doyou see this policy shaping up as some kind of a
package, maybe a delay, maybe a part rebate, maybe part capital outlay?
One-time capital outlay?
A.
I think when you talk about the surplus, I think there is a
certain percentage of it that it would be wise to retain as a capital
reserve. And yes, I myself have suggested that here is our opportunity
for the rebuilding of the capitol to make it earthquake proof.
O.
Another subject.
Q.
One, one more please. Assemblymay Cullen has suggested
that you consider using some of the surplus to redeem bonds that-are
now redeemable which would save a lot of interest money in the long
run, is that one of the things you are considering?
A.
He sent me a letter on that and I have responded already.
We had already looked into whether there would be an advantage on
that, and it develops that that's not as ---- an attractive a possibility
as it might have at first appeared, that a number -- that the amount
of bondsthat we could recall and the amount of interest saved is
not all as great as one might think. Some of those bonds just
can't be recalled and also some of the bonds that can be recalled
are attractive from the standpoint that they are out at a very low
interest rate before inflation set in.
c
Governor, your state support budget becomes public Thursday.
Is it premature now to talk in general terms about how you treat U.C.
in that budget?
A.
No, you'll be having a briefing on the entire budget at
11.30.
O..
That's for later publication.
(Laughter)
A -
But you wouldn't want me to steal Verne's whole routine
there, would you?
Do.
Governor, now that the Watergate 7 is the Watergate 2,
because five have pleaded guilty, had this been known before the
election do you think there might have been any difference?
A.
No, I don't think there's been any particular change there
in that nothing certainly has been established or brought out that
indicates that anyone higher up had any knowledge of this.
In
=5-
fact, one of the mei, as I recall, has stated very frankly that this
was his own. idea, one of the accused. And this is theposition,
I think, that had been taken by people in Washington prior to the
election and it was my own opinion, I said before, that I didn't
believe that anyone of any responsibility in the campaign of the
administration would have been a party to that.
O.
Where would he get $25,000 send tohim in a plain envelope,
as he said?
A.
All I know is that so far in the trial and I don't know
how far I can go in talking about something that's still before the
courts, I don't want to stick my neck out legally --
O.
They pleaded guilty.
A.
But one of them said that he had been employed to find out
what he could with regard to planned demonstrations to disrupt
Republican activities and Republican campaign activities and it was
from there that he proceeded on his own initiative to go beyond the law
and --
Q.
You mean to bug the Democractic headquarters?
A.
Yes.
(Watergate
Attain)
Q.
Governor, supposed he had found some evidence that there
was a planned campaign to disrupt -- disrupt Republican campaign
activity, do you think Senator McGovern should have bore some of the
responsibility for that -- for the decision to implement a campaign
like that?
A.
Well, that would depend on whether the evidence actually
linked him or whether again it was done at some level of the campaign
without his knowledge. Let's say hadthey found some evidence of a
plan to disrupt the Republican campaign the least surprised people
in theworld would have been the Republicans.
Q.
Well, why should it be any different, you know? Why should
the least surprised people be Democrats, that Republicans apparently
were doing the same thing? All I'm trying to say is shouldn't
President Nixon have to assume -- doesn't the buck stop there for the
party activities?
A.
Well, if you are taking -- if you are taking the tact that
when you go up to thetop of the command and then he is responsible
and if something happened that he didn't know about, it still is his
responsibility, that he should have known about it, I think that's
stretching things in a campaign very far. When you have a nationwide
crampaign organization and then you have 50 states with their own
organizations and State Chairman and Regional Chairman to claim
that the candidate canpossibly know what these people in their
enthusiasm may be doing in his behalf, that he would not condone if
he knew about it -- that's asking an awful lot of a candidate.
O.
Governor, if something like this should happen in another
election, do you think the trial should be held before the election?
A.
Well, in this particular instance you found the defendants
were the ones -- how far are you going to go in imposing on their
legal rights? It was the defendants who were asking for and their
lawyers who were asking for the delays. Here -- the very administration
if you say who is theleader and who is the top of something or other,
theman that is President was also a candidate, but it is the Nixon
administration, it is the Justice Department that is prosecuting
(watergate
this case, and it was the defendants that in their protection of
Aftair)
their clients' legal rights their lawyers that were asking for the
delays. And this is common. I don't know of -- in fact, I've
complained about that, if you remember, in my last speech to the
legal profession that this thing of the constant delays and delays
in bringing someone to trial for any kind of lawbreaking has become
SO commonplace that I think it is one of the reasons why our system of
justice has had th e failures it's had.
Q.
Would you have rather seen it held before the election,
the trial?
A.
I don't think it would have made much difference. Wouldn't
have made any difference to me.
O.
ANother subject; Governor, with your opposition to construc-
tion of a new legislative building or capitol, do you think that
will make it tough for you to get funds for a start on the Mansion
this year?
A.
I haven't found --- I was interested in the reaction of the
State of the State Address, to my proposal that the -- or my remark
to the effect that I would hope this capitol would continue to be used
as it is used and there seemed to be quite an enthusiastic response
from the members of the legislature, but I have talked to some of
the legislative leadership about this and to a man they agree that
the problem of a governor's residence is a separate item and they
see no way in the world that it could be tied to or that they would be
a party to tying it to any -- anything to do with capital office
space.
-7-
c.
Does that include Senator Collier?
A.
What?
O.
Does that include Senator Collier?
A.
Now I haven't seen Senator Collier since we came back, I
haven't had any consersations with him.
O.
Would that include Willie Brown?
A.
I haven't discussed that subject with him. I have seen
him, but I haven't discussed that subject with him.
Q.
I'd like to follow up just a little further. Does your --
does your opposition stem basically from -- from the idea of moving the
two chambers or would you also be opposed to having a new --
let's say strictly an office building for legislators? Do you think
that this is something that they should determine?
A.
If there is an actual need for space and there possibly is,
then I think you face that particular problem. Yes, I would --
let's just now put it on the sentimental side. This historic old
capitol, I think, is a thing of pride. I think it is one of the
most distinguished capitols in the nation, the state level, and one of
the most beautiful. And if those chambers can be made safe and
practical as they can apparently, I would hate to see them move out
into some new skyscraper type of building. Now, once you agree to
the reconstruction of the capitol to make it safe, then I think you
review and find what are the office space needs not only of the
legislative branch, but are there some other uses of the capitol
building that might better be in some other building andthen you
also take inventory of the space that is presently available, in
some of our capitol structures, in the whole complex here. But
I think the people feel by and large attached to this capitol. Then
you come to the echnomic problem. The economic problem is that the
cost of making this building as earthquake proof as a building can
be and still continuing to use it comes out at far less than pre-
serving it as a -- just a historical monument plus building an
additional capitol building. The cost -- the cost for just making
it a historical monument is virtually half of what it would cost to
go ahead and make it usable.
O.
Governor, Assemblyman
Lowis
a constitutional
amendment that would protect newsmen from having to reveal confiden-
tial sources to legislative bodies, grand jurors and so forth. The
constitutional amendment is opposed to Assemblyman's bill. Do you
think that's necessary or not?
A.
I don't know, I signed thebill that made it a statute.
I
haven't
:
I
have
talked to Jerry about th
and what he is
proppsing.
Q.
He's concerned that the courts may rule that law unconsti-
tutional and thus wants to head them off by having a constitutional
amendment.
A.
Certainly that would do it. At the moment, of course, we
are having a little trouble with the thing the people voted with
regard to capital punishment, and implementing it. But it is no ques-
tion but a constitutional guarantee -- it doesn't bother me, I made
myself clear I believe in the right of journalists to protect their
sources.
Q.
Governor, on another subject. You believe that skyjacking
that results in a death of someone, that that should be punishable
as first degree murder or mandatory death penalty?
A.
Well, on the whole subject of what should be the mandatory
death penalty, I have stated here before that I think that this is a
subject for experts and for a study by the people in the law enforce-
ment field and in the legal profession. I know that many people
have expressed this belief about skyjacking. As a layman, I would
have to say that this certainly should be studied and I have proposed
that before that study skyjacking and the death penalty because there
is no question but that a man who skyjacks has planned and deliberated
and he has done this with no retard to the threat to the lives of
hundreds of people on an airplane.
O.
Governor, regarding the anti-smog proposal yesterday by
the Federal agency, do you think that's a practical plan or not?
A.
Well, I don't know, but I think Mr. Ruckelshaus' explanation
of it, now that I've heard it, makes a great deal of sense which is
it is time to have these hearings and to find out and let people know
and bring out into the open what -- what the problems are and what
the ramifications are, how far we are willing to go, that we feel is
necessary with regard to eliminating totally pollution and from that
standpoint I think that this is a fine test, a find thing to do, to
bring out and to point out that perhaps some of the -- some of the
political answer to pollution that has been passed, particularly at
the national level, has something of hysteria in it, that it is
possible that they have passed things that absobutely cannot be
implemented and this is what he seeks to prove.
-9-
Q.
What about
to the merits of the prop
al?
A.
Well, we have to get down to my own feeling, as I said the
other day, is that if you got down to whether gasoline rationing would
be an answer to the smog problem, I have a feeling you'd find certain
impracticalities connected with it, particularly in the southern part
of the State.
c.
Governor, there are stories in Washington that Philip Sanchez
is on the way out asthe head of OEO. Had you been in consersation
with anybody in the Nixon administration, have you expressed any
displeasure at his performance or --
A.
No, no.
O.
Governor, back to the subject of the Supreme Court nomina-
tion.
There were reports issued earlier this week that Justice
Clark was not your first selection for the nomination, Was he your
first selection, was he the first individual that you had discussed
seriously?
A.
Now, the only place that I saw that was in Herb Caen's
column, and I know that I stand on terribly thin ice in ever suggest-
ing that Herb Caen was not totally accurate in one of his columns.
But in this instance he was totally inaccurate. Among many
of the names that were suggested for the Supreme Court one of the
first names that was recommended to me by members of the Judiciary
and the leg.al profession by his contemporaries was the name of Bill
Clark. And it was --- it received, I imagine I'd have to say, higher
recommendation than any other name that was proposed. But there
were a number of names and there was never any question in my mind.
No, Bill Clark was my first choice.
Q.
Governor, can WE go back justa moment to the anti-smog
proposal of EPA. You mentioned hysteria and perhaps not feasible.
But it did work in World War II, thirty years ago. And we fought
a war while we did it and people got to work and got things done.
If it worked then, why wouldn't it work now?
A.
Well, it worked at a percentage however that was a little
more than a third of the percentage that they claimed that would be
effective. Gas rationing in the Los Angeles Basin, and I was there
and serving there, with all of the patriotism and the fervor of a war
and the desire of people to help serve and to sacrifice for it, it
is my understanding -- I may be wrong -- but it is my understanding
that the figures were in the thirty per cent range of the reduction
of use of fuel and mileage traveled. But what they are proposing
-10-
now is a rationing th would be effective to th extent of better
than 80 per cent and this is where I have to question that there are
alternative sources of travel or that even the car pool would
result in this.
