Decision ’94 / SPECIAL GUIDE TO CALIFORNIA’S ELECTIONS : Governor’s Race : THE REPUBLICAN: PETE WILSON

PETE WILSON, Republican

* Born: Aug. 23, 1933, Lake Forest, Ill.

* Residence: Sacramento

* Current position: Governor

* Education: Bachelor’s degree, Yale University, 1955; Law degree, University of California, Boalt Hall, 1962.

* Career highlights: State Assembly, 1966-71; mayor of San Diego, 1971-82; U.S. senator, 1983-91; governor since 1991.

* Family: Married in 1983 to Gayle Wilson; stepsons Todd and Philip Graham.

Background

Pete Wilson is the incumbent running under the banner of change.

Elected to public office nine times, the former legislator, San Diego mayor and U.S. senator says he wants to complete a job undone.

If elected to a second term, Wilson says, he will try to cut deeper into welfare benefits, enact more laws to stiffen prison sentences for violent criminals and make it easier for companies to do business in California.

The Republican chief executive also says he will try to do in a second term what he vowed to do in his first: shift the emphasis of state government from remediation--cleaning up messes--to preventing problems before they happen.

That goal, which Wilson outlined during his 1990 campaign and in his first speeches as governor, was stymied by an economic recession that depressed tax revenues and left him in a four-year struggle to balance the state budget, which he never did.

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Born in 1933 in Lake Forest, Ill., near Chicago, Wilson moved with his family to St. Louis, where his father sold advertising. There, the young Wilson attended private schools, dabbling in boxing and football despite his slight stature.

Wilson attended Yale on a Marine Corps ROTC scholarship and, upon graduating with a degree in English literature, went on active duty just after the end of the Korean War. He spent most of his tour in Hawaii as a lieutenant, the executive officer of a rifle company. Wilson entered law school at the University of California’s Boalt Hall in 1959.

After graduation, Wilson moved to San Diego and joined the law firm of the father of his former classmate, John Davies. Practicing law for only a short time, he quickly moved into Republican politics and in 1966 was elected to represent San Diego in the state Assembly.

In those days Wilson was a moderate, pushing for a “no-bust” policy for marijuana users and fashioning a comprehensive law to protect the coastline from development, a proposal that failed passage but helped lay the groundwork for what became the California Coastal Commission. In 1971, at age 37, Wilson ran for mayor of San Diego and was elected on a platform to clean up a corrupt municipal government and restrain development in the city’s burgeoning suburbs.

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As mayor, Wilson followed through by pushing for campaign reform--limiting political contributions to $250--and he fashioned a growth management plan for the city that was considered a model for the nation. Wilson tried to expand the powers of his office but was rejected by the voters, so he worked within the existing structure to accomplish his ends, helping to elect allies to the council and engineering the selection of a city manager who would work closely with the mayor’s office.

By 1978, when he first ran for governor, Wilson was unquestionably in charge of the city, but he still was little-known statewide, and he took a drubbing in the Republican primary. As he returned to San Diego and set his sights on the next statewide races, Wilson grew closer to the development industry with which he had once been at odds.

In one defining moment, Wilson sided with the builders and against neighborhood groups when the city approved a 40,000-home development on San Diego’s northern edge. Opponents said the project was just the sort of suburban sprawl Wilson had pledged to fight, but the mayor said it was a well-planned community that would pay its own way and provide services to its residents.

In 1982, Wilson again geared up to run for governor, but Republican financial backers persuaded him to run for the Senate instead. He won, defeating Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. while championing a ballot initiative known as the “victims bill of rights.” It was Wilson’s first serious foray into the politics of crime.

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As a senator, Wilson focused on defense policy and agriculture, two issues near and dear to his state’s constituents. He tried to keep weapons contracts flowing to California’s defense industry and worked to open international markets for the state’s farmers. He also represented agriculture’s interests in the immigration reform debate, pushing for provisions that would make it easier for farms to hire foreign migrant workers to pick crops.

Wilson, now 61, ran for governor in 1990, defeating Democrat Dianne Feinstein. He pledged to clean up the state’s fiscal mess and work to improve education, protect the environment and fight crime. But the budget problems turned out to be far worse than he feared, all but overwhelming his first term.

We are turning California’s jobs climate from a job killer into a job creator. And yes, we are proud that after the earthquake we rebuilt the world’s busiest freeways in record time. And we think that the people need, that they deserve, three strikes--one strike, our law to try dangerous juveniles as adults; we are proud that we have passed the toughest package of crime legislation in the history of California.

And we will not rest in our efforts to force Washington to face up to the crisis of illegal immigration. In short, we are making the change that is needed to make California all that it can be. We’re turning this state around. We are restoring the hope and the confidence of Californians.

