VII The Fair Housing Bill and Proposition 14, 1963-1964

Mr. Rumford, you were the author and chief sponsor of AB1240, the Fair Housing Bill—better known as the Rumford Fair Housing Bill. When did you introduce this important controversial bill?

Well this bill was introduced at the regular general session of the California legislature in 1963.

Why did you think it was necessary to introduce your bill?

Well, actually it was not my idea entirely. It was the idea of several people. If you will note in the record you will find out that Governor Brown had put it on his agenda as number one of the important legislative factors for consideration. It was also endorsed by the NAACP who had held several meetings on it, trying to implement the Hawkins Act and the Unruh Act. It was also supported largely by the Democratic Party. They made it a part of their party platform to support a stronger housing act. So it wasn't just me. Whereas I believed wholeheartedly in the program, Brown and some of the rest of them later wanted to say "It was his (my) bill," because of fright and fear I imagine, [laughing] more than anything else. But it was a program which was outlined by several groups of people and I was included.

Yes. This is, as we said, quite a controversial bill. Would you care to discuss further some of the

Yes. You see, the bill just didn't spring up overnight. There was a need for this type of legislation. Mr. Hawkins had in '59, I think it was, introduced his bill, AB801, which covered public assisted housing and there was some fight over that. He was able to get a favorable vote of 88-1 if I remember correctly. Then Unruh had amended Section 51, which was a Civil Rights Act, to broaden it to include all businesses. This was interpreted as including the business of housing, those engaged in the renting, leasing or selling, or housing which would affect brokers and the sale and so forth. So it was not a spontaneous thing. It arose as a result of several different ideas and several different needs.

In the first place, there had been successful housing acts passed in several states of the Union, New York among them. I think there were some 12 states or so that had housing laws on the books. The Democratic Party, as I said, had taken a position. The legislature had prompted a study by the Governmental Efficiency and Economy Committee which indicated that there was widespread discrimination in housing throughout the state of California. In Watts, a high density area, alone there was wide-spread discrimination in housing and people were locked in because of their color. They could not break through these barriers. It was evident from the Governmental Efficiency and Economy Committee report that something had to be done, that the housing situation in California nearly presented an explosive situation. So in consequence of these documented factors we then, at the request of the organizations which I have already named, particularly the NAACP and Governor Brown's office and the several different organizations, introduced this legislation which would have broader impact in the housing field and centralize its administration. Under the Unruh Act you had the Civil Rights Act which would require the individual who had been victimized to file a suit himself in the courts in order to get compensation or justice.

Did Unruh amend his act after it became law?

Mr. Unruh amended Section 51 of the Civil Rights Act, which had been on the books in California for many years and provided that there shall be no discrimination against persons because of race, color or creed. In public accommodation, Mr. Unruh, in the 1959 session, amended Section 51—broadened it to include any person engaged in doing business. This inclusion, of course, affected brokers in the course of their business—selling, renting, or leasing property. As the act was amended by Mr. Unruh, it meant that the brokers themselves would be responsible under the law for their own actions, and that they would be subject to fine or whatever penal conditions were provided by the courts if they were guilty of discimination. Of course, this included the selling or buying of homes. This is what we mean when we say, "The Unruh Amendment to the Civil Rights Code"—Section 51 of the Civil Rights Code.

Augustus Hawkins, in his act, concerned himself primarily with publicly assisted housing. There was a gap, and there was no covering for private housing, private ownership, sales and so forth that was involved. Actually, what we did was put the two acts together. We put the Hawkins Act, AB801, and we took sections of Section 51 of the Civil Rights program, which is the so-called Unruh Act, and put them together and gave it administrative enforcement. Of course we made certain changes. We eliminated single-owner homes which the owner sold himself. It was not a revolutionary bill because most of what we had in it was already on the books anyway. But there were people who wanted to spread misinformation in order to gather criticism and to foment trouble and circulated rumors about what the bill would do and the composition of it.