Q.
Are we to infer from that that the public might not be quite
so patriotic with respect to environment as it was with respect to
fighting a war?
A.
I think that one could believe that. You only have to take
a look at the litter along the highway. You only have to look at the
beer cans in a pleasant bank of a river or creek, to know that
there is not the same self-sacrificing spirit with regard to the environ
ment. Everybody wants to talk about it and I once proposed a law
that no one can complain about smog while throwing Kleenex out an
automobile window. And I don't think I can get the law passed.
But I pointed it out to this, having a place in the country I can
testify to the energy and effort of people who will go to the trouble
of renting a trailer to hitch onto their automobile on a week-end
and come out into the beautiful countryside and then dump an
accumulation of old stoves and mattresses and bed springs and things
of that kind down off the side of the highway in some very beautiful
scenic country and there were a few cheaters, I know, and a few people
who wanted special privilege during the war, but for the most part
people -- everybody had someone in the service, people wanted to help.
So, yes, the evidence indicates that it is easier to talk about
ecology than it is for everybody to do something about it.
Q.
Governor, doean't the extreme nature of his suggestion or
idea kind of contradict the claims of your administration that we
turned the corner on smog in the Los Angeles area?
A.
No, becau se you can't -- you can't deny the figures, the
vqst reduction that has taken place. We are continuing. I think
one of his targets has not been the effort that has been put forth.
I think one of his targets has been acts passed by Congress that just
cannot be met within the time frame and somebody looked awfully good
in getting the bill passed and presenting the bill, but if I understand
it correctly what he's pointing out is that we better face up to some
realities before we come to a 1975, for example, and find that every-
thing grinds to a halt because there is a law that cannot be met.
VOICE: Thank you, Governor.
000
-11-
1/30
PRESS CONFERENCE OF GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
HELD JANUARY 30, 1973
Reported by
Beverly Toms, CSR
(This rough transcript of the Governor's press conference
is furnished to the members of the Capitol Press Corps for their
convenience only. Because of the need to get it to the press corps
as rapidly as possible after the conference, no cerrections are made and
there is no gauranty of absolute accuracy.)
000
GOVERNOR REAGAN:
Well, this morning we have 22 journalism
fellows from Stanford University here with us. You are very welcome.
Let me make this clear, this is not a journalism class as we sometimes
have.
These are fellows -- fellow professionals of yours from all over
the world.
Del ighted to have you here.
O.
Governor, what is your current status of your thinking on
what to do with the surplus?
A.
Well, we are continuing to meet on that. There isn't any
alternative or any suggestion that has been made. It is not a
consideration of ours. One of the things that's causing us to not
come forward with a plan at the moment is the fact that we are trying
to involve this -- if we just treated it separately, the disposition of
the surplus, I'm quite sure we could come in almos immediately with
a decision. But we are trying to relate this to the whole subject
of tax reduction and an on-going tax policy, for which we have
appointed this task force that's been working on this for us. And
that's what's holding us up with having an answer on this subject.
Q.
Do you have a timetable, Governor? Do you have a timetable?
A.
No, no. I
Q.
Governor, Bill Bagley is quoted as saying that there is a
package being put together that would include refund of income tax,
delay of the sales tax and cancellation of bonds. In other words,
a compromise, and he says it is -- implies that it is your program.
A.
Well, no, just as I said, all of these things -- everything
that's been proposed is -- all of these alternatives are being
considered by us, and I suppose where this has come from is yesterday
for example talking in this room to the students who were visiting
here. I said that we are considering not only the alternatives but
we are discussing combinations of them. The -- basically what our
goal is, what we are trying to arrive at, is what is the fairest way
to proportionately return the money on the basis of those who
contributed to the surplus in the first place. There is no --
I don't think there any one of the single way that necessarily
benefits in that manner everyone who contributed. But some
speculation on this, he's correct in that this too is one of the
alternatives that is under discussion.
O.
Governor, you spoke of an on-going tax reduction.
Wouldn't
the only way to meaningfully do that would be to cut state spending?
The budget went up this year.
A.
The budget went up this year, but 73 per cent of the budget
increase was SB 90, the taking over by the state of a tax burden that
is now carried at the local level principably by the homeowners. By
reducing that, by taking on a bigger share ofthe school funding at
the state level, yes, and we said at the time that we are asking it to
pass from the political standpoint you had to face the fact that we
were willingly raising the budget a billion dollars by taking on this --
this burden. We think it is still a good idea and it is fair.
I
hope the people will understand and I think they do, that this it not a
legitimate increase in government spending.
O.
Wouldn't you have to cut state spending to give a permanent
tax reduction?
A.
Well, no, we have accumulated a surplus which means that
our revenues must be coming in at a greater rate than our outgo, and
that state -- that one-time suprlus and the on-going surplus can largely
be attributed to the economies and the cuts that we have already made.
I would call it a dividend on cut, squeeze and trim.
Q.
Governor, on that cut, squeeze -- you came into office in
the role of cut, squeeze and trim Scrooge. You are going out of
office as a bountiful Santa Claus.. How -- you know, what's happened?
A.
Well, what's happened is some journalists I think have gone
off the track and have now recognized the facts. There isn't anything
in the world that has changed in my attitude. I'm just as Scroogey
as I always was about government spending.
a
You are not a Santa Claus after all?
A.
No, and from the very first, for several years, first year
II was here we have tried to get a transfer to statewide taxes of
some -- if not all of the homeowner tax burden, and we finally succeed-
ed with SB 90. It was compromised down from what we first asked for
few years ago. We would have gone even farther if we could have
had our way on this. So I don't see that any policy has changed.
Now, I notice the papers in the east, let me just say about journalists
getting off the track -- papers in the east, particularly that one
of a large city up there that centers on an island just off the Atlantic
Coast, the gray lady of journalism has cited the fact that suddenly
California is back in the lead, where I suppose fairly it always should
be, we are the biggest state in the union, budget-wise, but instead
of being behind New York State our budget is now bigger. Well, I'm
sorry to disappoint them and I don't mean to cast any disparagement on
my colleague, Nelson Rockefeller, but if we compute the California
budget involving the same factors that they put into the budget in
New York, we are still a billion dollars less than the New York
State budget, because they don't give any money back to subsidize
a property tax reduction. They do not include their bond spending in
their budget, they have separate bonding authorities. And we include
it in our budget, and when you subtract the things they do not have the
same formula of revenue sharing that we have with regard to local
government, when you change those factors our budget suddenly comes
down to 7,770,000 dollars, instead of their $8,880,000,000 or our nine
billion two or three.
A.
Governor, your criteria about proportionately cutting --
returning the surplus to the taxpayers that paid it, the suggestions
by Democrats to cut the sales tax or not to increase the sales tax
would not meet that criteria, proportional criteria, would it?
A.
Not if you if you made the entire surplus given back on
that basis. I don't believe that it would. It wouldn't recognize
some people that pay -- that also pay in addition to the sales tax
income taxes, both federal and state, and this is a consideration, too,
because part of that surplus comes from the federal revenue sharing.
Q.
Governor, even if you call the budget 7 billion, that's pretty
near double Pat Brown's last budget. Haven't you doubled -- haven't
you mellowed a little bit on cut, squeeze and trim?
A.
No, we fought just as hard as we can, and one of the reasons
we have a taxk force is the recognition that if an administration that
has held down spending to the extent that we have, that has held back
on this and that has created so many more efficiencies, we don't have
30 or 30,000 more employees as we would have had if we continued the
policy of growth in government we have held even on so many things,
and if we still see this increase in the budget this is a problem
that -- as I say, one of the reasons we called the task force, this
is a problem that is going to require more effort because an adminis-
tration not as dedicated to saving as we have been, the budget would
be far higher than it is now.
O.
Governor, who is on the -- who heads the task force you've been
talking about?
A.
Frank Walton. It is a both -3- in-hour and out-of-house task
force, combination.
O.
Governor, on that, there is another angle on the Santa Claus
bit, what about this increase for the state employees, even your
Finance Director says it is a whale of an increase.
A.
Yeah. Yeah, and two years ago we didn't give them even a
cost-of-living increase. We made them swallow it themselves, but at
the time that we did it we announced thet we were studying and going
forward with a study that was based on inequities that have grown up.
This is not an across-the-board increase. We find certain divisions
of state employees who in comparison to their counterparts not only in
other government, but in the private sector, are way below the
comparative seale. Likewise we find other classes of employees who
are more or less as the Constitution requires equal to their counter-
parts. And what we promised was that we would try to bring about
a correction in these inequities and we did it in two installments.
Now, you had to recognize with these two installments that when we went
the year without even a cost-of-living increase we further widened
that gap. We times got better I think we guaranteed that what
some officials of CSEA were unwilling to believe was true, that our
problems had always been fiscal in this regard, and that we have
always intended and wanted to be vair with regard to our state
employees. I think they are the finest state employees or the
government employees that can be found in any level of government, any
place in the United States, and I've had a pretty good opportunity to
compare. We are doing it in the two installments but we are con-
tinuing the study. We have -- we are actually having outside help
in determining a study even beyond this second installment to make
sure that this did it, and if we on the basis of preliminary studies
went too far in some areas, then through a kind of attrition in the
future we will have to bring that back into line that way.
Q.
Governor, on the surplus, have you reached the point where
you actually decided to include any one factor in this package, or
have you definitely discarded any factor?
A.
No, we have had a lengthy meeting. We have asked for
more information and facts and figures. And in some areas -- and we hav
scheduled more meetings and we are working -- you askedif there was
a timetable, no, there is no timetable, but simply our own pressure
that we want to find an answer to this as quickly as possible.
We
are going forward as fast as we can.
-4-
Q.
Governor, can you confirm however that it is a package
deal that you are working on? If you couldn't return the money in
one way and still meet your criteria of proportional return could -
A.
Well, I have to say that we don't believe so far -- now, re-
member we are continuing the negotiations, we haven't ruled anything
out, but so far we have not been able to put our finger on one way, a
single method of rebate that turned out to be totally fair to all the
contributors.
Q.
Can I change thesubject?
AV
Q.
O.
SQUIRE: Wait.
A.
Somebody here wants to talk money.
O.
Although I realize you haven't agreed on one way, haven't
you -- you are still firm that you want some sort of an income tax
reduction, both the rebate and on-going, didn't you say that just
yesterday?
A.
My own feeling is that, as I say, there are people who
contributed to this suplus by way of other taxes and then those that
contributed in the same taxes plus the income tax, and it:is my feeling
that this should also be included.
O.
So you are pretty firm that that would be a part of your
packaging, would be income tax reduction?
A.
Well, if you will agree that if I can say that while I may
feel firmly that way, I feel that way with an open mind because --
c.
Right, there will be no mention of concretetoday.
(Laughter)
O.
A couple of other questions, about the increase in the size of
your budget over six years, do you happen to know how much of that
is inflation?
VERNE ORR:
No, but I think you'd be fairly save to go
at about five per cent a year for six years, around 30 per cent.
A.
Thirty per cent.