Promises / Goals

If elected governor, Pete Wilson has vowed to:

* Not raise taxes again. Wilson in 1991 signed a record $7.5-billion tax increase but now says higher taxes are a drag on the state’s economy.

* Cut welfare. Wilson has reduced welfare grants by 15% since he became governor; he says he wants to cut them more.

* Reduce regulation of business to entice more companies to expand here or open new plants in the state.

* Expand the death penalty to cover drive-by shooters and carjackers who kill their victims. Amend sentencing laws to ensure that all violent felons serve the entire term to which they are sentenced.

The Speech: In His Own Words

* Excerpts from a speech delivered to state GOP convention in San Diego on Sept. 17.

The voters are looking to the Republican Party this fall because they know we are the party of change. The party that is addressing the real issues that legitimately stir people’s emotions because they, in fact, basically affect the quality of their lives.

Four years ago, when I said to Gayle I think we should go home, I said we should go home, leave this pleasant academic cloister, the U.S. Senate, come home to make change, change that California needs to be all that it can be. Well, I am proud of what we have done and I’m running for a second term as governor to continue fighting for the further change that we need to further improve our jobs climate and create prosperity, to overhaul our welfare system and free people from dependency, to improve the quality of our schools and reclaim our streets from violent crime.

And like all of you who are working to bring about that fundamental change, I am guided by fundamental principles and core values. It’s time to give back the people who work hard, pay their taxes and raise their children to obey the law a decent opportunity. They deserve a break. It’s time for us to teach our kids as well that their actions have consequences and that society must and will hold individuals accountable for their actions. I want California to be a state of unparalleled opportunity. I want our kids to learn more and earn more than we have.

But opportunity must begin with responsibility. And the greatest responsibility is that of parent to child. It’s time that parents started accepting that responsibility.

And too many today don’t or can’t accept it, and by failing to provide love and discipline and direction that every child needs, they consign their children to material and spiritual poverty. So we’ve got to get some things straight.

Young men have no right to casually father a child and then walk away, no strings attached. So we are cracking down on deadbeat dads and sending them a very clear message: If you lack the basic decency to send love to your child, you’ve better damn well send money or we will track you down and dock your pay for child support.

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Teen-aged girls need to understand that they have no right to have a child out of wedlock, to raise a child without a wed father and then expect the taxpayers to support their child. . . .

Teen-aged thugs need to know that they will no longer have the right in California to commit a crime and then expect to be coddled by the Youth Authority simply because they are juveniles. . . .

And no able-bodied adult has a right to refuse honest work and expect the taxpayers to continue supporting him on welfare. Welfare should be a safety net, not a hammock. So we propose to set time limits and make work pay more than welfare. But, you know, just as individuals have responsibilities, so too do governments. They often intrude where they shouldn’t, but they also have some clear basic responsibilities.

One of the federal government’s first responsibilities is defending our nation’s borders. . . . Well, today, the federal government clearly flunks that test. Washington has lost control of our borders, but it is California that is paying the price.

Let me say something that I think is important: You know, it is impossible not to sympathize with those who struggle to bring their families to a better way of life. It’s impossible not to admire their guts and their gumption. I only wish that Washington had one-tenth the guts of illegal immigrants. But they do not, so they continue turning a blind eye . . .

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We must end the federal mandate for services which steal from our taxpayers, from our schoolchildren, from our needy elderly, blind and disabled, all of whom have suffered erosion because of what we have to pay for these services mandated by Washington. And to end the services we’ve got to send Washington a message so clear that it cannot be ignored, and this November we have a chance to do just that.

Proposition 187, the “Save Our State” initiative, is the two-by-four we need to make them take notice in Washington. It is what we need to provoke a legal challenge that will go all the way to the United States Supreme Court, a legal challenge to the federal mandates that keep in place the incentives to illegal entry. It will finally force Washington to accept its responsibility for illegal immigration. That’s why I support SOS and urge all of you to work for its passage on Election Day. . . .

I think the voters want and deserve a governor who will fight crime effectively, not someone who fudges on the death penalty. And of course, Kathleen has an excuse for everything. She explains away her opposition to the death penalty by saying that even though she personally opposes the death penalty as a matter of deep personal conscience, of moral convictions, she’ll enforce the law. . . .

We are turning California’s jobs climate from a job killer into a job creator. And yes, we are proud that after the earthquake we rebuilt the world’s busiest freeways in record time. And we think that the people need, that they desreve, three strikes, one strike, our law to try dangerous juveniles as adults; we are proud that we have passed the toughest package of crime legislation in the history of California.

And we will not rest in our efforts to force Washington to face up to the crisis of illegal immigration. In short, we are making the change that is needed to make California all that it can be. We’re turning this state around. We are restoring the hope and the confidence of Californians.