Yes. Now you state that the bill was not revolutionary, yet there were several amendments. Did the bill come out in its final form as strong a bill as you would wish?

One never gets what he wants in the legislature. We had to take what, more or less, we could get under the circumstances. I would say that the bill was not as strong as I would have liked to have it but the legislature in itself is a platform of

compromises. You don't get what you want. Sometimes you even strengthen your bill on introduction so that you can amend it later in order to get it passed. But we were satisfied that it had broad coverage and had sufficient coverage to give us a very strong beginning. Now our hope was that as we moved along if there was need to implement the law, then we could change it and we could make it stronger since we had it on the books. It is always easier to amend a law which is already on the books rather than to put everything into it initially and say, "This is it." There's a constant process of amending legislation which goes on every year. So I'll simply answer your question by saying it was not entirely the bill that I would like to have had. But it was a good beginning.

Did the defeat of a similar and earlier bill in Berkeley influence your thinking greatly in making proposed amendments or in writing your bill in its final form?

Well yes, it did to some degree. If I could just refresh your memory:

The Berkeley City Council had passed a Fair Housing Law which embraced the small renter in Berkeley, the person who was renting rooms out of his home to students. It was comparatively strong, this particular area; nevertheless, it was necessary because it was the type of housing which was being used by students. If the law was going to be effective it would have to embrace that area.

The City Council had already passed it and then of course the real estate group went ahead and got a referendum and had it repealed by some 2,000 votes—a very close vote. There was generally a lot of misinformation on the law. They repealed it by 2,000 votes in April, 1963, when our bill was being heard in the state assembly. Yes, it did have some effect.

Mr. Unruh and several other legislators pointed out to us in Sacramento that the people weren't ready for the Fair Housing bill and that we would have an awful time trying to get it through. We took into consideration some of their suggestions

and we made amendments necessary to eliminate specific cases—the single homeowner, the owner-occupied house.

When we moved to the assembly floor, we took in a few more amendments to appease those here and there, but they were not substantive, really. We were able to get the bill passed by the assembly. It passed the assembly by a vote of 47 to 24 and that is a handy vote. We were completely satisfied with it. Based upon the support of the governor's office, the NAACP, and labor we were able to get this passed. The bill then went over to the senate where it was assigned to the Governmental Efficiency and Economy Committee, headed by Senator Luther Gibson of Vallejo.

Can you specify what few more amendments you added when the bill was moved to the assembly floor?

It's very difficult at this juncture for me to point out the amendments. There were a host of amendments, technical and otherwise, that were accepted by our committee. Some of them suggested were minor amendments, and perhaps one or two were major. I've already mentioned that one of the major amendments was to amend the bill to exclude the single homeowner. So, it's very difficult for me to go into the amendments. There were hundreds of them that were given to me, and most of them we rejected.

Who asked for these amendments?

They were asked for by different legislators. The members of the Democratic Caucus had discussed them. Again, it's difficult for me to point out individuals. I can just say they were asked by legislators.

How, if you did, did you strengthen the bill before sending it to the senate?

We strengthened the bill by simply adding the provisions of the Unruh Act.

I might mention to you that after the bill went to the senate, the CORE organization attempted

to assist us by occupying the rotunda of the Capitol as protesters and petitioners. I had felt that we were able to get the legislation that far without this kind of assitance and I had asked them to please leave. But they did not. They remained there throughout with their children. They occupied the rotunda and many of the senators were upset about it, saying this was an attempt to threaten them and that type of thing. Of course I wasn't sure that CORE was really trying to "help me." If they were trying to help me, as far as I was concerned, this was a poor way to do it!

A lengthy hearing was held on the bill and then it was taken under submission by Senator Gibson, which meant that his committee would attempt to deal with me to reduce the bill to almost nothing, and then to pass it out, because there was an awful lot of public political pressure to do something about the legislation. The date of when this bill was first heard before the senate committee is indicated somewhere.