VERNE ORR: That's : off the top of my head.
Q.
And on the question of bonds, I wasn't -- didn't hear your
remarks yesterday, but I read in the newspaper where you said that
you didn't approve of that because that's a future generation should
pay -- in other words, a pay-as-you-go system you are discarding.
A.
You are saying now you are not discarding that entirely
and it could very well be a part of your over-all package, a portion
of it?
A.
Well, the question the other day dealt directly with the
suggestion that the entire surplus be given back in this manner, and
I questioned whether it was right to ask one group of taxpayers
at one time to be totally responsible for some things that are going
to be built in perpetuity for uncountable future generations.
o
Would you also question our placing this tax burden on one,
two and three generations ahead of us and using up all of their
credit? In other words, overextending their credit where we could
do it on a pay-as-you-go basis?
A.
Well, I don't think we are in a position to have to worry at
the moment with regard to bonds about overextension of credit.
O.
No.
A.
I grant you there are people who would pay no attention to
that, but we have worked very diligently and I think the proof that
we have been successful in our work is the fact that Moody's for the
first time in thirty odd years gave us a triple A raging which very
few states, if any, have on our bonds, and we are within our bonding
capacity and have not been foolish.
O.
Governor, let's get all this taxes out of their system.
Q.
Just one other question on your objection to using the pay-
as-you-go.
Doesn't that contradict your position of a Regent where
you approve of the use of U.C. -- University of California tuition money
for capital outlay?
A.
No, as a matter of fact, I voted for thaton a temporary
basis because of the fact that in our budget exigencies of the past
few years there were times when we could not go forward with some
things that needed to go forward with, and I -- I voted for that.
I would not like to see it a permanent basis. Again, I don't think
you should have students paying tuition to build buildings for students
a hundred years from now. I have always thought that tuition should
be exactly what it is in any other school, it should be used to --
for the educational quality and to improve the educational quality
and to maintain it for those students who are paying the tuition,
but I have also insisted with tuition must go a plan that no student
can be denied an education because of inability to meet that tuition
fund, that you must have provision for student loans and aid and so
forth, which we have done.
Q.
Governor, do you think that Collier Towers might be a good
subject for pay-as-you-go?
(Laugheer)
-6-
A.
Just betwee us, I've never thought that Collier Towers
was a good subject for discussion any time.
c.
Governor, just to clarify what you told the high school kids
yesterday, and you are telling us today, do you back off on anything
you told the students yesterday?
A.
No, no, I -- whether it was understood or not, I think you
will find that I tried to explain to them with regard to this
particular question we have been on for so long, that the -- the
complexity of it and that some of the considerations and all of the
things that we were trying to consider to ensure the fairness of this
and evidently to some, including some of our own people I gave an
impression that I might favor something over the others. Just as a
combination. Well, I think I've revealed here that my own Feaning
is that as we study this problem it begins to come down to more than
one way of returning it.
SQUIRE: Any more questions on this taxes? Guy in the back
row there.
A.
No, he's a subject-changer.
SQUIRE: There is another one there.
Q.
I was wondering if the time had arrived where you were
prepared to say what your political plans were for 1974.
A.
No.
Q.
Why not? Are you going to do it this week-end at the
Republican Convention?
A.
No.
O.
Why? What's the delay?
A.
Huh?
O.
What's the reason for delaying?
A.
I'm just a fellow that can't make up my mind.
Q.
That's not characteristic of you.
A.
Thank you. That's the nicest thing any of you have said to
me in a long time. Print that. No, I just --
(Laughter)
A.
I'm -- I realize it is a subject that must come up and be
settled one way or the other very shortly. I haven't WT and I've
just been busy with the things that are going on. And I've -- I
haven't felt that the time was that pressing, you know. The filing
date is not immediately facing me.
O.
Are you being urged to run for a third term by any of your
leaders in the Republican party in California, to change your mind on
-7-
that position?
A.
No, I have had people, as I get out around at public
affairs, I have had people come up and say this to me, and that I
should, but no, there is no such thing as a leadership group in our
party in California who says to somebody, "you do this or you do that."
Q.
Could you be convinced to consider a third term?
A.
What?
Q.
Could you be convinced to consider a third term, Governor?
A.
No.
O.
Absolutely not?
A.
No.
O.
Would you respond to a draft?
A.
We have just eliminated the draft, I've always been for a
volunteer army. No, -- no, I don't, nor do I think there is going
to be any such thing.
Q.
Have you set a deadline for when your decision will be?
A.
No, I have no timetable on that either.
O.
Doesn't have anything to do with the snows or the stars or
anything?
(Laughter)
A.
No, except I think I did say to somebody that it would be
safe to say that you'll probably have the answer before the snows melt
in the Sierra.
O.
That' next spring.
O.
In Mammoth or here?
(Laughter)
A.
Way up high, on the mountains.
Q.
Governor, there continues to be some efforts made on both
sides of the aisle to try to get a reapportionment bill of some kind
through. Do you think there is a chance of that happening or do you
think it would be even worthwhile to Gry to do that?
A.
As far as I know the court took over jurisdiction as of the
end of December. It is in the hands of the court. I am still
opposed to the idea of any gerrymander. I'm opposed, I guess, to
reapportionment on the basis of party affiliation, and I was ld hope
that the court, if it is going to carry forward with this, -- that
the court would reapportion on a basis of population and the contiguity
of communities, and interests of communities that would give them a
basis for having a representative at the state level and with no
registration.
Q.
Do you thin. the legislature is the bes body for reappor-
tionment itself or should there be someone else?
A.
No, I have always felt that there is a built-inlconflict of
interest with regard to the legislature. There can't help but be, and
I don't blame them for it. And to -- there might be a cure if there
were laid down specific sonstitutional considerations, that -- and
those and only those could be involved in the arriving at district
lines. And then the legislature could go forward with that. But
it is asking an awful lot of an encumbent, for example, to -- even if
fairness dictates it to the people, asking an encumbent to vote his
district out of existence. And perhaps we should find a better way
of doing it.
Q.
Would you prefer guidelines or do you think some other body
:should be responsible for reapportionment?
A.
I can't -- I couldn't say that I've given it that much thought
to know, but I just -- as I say, I just think we have got to come to
an end of this every ten years cutting up the state like a melon to suit
whoever happens to be in power at the moment.
Q.
Do you also feel the governor then should have no say in it
either?
A.
Well, if there is -- if there is a formula set up where
someone outside the legislature does it, fine. If you are going to
go by way of the legislative process, then the governor has got to be
involved.
O.
Governor, do you plan to send a statement of support in any way
(Clark)
when your Supreme C ourt appointment comes up -- in a hearing for your
appointment to the Supreme Court, or plan to go yourself?
A.
No, I think the very fact that I have appointed him is -- my
statement of support, and if any such thing is called for I think it
would be redundant. I think everyone knows my position that's
involved in this. Certainly the commission must know it or they
wouldn't bavebbeempappointed.
Q.
Governor, on the subject of the state hospitals, Senator
Biddle says the administration seems to be changing its attitude about
how fast it wants to close some of them. Specifically Patton State
Hospital, and may want to leave it open for a number of years more.
Is that correct?
A.
Well, I think this again is a subject that should be taken
up with Secretary Brian, Earl Brian. But I think that very
shortly we will be presenting a plan. He will be presenting a plan
of
this constant specu¹ tion and rumor and fear that goes on about closing
of individual hospitalsand so forth. But a long range plan in the
entire field of mental hygiene and such a plan is in the works, will
be presented and it will be premature for me to comment on it now.
Q.
Governor, have you made any inquiry with your Department of
Finance or the Department of C onsumer Affairs as to why bureaucratic
red tape has held up the program to monitor the flow of legitimate
drugs in illicit hands, which you support very --
A.
Yes, as a matter of fact, there is no bureaucratic hangup in
this. This is a program that I asked for, it was my legislation that
I had submitted to the legislature with regard to the tracking of
legitimate drugs to ensure that they do not get into illegitimate
hands, and illegitimate channels, because this has been one of the great
parts of the drug problem, is the actual use of such things as
amphetamines, things of thatkind that were created for a medicinal
purpose and then wind up in the illicit market and is part of the
drug culture. So I asked for the legislation. Now, this is to be
set out -- this must be computerized because you are talking about
millions of transactions and being able to track them. Well, anyone
that's ever been involved with this knows that you don't just instantly
computerize an operation, and actually this process started last July.
And there are many problems inherent in it, we are going forward as fast
as we can with it. We still have some of the computerizing in other
areas of the state government that we started in the first year we
were here, and they are sti 11 not completed. It is a tremendous
und ertaking and for anyone to suggest that we are footdragging on our
own program is a little silly.
Q.
Well, is the one year past the deadline in your own legisla-
tion footdragging, Governor?
A.
No, not when it involved the computerization of this entire --
this entire task.
Q.
You say the program is operational now?
A.
No, I can't say that, no. It is still in the process of
making this computerized operation. I can say it means the tracking
of millions of transactions throughout the whole United States.
Q.
Is it possible that part of the delay is because of questions
being asked by the pharmaceutical companies themselves about techniques
not used to follow these drugs?
A.
I don't know what part they would play in that at all. or
what their participation -- I don't know enough about the computerizing
that goes forward to know how much information you must have from
them. I'm sure you ...ust have some, that's where the -- that's where
the drugs start out in the first place.
Q.
But do you know whether -- if they are cooperating at all?
A.
I'm sure they are, I've had no complaints that they aren't.
There's been no evidence that they aren't.
Q.
Would you say that the fact that it isn't fully operational
one year after the deadline, that that kind of delay is justifiable
in your mind?
A.
Yes, I would say that there is no physical way to get around
it.
If Senator Moscone wasn't running for Governor I doubt if the
subject would ever have come up.
O.
Governor, do you think the Vietnam war was war it for this
country?
A.
Well, I think you can ask that about any war that's ever
been fought. Always afterwards you can look back and find a way in
which the war could have been avoided. For example, this war could have
been avoided if the North Vietnamese had stayed home and hadn't tried
to conquer South Vietnam. There didn't have to be a single shot
fired.
And now we go back 19 years to 1954, in the Geneva Accords,
and the country that didh't obey them was North Vietnam, not South
Vietnam, because South Vietnam and the United States never signed the
Accords. And the reason they never signed them was because the
North Vietnamese refused to agree to international supervision of
elections.
Q.
But do you think it was worth it for this country to fight
the war?
A.
