George Deukmejian

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George Deukmejian
Order:	35th Governor of California
Term of Office:	January 3, 1983 – January 7, 1991
Predecessor:	Jerry Brown
Successor:	Pete Wilson
Date of Birth:	July 6, 1928
Place of Birth:	Menands, New York
First Lady:	Gloria Saatjian
Profession:	Politician
Political Party:	Republican
Lieutenant Governor:	Leo T. McCarthy

Courken George Deukmejian, Jr. (born July 6, 1928) is a Republican California politician from the city of Long Beach. He was the 35th Governor of California.

1 Early life
2 Political beginnings
3 Governorship
4 After governorship
5 Quotation
6 External links

[edit] Early life

Born in Menands, New York, Deukmejian (pronounced duke-MAY-jee-unn) grew up there as well. He is the son of Armenian immigrants from Iran. He graduated a B.A. in Sociology from Siena College in 1949. He then earned a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from St. John's University in 1952. From 1953 to 1955, he served as a lawyer in the U.S. Army's Judge Advocate General's Corps.

He moved to California in 1955, where his sister, Mrs. Anna Ashjian, already lived. His sister introduced him to Gloria Saatjian, whose parents were also Armenian immigrants. They married in 1958 and had three children, two daughters, born in 1965 and 1970 and one son, born in 1967.

[edit] Political beginnings

In California, he first entered private practice, but soon entered politics. He was elected to the California State Assembly in 1962, representating Long Beach. In 1966, he moved to the State Senate. By 1969, he was the majority leader in the State Senate. He first ran for Attorney General of California in 1970, finishing fourth in the Republican primary. He won the election for Attorney General in 1978 and served from 1979 to 1983.

[edit] Governorship

In 1982, he was elected to his first term as Governor of California, defeating Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley in the general election by a margin so narrow that on election night, some news organizations had even made early projections of a Bradley victory. He defeated Bradley by a 61% to 37% landslide in their 1986 rematch. Deukmejian served as governor from 1983 to 1991. He is generally regarded as a moderate-to-conservative Republican.

He faced a Democratic-dominated legislature during his two terms as governor. In addition, he was the sole Republican statewide office-holder until Thomas W. Hayes was elected California State Treasurer in a special election.

Deukmejian largely made his career by being tough on crime and was considered to be a hard-liner on law and order issues. When he was in the legislature, he wrote California's capital punishment law. As governor, he orchestrated the removal of three justices of the California Supreme Court in the 1986 election, due to their consistent opposition to the death penalty in any and all circumstances. One of them (the best known) was Rose Bird, the first female Chief Justice of the Court (and the first one to be voted off). Under Deukmejian, the California prison population mushroomed -- as of 12/31/82, the total prison population stood at 34,640 inmates. By the end of 1991 the population had reached 97,309.

In 1988, then-Vice President George Bush considered Gov. Deukmejian as a possible running mate.

In 1990, in his last two hours in office, he vetoed the property tax exemption bill passed by the Legislature which applied to companies building thermal solar plants in California. Although the Legislature enacted the exemption in early 1991, companies would still face significant levels of property tax and other taxes. This exemption was focused towards the SEGS (Solar Electric Generating Stations) plants built by Luz Limited International (LUZ) in the late 1980s. His veto resulted in the bankruptcy of LUZ and a worldwide halt in the construction of solar thermal power plants for fifteen years.

[edit] After governorship

From 1991 to 2000, he was a partner in a Los Angeles law firm. He retired in 2000, but reentered public life by serving on special commissions. He heads a commission to reform the California penal system, serves on a charter-reform commission in his hometown of Long Beach, and is overseeing a revamping of the UCLA Willed Body Program, after a scandal involving the sale of human body parts donated for science.

[edit] Quotation

"Attorneys General don't appoint judges – Governors do."
Deukmejian explaining why he ran for Governor instead of running for a second term as Attorney General

[edit] External links

Preceded by: Evelle J. Younger	California Attorney General 1979–1983	Succeeded by: John Van de Kamp
Preceded by: Edmund G. Brown, Jr.	Governor of California 1983–1991	Succeeded by: Peter B. Wilson