. v ObU^ University of California Berkeley Stephen P. Teale Don A. Allen ONE MAN-ONE VOTE AND SENATE REAPPORTIONMENT , 1964-1966 Regional Oral History Office The Bancroft Library Regional Oral History Office University of California The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California Governmental History Documentation Project Goodwin Knight/Edmund Brown, Sr., Era ONE MAN-ONE VOTE AND SENATE REAPPORTIONMENT, 1964-1966 Stephen P. Teale The Impact of One Man-One Vote on the Senate: Senator Teale Reviews Reapportionment and Other Issues, 1953-1966 Don A. Allen A Los Angeles Assemblyman Recalls the Reapportionment Struggle Interviews Conducted by James H. Rowland in 1978 and 1979 With an Introduction by James H. Rowland Copy no . / the of the of California Copyright (c) 1980 by Regents University PREFACE Covering the years 1953 to 1966, the Goodwin Knight-Edmund G. "Pat" Brown, Sr. , Oral History Series is the second phase of the Governmental History Documentation Project begun by the Regional Oral History Office in 1969. That year inaugurated the Earl Warren Era Oral History Project, which produced interviews with Earl Warren and other persons prominent in politics, criminal justice, government administration, and legislation during Warren s California era, 1925 to 1953. The Knight-Brown series of interviews carries forward the earlier inquiry into the general topics of: the nature of the governor s office, its relationships with the legislature and with its own executive depart ments, biographical data about Governors Knight and Brown and other leaders of the period, and methods of coping with the rapid social and economic changes of the state. Key issues documented for 1953-1966 were: the rise and decline of the Democratic party, the impact of the California Water Plan, the upheaval of the Vietnam War escalation, the capital punish ment controversy, election law changes, new political techniques forced by television and increased activism, reorganization of the executive branch, the growth of federal programs in California, and the rising awareness of minority groups. From a wider view across the twentieth century, the Knight-Brown period marks the final era of California s Progressive period, which was ushered in by Governor Hiram Johnson in 1910 and which provided for both parties the determining outlines of government organiza tion and political strategy until 1966. The Warren Era political files, which interviewers had developed cooperatively to provide a systematic background for questions, were updated by the staff to the year 1966 with only a handful of new topics added to the original ninety-one. An effort was made to record in greater detail those more significant events and trends by selecting key partici pants who represent diverse points of view. Most were queried on a limited number of topics with which they were personally connected; a few narrators who possessed unusual breadth of experience were asked to discuss a multiplicity of subjects. Although the time frame of the series ends at the November 1966 election, when possible the interviews trace events on through that date in order to provide a logical baseline for continuing study of succeeding administrations. Similarly, some narrators whose exper ience includes the Warren years were questioned on that earlier era as well as the Knight-Brown period. ii The present series has been financed by grants from the California State Legislature through the California Heritage Preservation Commission and the office of the Secretary of State, and by some individual donations. Portions of several memoirs were funded partly by the California Women in Politics Project under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, in cluding a matching grant from the Rockefeller Foundation; the two projects were produced concurrently in this office, a joint effort made feasible by overlap of narrators, topics, and staff expertise. The Regional Oral History Office was established to tape record autobio graphical interviews with persons significant in the history of California and the West. The Office is under the administrative direction of James D. Hart, Director of The Bancroft Library, and Willa Baum, head of the Office. Amelia R. Fry, Project Director Gabrielle Morris, Project Coordinator May, 1980 Berkeley, California ill GOVERNMENTAL HISTORY DOCUMENTATION PROJECT Advisory Council Don A. Allen James R. W. Leiby James Bassett Albert Lepawsky Walton E. Bean* Dean McHenry Peter Behr Frank Mesple * William E. Bicker James R. Mills Paul Bullock Edgar J. Patterson Lou Cannon Cecil F. Poole Edmond Costantini A. Alan Post William N. Davis Robert H. Power A. I. Dickman Bruce J. Poyer Harold E. Geiogue Albert S. Rodda Carl Greenberg Richard Rodda Michael Harris Ed Salzman Phil Kerby Mortimer D. Schwartz Virginia Knight Verne Scoggins Frank Lanterman David Snyder Mary Ellen Leary Caspar Weinberger Eugene C. Lee * Project Interviewers Special Interviewers Malca Chall Eleanor Glaser Amelia R. Fry Harriet Nathan Gabrielle Morris Suzanne Riess James Rowland Miriam Feingold Stein Sarah Sharp Ruth Teiser Julie