I think the war was badly fought for many years. The
question that will have to be answered, wheribsomeone knows all of the
information, and obviously none of us do, that was available to Presi-
dent Kennedy when he sent the first combat troops in against a great
deal of advice, and certainly centrary to the policy that had been pursus
by the Eisenhower administration before him, I don't know how to
judge that action because, as I say, we don't have the facts. Once
in it was a constant case of escalating. Today there are indications
and there have been testimony before Congressional committees that
indicate that the military said from the very first that once them
embarked on that trail it would have to go up to in excess of a half
a million people if they were to complete the job. My greatest
criticism down through the years of the war was that under two
administrations they apparently were unwibling to win it and unable to
-11-
end it. And I chall nge and question the right of any gobernment
to ask men to fight for their country and die for their country if
that country isn't willing and doesn't believe in the cause enough
to go forward and end the war by terminating, by winning it. And
whether -- no, there is -- I think there is a great useless sacfifice
at any time. We can go back in World War II to 1938 when President
Roosevelt asked for a quarantine of Nazi Germany, a sealing of the
borders, the ending of all communication and trade across thos e
borders. If somebody listened to him then we might not have had
World War II. We do have wars and unfortunately it doesn't take
two to start a war, itonly takes one aggressor who is willing to make
slaves of other people and CIO sses a border with the guns going off.
O.
Another subject.
A.
Yes.
O.
Currently there are two no-fault automobile insurance bills,
and attthe time they do not require mandatory immediate reduction
of premiums. Would you support a bill that did not do that?
A.
Well, we are watching those bills, and you know my reluctance
to comment on legislation before it gets down -- watching those and
we understand there are a number of amendments that the bar wants to
also introduce to those bills, and we are closely monitoring those.
My own approach is one in which there -- no-fault insurance should
be based on an advantage to the consumer.
Q.
Would you like to see a direct reduction of premiums?
A.
Well, I would hope that that -- although I don't know that
that would -- could be the only advantage, but whatever -- the bill
must improve the situation for the wolder of the insurance policy.
That's who we are seeking to benefit and I would think that a major
factor in there would be consideration of a lower cost for insurance.
Q.
Your Department of Consumer Affairs suggest they world and
your Insurance Commissioner said they would like to see a direct ten
to fifteen per cent reduction in premiums.
A.
Now, those figures that you are putting down are figures
that you thought of. I wouldn't have the information or the knowledge
"to name a figure.
Q.
Any more questions?
0.
Yes, just one follow-up question. With regard to the Clark
nomination, do you have any indication that the State Bar will render
a report to you prior to the action of the commission on Judicial
-12-
Appointments in San F. cisco?
A.
I don't know whether I'm on the list or not. It is my
understanding that whatever report they are going to issue is going
to be confidential and is going to be to the members of the commission.
I wouldn't see any necessity to render one to me unless they thought'
in some way that there was some information that they needed from me
or some reference from me. But it is to be confidential.
O.
What would happen in the event that the commission should
turn down the Clark nomination, would you press the matter further
or would you pick another nomination or have you crossed that bridge
yet?
A.
No, I haven't even anticipated crossing that bridge. One
possibility is if I can find a way for the administration to secede
from California.
O.
Governor, forgive me, I just have one followeup question on
Cillinit downo)
this. Realizing the real difficulties in developing a computer
program, that is the reason for the delay, but were you aware that they
didn't begin development work on the computer program for six months
beyond the deadline because your administration refused to accept
federal funds for the program?
A.
No, and I don't believe that that's true.
VOICE: That's not correct.
A.
I don't know of anything.
:
It is a $119,000 grant from the C.C.C.J.
VOICE: Mr. Turner from our office is in the back of the
room. If he wants to contact him and get the information later.
SQUIRE: Thank you, Governor.
000
-13-
PRESS CONFERENCE OF GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
HELD FEBRUARY 13, 1973
Reporter by
Beverly Toms, CSR
(This rough transcript of the Governor's press conference
is furnished to the members of the Capitol press corps for their
convenience only. Because of the need to get it to the press as
rapidly as possible after the conference, nocorrections are made
and there is no guaranty of absolute accumacy.)
o00
GOVERNOR REAGAN: We have visitors again today.
Richard Reinharts of the University of California Journalism class
from Berkeley. 17 of them, I understand the number, are here with
us. So I'm sure that you will all carry on in your customary manner
and show them the integrity and responsibility of the working press
so that they will be inspired to go forth and do likewise.
O.
Governor, one quick question on the tax program.
who
in the Finance Department is thebest man to talk to for technical
information?
ED MEESE: Verne Orr.
A.
Verne Orr, yes.
Q.
Governor, how would you have felt aming into office with
an income tax limitation or locked in the Constitution?
A.
Well, it is not necessarily income tax limitation,
O.
Well, it can't be raised without a vote of the people.
A.
No, no, within the framekwork of the over-all limitation
on the percentage of revenues the legislature has the full power to
change the tax structure by their votes, raise one, lower another,
All that the permanent plan is asking is that over a 15-year period
we come down to a limitation on the percentage of the total gross
income of the people of California. That we simply say government,
state government cannot take above this certain percentage.
Now, this is an idea that is, I think, far more widespread
than just California. We happen to be the first ones that have moved
but there is coming a in economic circles to be a recognition that
today with the total tax burden at 34 and 84/100 cents out of every
dollar earned in the United States, and with the fact that the -- the
growth rate or the increase rate indicates that within a very few
years we are going to pass the 50 per cent mark, most economists have
-1-
come to the conclus' that this is an economic raq, that we cannot
lick inflation and we can -- and we are headed for disaster unless
we reduce the percentage of the people's income that government is
ccsting. And we have sought to do whis without any serious disruption
over a 15-year period on a gradual reduction down to a percentage
(tax)
that would never fall below at any time thism] imitation will
never fall below the present per capita tax burden dollarwise in
constant dollars if - as it stands now we believe that the two
lines, the line of -- of decreasing at one tenth of one percent a year
for 15 years is above the line of constant dollars based on the '67
dollar which was 300 the per capita burden was $360 in California,
that -- for state government. That if we stay at this, letting
this 360 go to whatever figure it has to go to, to equal inflation
which is the meaning of constant dollars, and I know that many people
can get confused by that - so that the burden never falls below
that, we find that actually at that 7. == 7.15 per cent limit that
we have projected 15 years ahead, we are still above the constant
dollar. If at that point they wanted to take alook and keep on
going to get to the constant dollar thing, it might even be as low
as five or six per cent.
O.
Yeah, but, Governor, would you have done -- taken all the
remedial measures that you claim to have taken had this stricture
been on you when you came into office?
A.
The thing that we would have faced was this, that I
inherited some spending strictures that had been imposed by a
previous administration:in the last few months of the previous admini-
stration they implemented the Medi-Cal program. This
program
itself, they only had a few months of operation, we were the ones
that discovered that it had been vastly underrated as to cost,
that their estimates of what it was going to cost didn't begin to
touch the program. We announced that within six months, I think, of
being in office or less, and started right then trying to wrestle with
that problem. Now, if they had imposed a revenue stricture on us
and then passed a program that went far beyond that limit, of course
we would have had a problem, but we have met that emergency in this
present proposal. That any time there is a spending measure or a
service of government that -- that they want to propose, that the
people by their vote can lift the income ceiling on the basis of -
that they would rather have that service than the money.
O.
Governor, a number of democrats haven't been too receptive
to your plan and one of them, John Burton, says that they are going
to kill it. Will you comment on that, first, and secondly the
Democrats also said they may offer an alternative plan. Would you
be amenable to any changes in yours?
A.
Well, I'd like to seewhat - what the changes are proposed
with regard to John Burton and some of the others who have commented.
I think it would be very interesting if they would bring their open
minds to the briefings that we intend to hold for them since they
made their comments with no briefings on the plan. We will be happy
to tell them and we intend to tell them all about it and they can
make any of their objections or their questions known at the time.
I think that some of the proposals that Assemblyman Burton suggested
about an alternative plan smacked of the same kind of demagoguery
that has led to the economic mythology that is so prevalent today.
For example, most of what he was proposing were efforts to get more
revenue from the people, not less. So he centered on, of course,
we will close the oil depletion allowance, and this is going to be
the magic word that makes everything happen well in California.
Well, if you totally wiped out the oil depletion allowance you
get about 22 million dollars and this -- I don't know just exactly
what this is supposed to solve or to cure. You also put out of
business not the major companies but you put out of business a number
of marginal independent small operators in California. You wipe out
a certain amount of employment in doing it and the 22 million dollars
that you get by closing the oil depletion allowance will be made up
by the increased price you will pay for gas and oil at the oil
stations because it has to be passed on to the people. So it is
again, as I say -- it is pure demagoguery and it is economic nonsense
and there is no other way to portray it. We are talking about
trying to get a handle on and reduce the 43.84 cents that the people
of California are paying now, and which in 15 years will be 54.56
cents unless something is done.
O.
Actually, Governor, wouldn't your plan allow the legislature
if it chose within the confines of the constraints you propose --
wouldn't it allow the legislature to close loopholes if it wanted to?
A.
That's right, all of this is provided for. It has been
left to the legislative process. It has been left to the legislative
process as to how they will reduce the tax burden to meet the one-
tenth of one percent. Actually I think the 10 per cent income tax
reduction that we have proposed will go a long way toward -- in
the first year, at least, possibly longer, in meeting that one
per cent cut.
O.
Governor, did you discuss this with President Nixon
yesterday?
A.
No, he made a remark that he was aware of the fact that
we were proposing giving some 850 million dollars back to the people
and he asked if we had any for him and I told him that in arriving
at the surplus we had to save the federal government about 350
million dollars a year in welfare and Medicaid costs or we wouldn't
have had that surplus in California.
O.
Governor, your schedule calls for you to make a number of
stops across the state in talking with various organizations and
press groups about this plan, yet you have yet to meet with the
Democrats in the legislature.
A.
oh, no, we have met with the leadership of the Democrats.
We met last week with them. We had a briefing first with our own
legislative leadership which I thought was a courtesy to them and
the caucus and the following one was with the Democratic leadership.
We have met with them, we intend now to continue having briefings
for all of the legislature, for committee members, and so forth,
and the briefings that I'm going to do we have done on a number of
occasions with a number of programs all the way back to '67.
We
are going to one, two, three, four points in the State. We have
invited in all of the editorial beards of all the communication
media in those four areas to have at us with a complete background
briefing and all thequestions they want to ask.
O.
Are you going to be willing to take suggestions or make
changes in your proposal to use up the surplus?
A.
Well, so far none came. In all of the briefings we went
in and we told them -- after all of our hours of study, that this
was the best proposal that we felt was the fairest, but we - we
solicited this, we said any input Terms welwelcome any input that anyone
may have. So far there have been no specific suggestions to us.
Q.
Would you be willing to change your mind on some of these
items or compromise?
A.
I would think in this one area that we would be certainly
happy to look at anything that we might not have considered that
might improve or make more fair, if possible, the redistribution
of that money.
c
Governor Reagan, if you must take your bill to the people
and the Democrats have said they will take another bill to the people,
-4-
are you perfectly satisfied with letting the people decide between
the two of them?
A.
Sure. All I have asked of the legislature now, with the
exception of the things that simply call for legislative action
and the constitutional amendment, it has to go to the people and all
I've said to the legislature, I don't ask for their approval
or disapproval, do what I have done a number of times in signing
theirs, the legislature put several measures on the ballot --
Gray
PAUL BECK: Seven.