During the time in which the committee negotiated with you, did you meet with all members or with just some of them?

We met with just a few members of the committee. Not at any time since the original meeting did we ever meet with the senate committee as a whole.

I understand that some committee members indicated that the amendments had never been enacted by the entire eleven members.

This is true. The only way amendments can be adopted by committee is that they be submitted to the committee as a whole and adopted by them. Now when members suggest committee amendments to you, this doesn't necessarily mean that they have been adopted by the committee. In this case, committee members submitted prospective, possible proposals in the form of amendments to me, which I rejected.

It was reported that the sixteen-page set of amendments that you offered Senator Gibson was much like those suggested to you earlier by Gibson. Is that true?

Not hardly. Senator Gibson had his own ideas on the amendments, and if they were the same as my amendments, then of course we would have accepted them. There would have been no problem. But this not being true, we did not accept the amendments, because they were not the same type of amendments that we wanted, or at least not the ones that we could live with.

But the bill was held up for approximately three months in the senate committee in which Mr. Gibson indicated that there would be another public hearing held. All this time they were attempting to deal with me privately and to get me to subject myself to their amendments which would have nullified the act entirely. I refused to go along with them and we made a few more amendments which we thought would be acceptable to their committee. They did not hold an official committee meeting on this bill until the last day of the session, when they held a star chamber session on the bill, without witnesses being present as far as I know. It was probably an open hearing but they just didn't announce it, and they passed the bill out, "Recommendation - Do pass."

Now their strategy in holding this star chamber session (it wasn't even a public session because I know I wasn't there) was to pass the bill out because they felt that the senate had a long agenda pending and that there would be no way to reach that particular legislation before adjournment. Well we heard that they had passed the bill out and we consulted with some of our supporters in the senate. We figured a way out whereby we could get that bill heard before adjournment. Now the parlimentary maneuver that we executed over in the senate in order to get this bill moved up on the calendar was that Senator Rattigan, who is now a state district court judge, got the floor and he moved that AB1240 be set as a special order of business at 11 o'clock. Now this kind of upset the strategists. That motion was not debatable. It was seconded. It was not debatable, but there was discussion on the propriety of the motion. Discussion not on the bill, but on the strategy: upsetting the calendar and all that kind of thing. Then a vote was taken and we were victorious, I think, by some 22 to 18 votes, which

indicated that we had sufficient number of votes to pass the bill on final action. Since we had enough votes to get the bill set as a special order at 11 o'clock, we knew we had sufficient number of votes to pass the legislation. So some members of the Government Efficiency and Economy Committee were completely upset and taken by surprise when we moved that bill up as a special order at 11 o'clock. Well at 11 o'clock, Senator Rattigan called a point of order and said, "We now have on the calendar AB1240, which is set for special order. I move that we take it up."

So they took the bill up at 11 o'clock and there was considerable debate. In short, the vote was finally taken around 11:30, and we got 24 votes. We picked up two additional votes in opposition to the first vote which indicated that we had 22 to 18. We then had 24 votes in favor. But the bill had then to go back on the assembly side for concurrence and senate amendments. Well Mr. Unruh had indicated that there would be no legislation passed in the assembly until that bill got back. There were some who were kind of upset about it. Mr. Unruh called for the legislation. There was a point of order raised that the bill was not back from the senate. So things were held up for five minutes until the bill did come back from the senate. The assembly raised the point that the bill was at the desk and that we should consider it. So we did take it up. When I started to debate the bill, the assemblymen said, "We've heard the bill, we know what it does. Mr. Chairman, we don't think that we need to debate this bill any longer. We don't think we need explanation. We'll call for the opposition."

So the opposition got up and expressed themselves and said that an initiative would follow if this bill were passed. The initiative, of course, did follow. But then the final vote was taken, and there was tremendous applause from the assemblymen themselves because there had been a long period of delay and battle over this legislation.