Shearer *Deceased during the term of the project. iv INTRODUCTION Through its Governmental History Documentation Project, the Regional Oral History Office has designated the subject of senate reapportionment as part of its Goodwin J. Knight-Edmund G. Brown, Sr. era volume series. The volume contains interviews with Senator Stephen P. Teale (Democrat-Railroad Flat) and Assemblyman Don A. Allen, Sr. (Democrat-Los Angeles), key legislators in the design of the 1966 senate reapportionment. As interviewer/editor for the Knight-Brown era project, I was honored with the opportunity to interview the leading political figures in the senate reapportionment struggle, a topic I had encountered briefly in my master s thesis interviews with Senator Teale. The topic of reapportionment can be confusing without an historical summary to familiarize the reader with events and issues mentioned in this volume of interviews. The following summarizes the twists, turns, and emotions of the reapportionment drama. In 1926 voters approved a referendum to apportion the senate by counties while retaining assembly apportionment by population. Heralded as the "federal plan" and vigorously supported by rural interests and the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, the referendum provided that for a forty- member senate: 1) no county be divided so as to contain more than one senatorial district, 2) no more than three counties could be combined into any one district, and 3) no part of any county could be united with any other county to form a district. The "federal plan" reference implied that since the U.S. Senate was apportioned by states and the U.S. House of Representa tives by population, the California Senate would be apportioned by counties while the California Assembly would be apportioned by population. With the post-war population boom in Los Angeles County, protests emerged charging unfair and unequal representation of that county in the state senate. By the mid-1950s, Los Angeles County had a population of five million represented by one state senator, while the one senate district of Alpine, Mono, and Inyo counties combined had a total population of 14,000 represented by one state senator. As a result of the 1926 referendum, the state senate drew a mix of predominately rural northern California legislators while the assembly increased its urban representation due to its decennial census reapportionments. Critics of the federal plan charged it produced a senate which favored north against the south, rural against urban, and conservative against liberal. After losing attempts to modify or eliminate the federal plan through initiatives in 1948, 1960 and 1962 (the latter two authored by Los Angeles County Supervisor Frank Bonelli) , the courts sounded the death knell for the federal plan. The Warren supreme court ruled in 1964, in its one man-one vote decision, that given the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution, the principle of equal population must prevail in both houses of a state legislature. Ironically, as governor, Earl Warren had been a strong defender of the federal plan against the 1948 initiative to modify senate apportionment. The Los Angeles federal district court continued the precedent by ruling that the federal plan of apportioning the California senate was uncon stitutional and added that a new plan must be adopted no later than July 1, 1965, a deadline the legislature failed to meet. After defaulting on the federal court deadline, the California Supreme Court gave a reprieve in the form of ordering that both the senate and assembly be reapportioned in time for the 1966 primary. This signaled a two-way street agreement between senate and assembly leaders that resolved inter-house differences and paved the way for the eventual 1966 reapportionment formula. The inter-house differences and the senate s aversion to the one man- one vote decision illustrate a relationship of personalities and politics, and deserves further inquiry. In the senate, an odd concoction of remedies were proposed to modify reapportionment. Among them: a unicameral legisla tive proposal introduced by Senator F.rank Petersen (Democrat-Mendocino) at the request of Governor Brown. (The senator was reported to have hid to escape his fellow senators" wrath after the bill s introduction), and a split- the- state-in-half movement proposed by the Northern California County Supervisors Association and introduced as a legislative measure by Senator Richard Dolwig (Republican-San Mateo) . The senate s Maginot Line against reapportionment was the Dirksen amend ment. Sponsored by U.S. Senator Everett Dirksen, it would have created a federal constitutional amendment to the U.S. Constitution to allow one house of a state legislature to be apportioned on a basis other than population. In its support several prominent California senators toured nation-wide speaking to governors and state legislative bodies. Among the touring Cali fornia delegates was Senator Stephen Teale (Democrat-Railroad Flat), who came to the realization that the federal court decisions would not be reversed.