GOVERNOR
REAGAN:
- and I have signed those even though
I disagreed with many of them, but signed them on the basis that I
agreed with the right of the people to make the decision.
O.
Governor, how long are you willing to wait for the legisla-
ture to act on this program before you make up your mind that you
are going to go to the people directly and put it on the ballot?
Are you going to wait for two years? This is a two year session.
A.
No, I'm not going to wait any two years in a two-year
session. I think that as long as it looks like the legislature
is honestly dealing with this problem, and ready to make a decision
on it, I'll wait for them. If, on the other hand, they start
loving it to death and making constant public utterances that they
are in favor of similar tax reform, they just disagree with the
provisions of this one, and it goes on that they never come up
with anything on the other side, then I don't think I'll have any
alternative. Actually, I don't think it would be a case of me
having to go to the people, I think the people will come to them,
just as they did on welfare.
O.
In the briefing for the press the other day wasn't the
month of October and November mentioned -- mentioned as the time
it would be put on the ballot?
A.
Thiswas an estimate that we believed -- if the legislature
will act on this we believe that the election could be held next
September. If we didn't, I said that I felt that we would know
by that time that it was going to have to be a people's initiative
and that would delay it until a November election.
O.
Governor, where -- how would you go about getting signatures
for a thing like this?
A.
Well, I think there are -- by that time the familiarity
with the program that we are going to try to achieve, I think that
-5-
there are enough groups that are going to be interested in this
who for a long time have been seeking some kind of tax reduction
that they will take over -- they will take care of that.
O.
How would you pay for the gathering of the signatures,
would you do it on your own? Where would the money come from?
A.
No, you'd have to get enough people in the public who are
interested in raising the money and going forward with the effort
and circulating the petitions to do this. Actually the capital
punishment amendment didn't take any money, the people just did it
on their own.
Q.
New subject.
A.
New subject.
O.
Or are you -
Q.
Governor, I was just wondering, with the high preponderance.
of the large number of POW's being from California, I was wondering
if you were going to take any specific action or had any plans in
mind relating to the return of POW's to the United States.
A.
We have a liaison right now with the federal government on
this. Anything that can be done, we of course have been quite in
the lead already on Vietnam veteran employment programs and so forth,
and we are working closely with them for anything that will
coordinate and anything that they can point out that we can do in
this regard.
O.
Governor, the California Trial Lawgers Association has
issued a resolution calling your appointment of Justice Clark
indefensible, and stating that it has created widespread opposition.
There is widespread opposition to this appointment in the highest
of circles, what is your reaction on that, it calls upon you to with-
draw it.
A.
Well, I have to differ with the idea of how widespread is
the opposition because we have quite the contrary reaction, And
I'm quite sure that if they will look into Justice Clark's record,
as much as and as thoroughly as we have and the others who have been
connected with it, they will agree with a great many distinguished
lawyers in the State who will find that it is totally defensible
and that he has a record that justifies this appointment. I just
don't believe that they are aware of that as yet.
O.
Can you name such a distinguished lawyer who has endorsed
this appointment?
-6-
A.
Oh, for heaven's sakes, they are in the scores and scores.
As a matter of fact you will know the answer to that, I think, on
March 2. You will see a great many people present at the open
hearing who will be testifying.
O.
But offhand you can't think of a one?
ED MEESE: I think there are a lot of them, but --
A.
Yes, a great many and I think for me to just fish out a
name
O.
Can you issue any kind of a list?
A.
What?
Q.
Can you issue any kind of a list since you -- since you keep
mentioning this and you don't give any specific names.
A.
You are questioning my word?
O.
No, but -- if you keep mentioning it, why not back it up.
A.
Well, a great many of them, I think there have been public
statements that some have been printed, some have appeared of
jurists who have expressed their approval of him. I don't think
this is any great secret. And my personal correspondence contain
many others. I can think of names, I know of names. I've always
been a little hesitant about my repeating what someone else has
said to me without going to them and saying, "Do you mind if I make
public the fact that you have said this to m."
ED MEESE: I suggest, Governor, if there are any
additional names that are not included in the 2nd of March hearing
we can then talk about making that available.
GOVERNOR REAGAN: All right.
O.
Governor, do you have any suspicion that Chief Justice
Wright might be opposing Bill Clark?
A.
No, no, I haven't at all. As a matter of fact Chief
Justice Clark is a member of the three-man panel that approved him
unanimously for his appointment to the Appellate court.
ED MEESE: Chief Justice Wright.
A.
or Chief Justice Wright, that wasn't a Freudian slip.
O.
Governor, much has been made of the fact that Clark hasn't
had his opinions or decisions reversed, butisn't that because the
Appellate process is so slow that he's been on there too shore a
time to have any reversed?
A.
oh, no, he's -- as a matter of fact, one of the - one of
-7-
pluses on his side, 8 certainly as a Superior urt Justice
and I would think it would be true in that other position here, was
that he was able to speed up at least in his own court the process
and not have as big a backlog as seems to be the average throughout
the state.
O.
Another subject.
A.
All right.
O.
Governor, are you familiar with the hospital and nursing
home program that Dr. Brian and Bielenson laid out here about a half
an hour or so ago?
A.
Well, I know the general idea. I think if you get too
specific I'd have to refer you to ---
O.
Well, the program contains a provision for price control,
to set up a state agency to control prices in hospitals and nursing
homes, to control rate inc reases in hospitals add nursing homes and
my question is, would it be better -- do you believe that the state
should do this or do you believe that the market should regulate
prices?
A.
Well, this is -- this is presently the situation. We
are not proposing any new price control that does not already exist
in this field. What we are proposing is that the federal government,
which has an economic stabilization board controlling this now, that
it properly should be at the state level.
Q.
But the President -- hasn't the President just disbanded it
in effect in Phase 3, so that these price controls are --
A.
I think this is one of the areas where it has not been
ED MEESE: Health Industry Board was continued.
O.
Governor, on another subject. Have you been given any
estimate at all as to what effect the federal government cutbacks
are going to have on higher education in California in terms of the
University and so on?
A.
No, as a matter of fact, all of these plans and what
they are doing, we don't have details and specific information on
this. We are trying to keep abreast of it. I think there is
still some uncertainty in Washington of what is going to be done.
Q.
Are youconcerned about the possibility that this could
have rather a serious effect on the revenues that the University
and State Universities have to get?
A.
Well, you always have to be concerned and it would be a
-8-
problem. On the other hand, I have taken the pos ion that
with the administration in Washington trying to do thevery thing
that we believe in and that we have tried to do here statewide, I
certainly would not be one who wanted to say make whatever cuts you
want to make but make them in some place other than California.
I think if we are actually going to reverse this big spending trend
and start trimming fat as we must, if we are to avoid a catastrophe,
an economic catastrophe, I think that all of us have got to put in
our share.
Q.
Another subject. You said in your last news conference
that you thought that reappoitionment was now in the hands of the
State Supreme Court. Does that automatically mean you would veto
any reapportionment bill that came to you no matter how favorable
it would be to Republicans?
A.
No, I was simply explaining that as far as I know the
Court had not rescinded from its position of saying that if it had
not been done in the last session it was in their hands, and they
were going to take it over, Actually, with all of these last several
days concentrating on the tax preggam, I have not had an opportunity
for a briefing with the legislative leadership as to what is going
on with regard to reapportionment. I am expecting a -- such
meetings and to find out what is going on. But, no, I -- you know,
I don't comment in advance whether I would or not veto.
Q.
Are you aware of any major erosion in the Assembly in
support of the Democratic reapportionment plan?
A.
Only what I've read in the papers.
O.
Does that concern you?
A.
What?
O.
Are you worried about it?
A.
Well, I'd be concerned anyway. I still -- I subscribe
on
to one belief and one only,/reapportionment, the first requirement
must be fairness to all the people.
Q.
Governor, would you like to backtrack to the POW's for a
second.
Would you sign Assemblyman Karabian's bill exempting these
prisoners from tax while they were --
A.
As quickly as he could get it to my desk.
2.
Governor, Senator Harmer said several weeks ago in
reapportionment he had talked with you and had gotten an absolute
commitment from you that you would look at the Senate Bill with an
open mind.
Didyou makethis commitment?
A.
oh, certainly. Heavens, contrary to what maybe some of
the people in the back of the room bel ieve, I look at everything with
an open mind before I vote no,
(Laughter)
A.
No, the last line was a bad joke, I didn't mean thqt.
No,
sure I made that commitment, very willingly.
Q.
You aid in your briefings with the legislators on the ---
your plans for giving back the surplus to the people that no one had
come up with any other proposal other than the onessyou have put out.
Did no one support Alan Post's recommendation that we spend the
money on construction projects instead of issuing bonds?
A.
No, no one has as yet. We told them in the briefing that
we had taken that one as well as all the others and had examined
that one thoroughly, and came to our own belief that this was --
this was not a fair way to do it. To suddenly take a group of
taxpayers who had made possible this great surplus and then make
them pay for almost a billion dollars worth of projects that would
be created in perpetuity over for dozens and dozens of future
generations to enjoy. That's the principal behind bonding, to
spread the cost of these long-time benefits over all the people.
O.
Governor, many of unforeseen and undesirable problems
caused by SB 90 are now coming to light and Finance people have some
people working on resolving some of those problems. Doesn't that
fact concern -- wouldn't that make one a little slower on these
proposals, to put a lid on state spending or state taxes powers?
A.
Well, I think what you are talking about with SB 90, yes.
Like any big and major complicated piece of legislation that did a
lot of things such as transferring hundreds of millions of dollars
of local costs to state costs, imposing then a limit on the local
costs so that the people wouldn't be just simply having a tax
increase. Yes, you find bugs in a program of that kind, and our
people are working with the lgislature upstairs. These are mostly
technical problems that are being eliminated. We have had a task
force working, as I said before -- we have had many hours of our
own on this whole program of the supposed limitation or it is a
limitation but I think it is being misinterpreted by many. Most
people think that what we are going to do is start here at a point
and state revenues are going to do this. They are not. They are
going to continue increasing. All we have done is flatten out a
-10-
little the rate of increase, so that it does not come on a converging
path with the people's earnings. Presently if you go far enough
into the future and you don't have to go too far, these two lines
are going to cross, the people's earnings and the cost of government.
And what we are saying is some place someone has to meet that
problem and you'd better meet it before we are already up there
within ten per cent of that. So we are meeting it here and all
we are doing -- there will continue to be increase inthe state's
revenues. It will not be increasing as fast as the people's income.
So that as the people grow more prosperous they will be getting a
bigger shareof their own earnings or keeping a bigger share than
they are presently keeping. And I've often thought maybe we did the
wrong thing, maybe before we talked about this being a program of
tax reduction maybe I should have stood up here in front of you and
said we have been projecting forward what we think should be the
costs of government, and we now are projecting forward doubling the
present budget in the next ten years, tripling it in the next 15
years, and see how many of you would go screaming out of here of how
extravagant old Scrooge had suddenly become. Because under this
so-called limitation the state will be able to have a budget if it
uses all the revenues available to it, of 18 and a half billion
dollars in ten years. And a budget of over 27 billion dollars in
15 years. And I think that if the future governments or administra-
tions and legislatures of California can not keep their spending
within that limit, then we might as well throw up our hands.
