Regional Oral History Office University of California The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California Quentin Kopp Minority Politics in San Francisco, 1964-1996 Interviews conducted by Martin Meeker in 2007 Copyright © 2007 by The Regents of the University of California Since 1954 the Regional Oral History Office has been interviewing leading participants in or well-placed witnesses to major events in the development of Northern California, the West, and the nation. Oral History is a method of collecting historical information through tape-recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. The tape recording is transcribed, lightly edited for continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The corrected manuscript is bound with photographs and illustrative materials and placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and in other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ********************************* All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between The Regents of the University of California and Quentin Kopp, dated April 16, 2007. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. No part of the manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written permission of the Director of The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to the Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, Mail Code 6000, University of California, Berkeley, 94720-6000, and should include identification of the specific passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the passages, and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: “Quentin Kopp: Minority Politics in San Francisco, 1964-1996,” conducted by Martin Meeker in 2007, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2007. Discursive Table of Contents—Quentin Kopp Interview #1: April 16, 2007 Audio File 1……………………………………………………………………….1 Familial background and political values – Family participation in the Democratic Party – Democratic resurgence in California in the 1950s – the California Democratic Council (CDC) – The CDC and conservative Democrats – Impact of California on national politics – Emergence of the “Burton Machine” Audio File 2……………………………………………………………………...12 Ertola, Pelosi, Casey, McAteer, Foran, McCarthy, and Kopp as a faction within the Democratic Party – Differences between the two factions – City commission appointments – Nomination to the “Jewish” seat on the Board of Education Interview #2: April 17, 2007 Audio File 3……………………………………………………………………...25 Busing and desegregation in San Francisco – White/Asian alliance – Residential discrimination – Asian-Americans, Latinos, Jews, and desegregation – 1971 campaign for the Board of Supervisors – Human Rights Commission and antidiscrimination ordinances – Sexual orientation as an issue Audio File 4……………………………………………………………………...43 Minority groups as political constituencies – On Harvey Milk – 1975 Board of Supervisors elections – Election of George Moscone – Political endorsements – The Community Congress as a political force – The coming of district elections – Endorsement politics versus the constituency-based politics – Democratic clubs – The politics of commission appointments – On Dianne Feinstein 1 Interview #1: 4-16-2007 Begin Audio File 1 kopp_quentin1 04-16-07 01-00:00:16 Meeker: OK, today is the— 01-00:00:19 Kopp: April 16th. 01-00:00:21 Meeker: — 16th of April, 2007. This is Martin Meeker interviewing Judge Quentin Kopp, and it looks like everything’s going well so let’s begin. And I’ll be looking over here occasionally just to make sure you’re still framed and that the sound is recording adequately. So in your first interview, the one for the California State Archives, you spoke about your youth in political terms, which I found to be quite interesting, and you also talked about your parents being involved in Democratic politics in the city of Syracuse. And I just wanted to get a sense of from what, you know, what your opinion is of what being a Democrat meant to your father and mother at that point in time in that place. 01-00:01:15 Kopp: My father was a small businessman, operating a drug store. Sometimes he had two drug stores, but he had the viewpoint of a small businessman. My mother was first generation, born 1900 in Binghamton, New York. Her father never owned a business. Her father worked in a furniture store, retail, and in their view the Democratic Party represented an antidote to the Republican Party, particularly because the Republican Party was identified with the Great Depression of 1929 and was identified with corporate wealth, corporate America, and a corporate disregard for the vicissitudes and the problems of people who were not presidents or vice presidents of corporate entities. And secondly, my parents, probably because they were Jewish, were imbued with the notion that not all Americans were treated equally. My father, for example, during the 1930s operated a drug store in a section of Syracuse which had been almost exclusively Jewish, but the demographics of which had changed so that it was probably 50-60% African American, and he was well liked by his African American customers. He hired the first African American business clerk of any white-owned enterprise in Syracuse, New York in that period of time, so that was an expression of their high regard for black Americans and their insistence that all Americans be treated equally. 01-00:03:36 Meeker: How did they communicate these values to you? 2 01-00:03:40 Kopp: In conversations, both at home and also in the drug store from time to time. I began working in the drug store in the spring of 1940. I was 11 and a half years old. I worked after school. And my father moved his drug store to, or putting it the other way, the drug store he chiefly operated was a block from a home, which was the first home my parents ever owned that they purchased for I think $3,000. Three bedroom home, at that! And after that purchase, the war began a year and a half later. Pharmacists went in the Army, Navy, Marine Corps. My father, therefore, was encumbered with operating the prescription filling part of the drug store almost entirely himself. Occasionally he’d have some part time assistance from somebody who was a registered pharmacist, and my mother thereby began working in the drug store, particularly at dinner hour. After she would make dinner, my father would walk home. She’d come down to the store to supervise me or to supervise my sister. My younger sister was working there. And so there were conversations almost entirely, particularly at home, probably 80% of those conversations were at home, and then there were civic events and civic affairs. My father was a leader in the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and starting from the time I was eight years old, he brought me to VFW meetings, either the Post or the County Committee of VFW posts, or a Central New York Council of VFW posts. I went to a national convention in Boston when I was eight years old, and so there were discussions in the course of listening to meetings of VFW members. And then my mother was active in the National Council of Jewish Women, and so I would hear discussions relating to the National Council of Jewish Women. There were other experiences; my mother, for a short period of time, worked for the WPA, the Works Progress Administration, as a secretary when I was about seven or eight years old. So that was a source of discussion in the house. As a matter of fact, under pressure from higher authority, her boss had to let her go because she was getting too many jobs for non-Democrats, namely Republicans and Independents! (laughter) 01-00:07:00 Meeker: You know, this is a bit of an aside, but the Veterans of Foreign Wars, I don’t know much about that organization, but I kind of wonder if there was a distinction between that and the Legionnaires, where they— 01-00:07:11 Kopp: There was. 01-00:07:12 Meeker: OK. 01-00:07:13 Kopp: There was an acute difference. Veterans of Foreign Wars eligibility is based upon military service outside the continental United States. I always aspired to be a VFW member, and I can recall a dinner conversation with a friend of my father’s, who had been a U.S. Marine and had been in Nicaragua, I think about 3 1933, 1934. My father had been in World War I, the United States Army for two years from 1917 ‘til 1919, and most of the members of the VFW conventionally were World War I veterans. Some were remaining Spanish- American War veterans, but this man had been a Marine in Nicaragua, so he was eligible. So I remember saying something to the effect, “Oh, when I grow up I want to be in the VFW,” and his reply was, “You’d better go in the Marine Corps.” I never did; I went in the Air Force 1952, and I never served outside the continental United States. I was never eligible for the VFW. The American Legion, on the other hand, enabled anybody who had been in the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard to be a member, whether you served outside the continental United States or not, so I’ve been an American Legion member.