O.
Yes, but my question was, when you -- wouldn't it be wiser
to wait and see what thelong-range effect of SB 90 is on local
government before you start applying that principle to state govern-
ment?
A.
Well, I think it is pretty apparent what the long-range
thing is. Actually, we haven't made that much of a dent. They
are still -- before SB 90 local government was getting about six
and a half billion dollars of its revenue from the property tax.
Now we have rolled back that -- that back slightly in the area of
the school tax but the bulk of other government -- local government
expenses are still dependent on the property tax. And it
just
hasn't been that much of a major change.
-11-
Q.
Governor, sn't this a problem, though
that should be
resolved by future legislatures and fugure governors rather than
locking them into a constitutional amendment? Under the whole
process of government under which we operate shouldn't they have
this flexibility to determine what they want to do?
A.
Except that you have to face past history. As I said
before, and in our briefings, you know that no administration
that you can recall has worked harder and had more of a policy of
trying to reduce the cost of government, and we have found there are
irresistible pressures. We have reduced where we have actually had
control of departments administratively -- we have reduced them.
But that's the smallest part of our budget. Two-thirds of our
budget we are giving back to local government. But past history,
the fact that 1930 government's federal, state and local were only
taking 15 cents out of the dollar; the fact that 20 years later
they were taking 30 cents; the fact that today they are taking 43.8
cents and that in 15 years they are going to be taking almost 55 cents
out of thedollar indicates that something different mus t be done
if we are to preserve this economic system and the people be
allowed to provide for themselves and their own livelihcod.
Q.
Isn't there something different that ought to be done, is
to elect public officials who agree with your philosophy, not locking
public officials in under the constitution?
A.
We are locking them in only to the extent that the people
will have the final decision as to whether this limitation would be
raised and at any time they want to the legislature can submit this
to the people. The legislature has the provision within its hand
to meet any emergency. The people can -- can delay by their vote
the imposition of any decrease in the future. The people can
permanently change the limit. We have also made the provision that
in the event of other changes, for example, a Serrano decision, that
would take from local government a big chunk of expense and transfer
it to the state, we don't say that has to be fitted within the limit.
We say then that adds to the limit over here, but in return the people
must be guaranteed that their own local governments cannot just
suddenly take that as a subsidy and put their taxes right back up
to wherethey were before they were relieved of that expense.
The final authority for this being in the hands of the
people, I don't think is anything contrary to our present system.
As a matter of fact, one of the legislators in the briefing the other
day with the utmost C. sincerity said to me -- We , he said
"with the people voting against bond issues and voting them down,
what makes you think the people would ever vote to increase the tax
limit?" Well, I have a question in response. What makes him
think that if the people knowing what the money is for are absolutely
opposed to spending it and would rather keep it in their own pockets,
then what makes him think that some little group of people up here
in Sacramento should have the authority to impose it on them?
We are not omnipotent up here. We don't have a market on brains
and I don't think that we were sent up here to rule the people's
lives. Now maybe the fault is that in our system some place back
many years ago, both at the federal level and at the state level,
we didn't have a provision that said that any time a legislator
advocates a spending program he must advocate at the same time a
revenue measure to pay for it. But they sit there with no responsi-
bility whatsoever, promise the people a seven billion dollars project
with no way of paying for it and then waiting, hoping that the
onus of paying for it will fall on someone else. And I don't think
there is anything wrong with the - with a major program of this
kond of the people being given the opportunity to decide whether
they want that service at the price and maybe they will. I'm quite
sure there are many programs that right now, if you said to the
people, "We are going to cancel this program and it will save you
this much," the people would say, "We'd rather pay." As a matter
of fact, we did a poll on this a few years ago with regard to the
gasoline tax. We said, "Would you prefer a two per cent -- two
cent cut in the gasoline tax and here is the reduction that would
result in the building of the present highway system, Master Plan
of Highways." And the poll revealed that the people overwhelmingly
preferred to pay the tax and keep on with the present pace of
highway building.
SQUIRE: Any more que stions?
Q.
Governor, isn't one of the reasons that the amount of the
dollar going to taxes has increased up to this amount is that over
these 30 or 40 years we have got unemployment insurance, social
security, Medi-Cal and Medicare and all the rest, and aren't you
saying you want to go back to the days before that?
A.
No, no, we -- ours is based on the present setup with
factored-in fnflation and growth and I think some leeway for new
programs. We are talking about, as I said, a budget that will
that point as to how uch bigger it will become and we are recog-
nizing the fact that a great many of these things that we reached
a pleteau here where we have this one-time surplus and where we have
envisioned an on-going surplus and we think this is the moment at
which this could be done. Now, youcould not have done this back
in 1965 or '66 and then passed Medicare as it was passed on tap of
it without -- without blowing your program. But, again, as we have
said, if somebody comes up in the future with some type of social
reform that we have never even considered, and that no one can envision
now, that the provision is there for the people to buy that if they
want topay the price. Now, if they don't wgnt to pay th e price
it must be a service that the people do not actually believe is
good for them or worth that price.
O.
Would you consider this to be your legacy, your final mark
as being a Governor, ifyou were go get this?
A.
Why, I think that the whole six years of brilliant business
administration of the State of California is the legacy.
O.
Any more questions?
A.
No, I think --
Q.
This is the most important thing you ever did, if this
h appens?
Would you consider that to be --
A.
I never thought of it that way. I've thought of it as
absolutely necessary and necessary on a wider basis than just
California. As I have told you before, a leading economist ---
the men we consulted in the country have recognized that we
cannot continue the upward rise in the percentage of the people's
earnings. Government, yes, is going to increase in cost due to
growth in the economy, due to inflation. Due to growth, numbers
of people and so forth.
O.
Governor, let me ask, do you think that this could be
extended to the federal government, too, that this would work on a
federal scale?
A.
Yes, I do. Yes, I do.
SQUIRE: Back over there.
O.
I was wondering if you could tell me whether your projections
of state tax revenues are made on the basis of present population
growth within the state?
A.
We have factored in a percentage of growth that is about -
on an average of about two per cent growth and we have factored
in an inflation rate also into these projections. Now, again, this
-14-
is why the emergency I ovisions are in there, be se obviously
your projections can go awry. But on the same time, we look back
through history at the economic processes we have. The people
that are used throughout the state to give us our estimates of
economic growth and state revenues, and we find that their percentage
of error is down so minor that it is -- it is almost unbelievable.
The highest error that has ever been -- that has been made in the
years that we went back and looked was, Ithink, a 2.9 per cent error
but -- that was exceptional and most of the time -- and that 2.9 per
cent error was in our favor. In other words, the conomists had
underestimated revenues. Most of the time it has run six-tenths of
one per cent, eight-tenths of one percent, one percent, one and a half,
this kind of margin of error.
O.
I don 't question your accuracy as well as I might question
the advisability of planning in a set rate of growth for the state
given certain unvironmental curves for planning a population in the
future.
ED MEESE: May I make a suggestion, the whole plan is
based on the State's gross income and that has a factor with popula-
tion. In other words, if we have a great increase inpopulation
obviously --
A.
We have a -- the growth income of the State will go up
and therefore the limit on taxes goes up. If that levels off
naturally that comes down and then our percentage comes down with
it.
O.
Governor, would it be your intention to promote this on
a federal level to try to get --
A.
No, what I'me always felt the position of the state could
be, and we did this with welfare, I came to a conclusion -- I
think perhaps I said it to you at one point in our deliberations on
the welfare reform, that for too many years everyone, including
state governments have kept throwing the ball to Washington and
saying, you know, this is wrong and that's wrong, solve it. And
when you stop to think about the inertie, the effort of trying to
turn around the gigantic bureaucracy of federal government on a
national scheme, national level to try and make them take an
experimental move in something where if the experiment proves wrong
there can be chaos, that perhaps the duty of the states would be
for us to innovate and for us to try reforms and changes and then
the federal government could see whether they worked. And California
is peculiarly fitted 0 do this. We are a micr osm, we are
literelly a nation in ourselves here. We have everything that you
have at the national level, in every kind of spread. Economicwise,
populationwise, diversity, whatever. Now, we made the welfare
reform work, and they are beginning to spread. Suddenly in
Washington there is talking now of Washington doing its best to
implement on a wider basis the type of things that have succeeded
here. My belief is if California tries this, if in a few years
you found for some reason or other you had to cancel it, this is
not great -- go great chaos or national situation has developed or
economic crisis, but if it does work the federal government could
take a look at it and say, "Why can't it be the solumion to the
problem there." Right now we see the President trying to enforce
a spending limit, trying to reduce the size and the centralization
of authority in Washington. Well, we may have found a pattern.
We did not dream this up in our own minds. As you know, you have
the list of the economists, some of the most brilliant, scholastic
economists in the country. One from Berkeley and one from U.C.L.A.,
from Virginia Polytech, from the University of Chicago, from all
over the country were in on this idea. This was their proposal,
their idea, and their plan, and their belief that it is absolutely
necessary, nationally.
O.
You said you talked to the President, what was his reaction
to your proposal for California?
A.
I did not go into detail with him on all of this, on this
plan.
SQUIRE: Thank you, Governor,.
o00
-16-
3/13
PRESS ONFERENCE OF GOVERNOR RONA, REAGAN
HELD MARCH 13, 1973
Reported by: Governor's Press Office (RAS)
(This rough transcript of the Governor's press conference is furnished
to the members of the Capitol Press Corps for their convenience only.
Because of the need to get it to the press as rapidly as possible
after the conference, no corrections are made and there is no guaranty
of absolute accuracy.)
-0-
GOVERNOR REAGAN read Press Release #137 dated March 13, 1973.
8
Governor, does this mean you'll run for President?
A
This means I have made a decision as to what I will not run for
in 1974, and what I'm going to do beyond 1974, there's no change in
the answers that I've given you in the past.
8
Does that exclude the possibility of running for governor again?
A
I again have made that very clear on a number of occasions to you
that I am not running for governor.
8
Governor, would you elaborate a little more, please, on why you
made this decision, is it because you think Senator Cranston can't be
beaten?
A
No, I think that Senator Cranston can be beaten and should be
beaten if the State of California is to be adequately represented in
Washington. But I've made it very clear here what I feel. We have
several very important, very major projects in these last two years
beginning with the tax limitation program. We have task forces work-
ing the field of law enforcement, in the field of education, and in
the field of the whole governmental structure of California involving
the local levels of government and special districts. I don't see any
way that I can do what has to be done with all of those programs in
these two years, and be constantly facing questions as to whether this
was a part of a political campaign for some other office, or whether
I
or be out campaigning myself. And I prefer to be governor for the
next two years, not a candidate.
8
Have you any thoughts at this point who might be or should be a
candidate?
A
Oh, I think the woods are full of them. You've seen all the
names speculated about them among yourselves, and I'm quite sure an
open primary will make the decision who our candidates are.
Q
Governor, do you see yourself spending a lot of time here in
California over the next two or three years, or do you think you might
go out on what some people call a banquet circuit?
-1-
A
I think the nex two years I'm going to spe an awful lot of
time on these particular programs. I know that I'm going to spend as
much time as it takes up and down the state on this one on tax limita-
tion. But also, I'm going to do what I have done over the last several
years. I recognize, as I've said so often, you have a box office away;
I'm going to try to do what I can for the party nationally. I'm going
to, I'm quite sure, accept some invitations to fundraisers, and
particularly I'm interested in trying to spread this philosophy that
I've talked about
this exploding the economic and political my the
and I shall do that, but not at the cost of neglecting these tasks that
I've outlined for the administration.
8
Governor, Assemblyman Speaker Moretti rejected your proposal rather
out of hand, but President Pro Tem Mills said they would study it care-
fully and painstakingly over the next months. How long are you going
to
to give them/study it, or love this thing to death as someone mentions
it?
A
Well, I think that's going to depend a little bit on them and on
the people. I am sending it up there with the hope that they will
recognize that all we're asking them to do is put this on the ballot
and allow the people to vote on it, one way or the other. Now, I'm
going to start immediately, of course, on explaining to the people and
making sure that the people know because one or the other, it will be
their decision. Now it does call for a constitutional amendment, so
there's going to be no delay in going to the people about this program
in presenting every facet of it to the people so that they 'Il be able
to make the proper decision.
consideration
8
Is there any personal
that went into this decision
such as an unwillingness to serve as junior senator to John Tunney, or
perhaps your wife's recommendations?
A
Uh, no, no, this was the main one. I've expressed myself about
this particular job, and it's importance, and what I feel about it. I
want to do that and I want to do it without any competition from any
other causes during these last two years. I would have to tell, yes,
you asked for a personal consideration
this was one of the lesser
things, because I do accept the idea of responsibility. But I would
have to say that I personally am not attracted by the idea of participat-
ing in a legislative body after having held an executive position of
this kind.
-2-
Q
If you can see that far down the line now, how do you see the two
years after that? What plans do you have then?
A
Well, there's one reason---you'd have to look at the two years
beyond that, and I'm just not looking.
Q
Governor, do you still stand by your statement that you won't
seek a third term as governor?
A
That's right.
2
Governor, regarding your tax limitation plan, Republican Senator
Biddle put out a strong statement against it in which he says, for
instance, that you are choosing. (inaudible) in trying to circumvent
the State Legislature, and if by sad circumstance you should have to
carry out that threat, you will destroy constitutional order in this
state as surely as if you were to lead a non-rebellion.
A
Well, I read that statement, and it was released quite some time
ago and long before the message was sent upstairs, and I'm looking
forward to a conversation one of these days with Craig Biddle, because
if he hasn't changed his mind already, I think when he looks at that
blue book, 1f he 11 look at it, he'll find that what we're doing is
not in any way circumventing the legislature. If it is so, then why
did the legislature send me eleven measures that they wanted put on the
ballot for the people to vote on. There's no way that we're circumvent-
ing the processes at all. One item would go into the constitution call-
ing for a limitation on a percentage basis which I don't think is any
more extreme than the present constitutional limitation which says that
the state cannot have an unbalanced budget. All of the tax structure
of the state would be in the hands of the legislature; they would have
have
all the prerogatives that they/today.
Q
Governor, how would you finance the campaign to get the signa-
tures and that sort of thing?
A
Well, that would have to come from the people
Q
But 500,000 signatures would probably take a lot of money.
A
Well, sometimes it didn't take very many to get capital punish-
ment.
Q
What about the cost of the special election? That's been estimated
at $5 million or so.
A
Well, in the first place, if we call a special election on a
certain date when there are a great many local elections being held.
But for the other part, as I've said, I personally in favor of the state
adhering to SB 90 and funding it.
-3-
Q
You don't think he cost is too much?
A
No, not when we're talking about saving the people of this state
a hundred and eighteen and a half billion dollars over the next 15
years.
Q
Governor, on your announcement as to the Senate race, is this a
decision you had made some time ago, and are announcing today, or had
you just made the decision?
A
My personal feelings were such as I have already given you. But
as I told you before, I did want to try to keep an open mind and hear
all of those who felt that perhaps I should do otherwise, and I have
heard them and I have listened to them, and frankly, with the sending
of that message upstairs yesterday, that more or less crystalized it
in my mind. I realized that that was the most important thing I have
to do.
Q
Didn't you say this whole thing in Washington last week?
A
Not this I didn't say in Washington last week. I said the same
things in Washington last week that I've been saying to you at every
press conference, but in Washington somebody decided to put their own
interpretation into it.
Q
Governor, if you accomplish your goal in the next two years,
wouldn't you say that p6litically speaking that would be a good base
to run for president on in 1976?
A
You'd have to make that judgment.
Q
Yes, but I'm sure you anticipate the Democrats will claim you're
running away from a race with Senator Cranston. How confident are you,
that had you decided to run against the senator, you could have defeated
him? Or are you confident?
A
Well, my only answer to anyone that speculates that I'm running
away from a fight is, you haven't seen me run away from any in the last
six years, have you? As a matter of fact, if there's anything that
would have tempted me, it would have been to take on that fight.
Q
Is it a fight that you could have won?
A
Well, let's just say I'm not running away from it.
Q
Do you think a man 66 can run for the presidency and win?
A
Do you want me to tell you about Stradivarius and what age he was
when he made a violin. I've done that before. No sense in doing it
again.
-4-
Q
You're not going
(inaudible)
for the presidency, are you?
A
I'm not discussing what happens beyond 1974.
Q
Governor, we went through this, you know, a couple of years ago.
What is your particular reason in not discussing 1976 now. Who's
harmed if you do?
A
Because I plain don't know. You fellows all know what you're
going to be doing four years from now?
Q
Governor, to what extent are you going to play kingmaker in 1974?
There's been some talk that Mr. Flournoy, there's been pressure on Mr.
Flournoy to go after the Senate seat rather than the governorship.
Have you talked to Mr. Flournoy about this?
A
I'm not only not going to play kingmaker, but I'm going to oppose
anyone else in our party who tries to do the same thing. I think my
main political function now, as far as the party is concerned, is to
insure that we continue the unity that we have had since 1966 and that
Republicans make up their mind that the people of this party are going
to choose their candidates, and having chosen those candidates, that
we as a party are going to unite behind them, and not go back to the
ways of 58, 62 and 64.
Q
Governor, along that line, would you be opposed, then, to this
reported prospective meeting of some of the heavy Republican financial
backers to try and get a consensus on who they support for governor
in 1974?
A
Well, now that's an interpretation before such a meeting has even
been held. I'm invited to that meeting; I'm going to that meeting, and
I'm going with exactly the same message, and exactly the same idea and
understanding that I've just expressed here
that this is a meeting
that is going to be concerned with mobilizing the power of the party
behind the official organization, which is the State Central Committee,
and then making sure that after a primary, when the candidates have
been selected, that the same people can get together in rooms and go
forward unified in support of the party's candidates.
Q
But you would oppose any attempt to designate a candidate for the
primary at this point?
A
Yes I would.
Q
Will you stay neutral in the governorship primary?
-5-
A
Yes, I think I ve no other choice but to ;ay neutral.
Q
Well, before you wouldn't declare an answer.
A
Well, maybe I was anticipating some of the actions of other
people and maintaining my options.
Q
So you won't back Mr. Reinecke or anyone else in the primary?
A
I think that what I have done in previous elections of staying
neutral is something that is necessary if we're to have the unity that
we should have.
Q
Governor, on another subject please, would you explain how local
communities which claim, and say, that they are losing millions and
millions and millions of dollars because of the freeze in Washington
can make up the monies that they need for ongoing programs which have
already been started and which will now have to be stopped?
A
Well, I think there is a great bit of confusion about what is
taking place in Washington, and I think a lot of them are Chicken Littles
again, running and screaming that the sky is falling. This budget
that the president has introduced calls for an increase of eighteen and
a half billion dollars in spending, and when they start talking about
cuts, what they're really talking about is the same as the University
of California for the last six years has talked about me. They kept
using the term "cutting the budget, If when all I've done is cut requests
for increases. Now the president perhaps is not giving everybody all
the increases they want, but he is giving an increase of eighteen and
a half billion dollars or more in this budget, and he has proposed
different methods of delivering it. And one of them is the very thing
that local government and state government has been asking for for
years. He has increased in all the areas of social welfare and social
reform, education, and everything else
there are increases that he
has advocated and asked for. But he has proposed giving the money in
special revenue sharing in those areas where local and state governments
can administer this money as they've asked to do for years without a
duplication of administrative headquarters in Washington and without
all of the red tape and the strings attached to it. Now, I'm quite
sure that if the Congress, which doesn't look kindly on that sort of
thing says no, that does not mean that that money disappears and that
those same programs are not going to be supported. But I have been
shocked at how far some local administrators and mayors have gone and
how far some of our legislators have gone in trying to frighten the
people into the belief that necessary services are going to be
-6-
A (cont.) eliminateu, The things that have been suggested for elimina-
tion are programs that have been made clear they didn't work in the
first place, and no local government should pick them up. But there
are increases in health, there are increases in education money, there
are increases in welfare money---all of these things are in there with
the proposal by the President that they be administered as special
revenue sharing. And I see no reason in the world for everyone to be
S aying that we don't know what's
there are some things that we don't
know
what's going to happen with regard to specific programs that hasn't
been made clear yet; this is a gigantic undertaking back there. But
I see no reason for panic, and I certainly disagree those people that
have suggested that this is going to interfere with our $850 million
surplus. The surplus is there; the surplus should be given back to
the people, and there's nothing being suggested in Washington that
changes that fact.
Q
Governor, Californians for a long time have been saying that more
money has been going to Washington than has been coming back. How does
that stand now with the elimination of the categorical aid programs and
the substitution of revenue sharing? How does our balance of
A
Well, I think we come out better with revenue sharing. It is
true there are a certain number of states like our own that are con-
sidered the rich states, and we give more money, whether it's for
education, for welfare, for highway building, we give more money to do
these things for the smaller, poorer states than we get back. If
California had, by the number of dollars it pays in, its share of the
highway trust fund, for example, if we weren't helping build highways
in other states, we could really be pouring a lot of concrete.
Q
Governor, specifically, what statements shocked you and by whom?
A
Well, when you're listening to the Mormom Tabernacle Choir, how
do you pick out who sang the sour note? It's been a chorus and some
of my fellow governors on the democratic side, in the governors'
conference in Washington, sat through a two-hour briefing in which
they were assured of all these things I've just said, and right out
singing the same song they had when they came in. There are two or
three things
there's a thing for example the child care centers. But
there again, all of this effort to panic the people, and to panic the
young mothers who have got children in those child care centers. We
knew that in an effort to clean up some very bad regulations, that here
and there, there was a spot that was affected. And we knew it long
before the holler started, and we were in Washington working with the
-7-
A (cont.) HEW official on 1t. This is why we su' ort the legislation
upstairs. We think that they're going to try to correct this in
Washington. If they don't, we will pick it up here. But we also
recognize that some of the regulations that they were trying to correct
should be corrected. Here and there, there may be some flack, something
in a big program of that kind is overlooked or is not touched upon, and
then you pick it up and you take care of it. But there's been no panic
on our part about it. We've known for months that we were not going to
allow those child care centers to close in California. And I get a
little impatient with the people that are ready to terrorize their
fellow citizens and victimize them and use them for partisan political
advantage. And I wish some of the candidates for office in 1974 would
declare a moratorium on their campaigning until a little closer to the
time, instead of getting their names in the papers by yelling on every
one of these subjects.
Q
Governor, how does this raising cries of alarm differ from what
you did with Medi-Cal and welfare when you first took office?
A
I told the facts about welfare and Medi-Cal and what we were
going to try to do to it. And the cries of alarm were the other way.
As a matter of fact, you will recall that one day I had to come into
this room to a press conference and tell you that we had to withdraw
one of the reforms that we were trying
long before the general
reforms
withdraw it because we had discovered we did not have any
means at the state level to prevent some of the professionals who were
opposed to what we were trying to do from victimizing some of the welfare
recipients which they had already done in order to drum up opposition
to our plan. This happened to be with the home care programs, and I
had to come in here and tell you that we were withdrawing the reform
because we could not protect the people that they were victimizing.
Q
Governor, this is one of the few times in history we've had a
runaway inflation and fairly high unemployment at the same time. Now,
the president said this program will cut out jobs, in his cut, squeezing
and trimming, about 14,000 that he mentioned. Is this the time to cut
jobs when the cost of food has become almost prohibitive?
A
Well, now, let me take issue with a couple of the premises upon
which you based your question. Number one, it is not one of the first
times in history we've had runaway inflation; the inflation rate is
less than half what it was when this president took office because the
guns and butter policy of the Johnson administration is what had led
to runaway inflation that was up to like six and seven percent
-8-
A (cont.) Alright, W, that's number one. Nun. er two, coupled with
unemployment. The employment rate is much lower than it has been most
of the time in the last 40 years in peacetime. The only full employment
or lower unemployment than we have right now that we've ever known in
my adult lifetime has been as a result of World War II, the Korean
conflict and the Vietnam war. Now, the other day the Independent
Businessmen's Association, nationally, did a survey of all of business
in America, and found that there are 2,950,000 jobs going begging. That
information has been published. These are employers asking for people
to fill jobs and cannot find people to fill those jobs. Now the
president
we have held
if we'd followed the policies of the
present administration here in Sacramento, today there would be some
25,000 more state employees. We do not believe here at the state level,
and I don't think it fits at the national level, that the answer,
because of unemployment, is a swollen bureucracy of people performing
useless jobs at the public expense, and certainly the federal govern-
ment is a swollen bureaucracy. Now there will be changes, and I think
the federal government has already announced, and it was reported in
your papers this morning, that in some of the notices that have been
sent out in San Francisco, for example, regional offices, that also
most of those people, if not all of them, will be transferred into
other areas of state government. And I know here in our own state
government we've made every effort.
Q
Governor, other areas of federal government.
A
other areas of federal government, I should say. And we've
made the same effort. So I don't think you can justify when you have
the problem, if as you
let's take your premise that there is 5.1
percent unemployment in the country. Four percent is considered normal.
Alright. But inflation that is going down. Right now now wait a
minute. Right now we have a food inflation. And the food inflation
in
though is/an area that only take 15.7 percent of the people's income.
That's all it takes to buy food, including eating out in the United
States. But food prices cannot be geared to general inflation. Food
prices fluctuate on a basic law of supply and demand that is dictated
from heaven above in many instances, because when you've lost a hundred
million dollars worth of cattle in one snow storm in Texas, you could
bet the price of beef was going to go up. But right now, if you go
to the beef market, not the meat market, the beef market, you find all
sorts of people paying any prices for breeding stock because they want
-9-
A
(cont.)
to
get
in
the business of producing eef for the market.
And just as sure as the green apples come, you're going to find that
the price will go down accordingly. In the mid-West, we had
because
of excessive rains in late summer and fall and into the early winter
acres of
we've had millions of/farm land in which the farmers could not get
their machinery in to harvest the crops corn crops that stood there
clear into snowfall
until the ground froze. And all of these things
have affected the food market. But these fluctuations, as I say, will
take place in food, and they can be based on drought, they can be based
on storm, they can be based on frost and freeze, and no way to control
that
on supply and demand. But they don't basically affect the
general inflation pattern that the president has been working against
and which he has reduced to less than half what it was.
Q
Can we change the subject, governor?
A
I thought it was a pretty good lecture on economics.
Q
Will you sign legislation that Senator Rodda intends to carry
to permit excavation under the site of the governor's mansion for
prehistoric Indian artifacts?
A
Well, now there are two or three things that I'd like to know
about that. First of all, we have a great many educational institutions
in California who have archaeological departments. I don't know where
this particular archaeologist has come from or who she is associated
with. I would also like to know why that particular piece of ground
that is now just discovered was the site of an Indian village, and I'd
like to know did they find any evidences next door when they built
Hoffman
Ancil/Golf Park, or golf course, and I'd like to know what's been true
of the bluffs on the other side of that particular area. Now, believe
me, if there are archaeological treasures to be found there, it's not
going to delay the building of a mansion any to have somebody dig.
Whether we've got to appropriate $81,000 for this or not, I don't know.
Or it might just be that you tell the fellows that dig the first post-
hole there on the land, that if they hit an arrowhead, to yell and
we'll stop digging and we'll bring somebody in to get them out.
Q
You're saying you're not sure you're going to sign that bill?
A
I'm never sure I'm going to sign a bill.
Q
Governor, if you have to go the initiative route to get your tax
limitation proposal, would you say that the best time to hold the elec-
tion would be in November?
A
Yes.
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Q
Okay, if you ha to take the maximum allow le three months to
get your petitions, and then you have to wait another four months or
so as the law requires to hold the election, that's more than seven
going to
months. Aren't you/have to get started pretty soon on that?
A
It sorta would seem so, wouldn't it?
Q
It sure would.
A
Let me just say that in discussing November 6, we have recognized
that we will have to make a decision fairly soon as to whether we're
going to get petitions signed. Now I believe, as I say, it isn't any
wasted effort for us to start talking to the people because it is an
issue they're going to have to decide. But I think at the same time
that we will inform the people that they themselves, those people who
feel that they want to vote on this and want to vote for it, particu-
out
larly, that we're going to have to point/to them that there is a dead-
line date, if they want to have this election in November.
8
Have you or anyone else who desires this limitation filed the
necessary papers yet with the attorney general?
A
No.
Q
Governor, in your message to the legislature yesterday, you kind
of combined your surplus return with the long-range plan. It indicated
that you would take both of them to the people. How do you undo that?
How are you going to take the surplus plan to the people?
A
Oh, just give them a crack at it. Sure we can take it to the
people on the same basis. If you will remember, back when I was opposing
the Watson Amendment, before the election, I promised the people, because
I felt that was such a destructive thing, I promised the people that
if we could not get some action of these kinds, and I mentioned an
income tax cut at that time, I promised them that I would try with the
legislature, and if not through the legislature, I would give the people
an opportunity to vote on that. Now we've sent this up to the legis-
lature and they've shelved it. And all of these things that I've said
can be done with regard to the surplus, and with the money that we can
be giving back, if these are not passed by the legislature, then I'm
going to give the people a chance to vote on it.
Q
Governor, on another subject? Assemblyman Fenton has been
critical of you for what he says has been deliberate delay in calling
special elections whenever there are democratic vacancies in the
legislature, such as waiting a month and a half or two months to call
the election to succeed Mr. Porter. Can you respond to that and indi-
cate when you're going to call a special election for the latest
vacancy---Mr. Townsend?
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A
Well, yes, we 're still brushing the con cti out of our hairs
had
from the inauguration and we've/two elections already of the special
elections. We couldn't call the one for the Assembly until we knew
whether John Stull was going to be elected, nor whether he was going
to be elected in the primary or have to run in a final. So that one
couldn't have been called any earlier. One of them, tragically enough,
is the result of a death that is so recent that I think it would be
unseemly to have done it certainly before now. The Carley Porter race
Q
You waited quite a while.
A
Well, I don't
Q
A month and a half to two months.
A
I don't know. There are certain courtesies that I've explained
before that you always do. You talk to your party people and sit down
to find out. You look at all the possibilities whether there's any-
thing that you can tie the election in to on the saving of the balloting
cost that is always a consideration. I think that we're calling them
reasonably fast.
D
Governor, the OEO is scheduled to be terminated June 30. Are
you prepared to have the state pick up
(inaudible)?
A
No. I think that most of the features that should be performed
either
have already been
indication has been that they/already have or are
being passed into various other of the federal departments
Department
of Labor, HEW and so forth. And those programs that are simply being
dropped because they were not successful, you have to remember that it
has been pointed out that they found out a number of OEO programs, by
the time the administrative expenses were paid, less than four percent
of the money was getting through to the poor. That's not a very good
ammunition count if you're going to have a war on poverty.
Q
Governor, on your statement to some members of the Academic Senate
the other day on collective bargaining, does that mean that you are
unalterably opposed to any of the legislative efforts that are being
made this year to write some kind of, for lack of a better word, collec-
tive bargaining statute this year?
A
Well, Tom, I'd like to see
I'll look to see if they've found
an answer to some of the problems we're talking about. We, ourselves,
have been working, as I explained to them, for a long time on trying to
improve the ability for employees at every level of state government to
have contact and to have their input. What I was saying to them was
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A (cont.) that collective bargaining, which inevi tably must lead to
industrial union type collective bargaining with the possibility of a
strike at the end, we just cannot have in government, because government
cannot accept the premise that public employees can strike.
Q
Governor, is there any agreement, understanding, gentlemen's
agreement, or whatever, between you and Senator Harmer an whether you
the
would or would not sign/Harmer-Zenovich reapportionment bill?
A
Yes, I've had a big talk with the gentlemen on SB 195. And I
told them in advance on a number of points that were still, I thought,
covered by my veto letter of last year, that if they could be corrected,
while I am not totally happy with the results have been, they have made
those corrections. It is certainly
cannot
doesn't have the odd
reaching out to sections of people and so forth that made it such a
blatant gerrymander last : year. The fact that the Senate is so nearly
e ven perhaps has made it possible to come down with a plan that, as
long as the legislature is entrusted with this responsibility, and I've
made myself clear on what I feel about that, this bill as it is now,
that is unchanged, I could sign.
Q
Governor, I'd like to ask you one more serious question. Can we
assume you had tongue in cheek when you said California state government
runs on jelly beans?
A
I meant that the
we keep up the energy of our staff here by
those jelly beans. I always say that to the kids when they come in.
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