So that is the sum and substance of the legislative process of the fair housing bill. Of course the governor did sign the bill and it became effective in September, 1963.

At the outset, the California Real Estate Association were in opposition to the legislation. The Apartment House Owners Association also was in opposition, and the Chamber of Commerce and other business organizations were opposed to it. They strongly opposed it. In fact, they had made California the battleground for a national showdown on housing legislation. There were several states that were considering housing legislation at the time, and they felt that if in so-called "liberal" California they could defeat this legislation, their chance of defeating it in other areas was very good. Furthermore they had hoped, as they did, to spell out in the Constitution the right to sell or to deal with whomever they so desired as far as the use of sale property is concerned. Basically that is what they were trying to do—to establish in the Constitution a basic concept which would give them the right to discriminate. Proposition 14 basically was this kind of legislation. So the California Real Estate Association was assisted in its financial efforts by the national organization that sent money into California and had many paid workers working throughout the state to assist them in putting over Proposition 14.

You mentioned that the national real estate organization supplied money to help defeat the Rumford Act and to help pass Proposition 14. I have seen a statement somewhere that there was some doubt as to whether an inordinate amount of money was spent in comparison to what they spend on other similar amendments or referendums.

Well, of course, that is a relative thing. I do not have before me any references to any other amounts of money spent. I simply said that a large amount of money was sent here. In proportion to other propositions which have appeared on the ballot, I have no way of knowing this. I could go to Sacramento and look at the records, but I can't comment on that. I know that they did send money out here and money was spent. Maybe they didn't need much money as far as that goes. They had an issue which was highly inflammatory, an issue dealing with blacks and whites. Maybe you are correct. This, as I said before, I can't answer

because I know we are making comparisons here. But I don't think anybody would deny that they sent money out.

This is interesting in view of the fact that in 1963 and '64 the national trend seemed to be toward a movement for equality for all groups and yet housing seemed to have been one of the glaring exceptions. Would you comment on that?

Well, here again I don't have the dates on which we had the student movements. But it seems to me, regarding this earlier period, that you had a situation in which the students began to revolt against the status quo in the South. You had Miss Rosie Parks of Alabama. You had all these things which were done at this time. The Little Rock situation is another. So I am not too sure about this, Eddy. We'll say that there was considerable momentum in several different directions. Certainly in California where we had had a new Democratic administration after so many years of Republican control, we felt that now was the time to move into these civil rights areas and accomplish something. The Democrats were in a frame of mind to accept our legislation, to decide to remedy some of our civil rights, and I could only look at it from that point of view. They were receptive. And yet in the housing situation we had to tread softly with these guys because they were afraid. Housing is a very sensitive area and there was much misinformation about what the legislation would do, and the fear that blacks were going to come from all over the country to demand housing was exploited. There were numerous scare tactics which were used to frighten people into voting for Proposition 14. I am not too sure that this was an era of good feelings, so to speak. I am not too sure that this is correct.

I had in mind the general statement, oh, it may not be true, that housing seems to be the one commodity that doesn't obey the law of supply and demand, or is the one thing that money won't always buy. I wonder if you would care to comment on whether this is a valid assumption or not?

No. I don't think that we can draw a red line of

continuity as to housing patterns throughout the United States. Those in the Southland have indicated that they have a checkerboard type of housing pattern, but this kind of pattern does not exist in the West and in some places in the North. Now even though in the South they have a checkerboard type of pattern, the races are separated socially and institutionally, and it differs from the Western pattern. In the West now they have isolated, by and large, the minority groups in certain blocks and areas and their institutions are indicative of the housing pattern of that particular area. This is not true of the South.

So yes, more and more in the new areas in the West, in the North, you have segregated patterns, persons of minority groups and other cultural groups who have been isolated and separated, either on their own volition or mandatorily; and largely in the black areas it is by design that they have created an intolerable situation where there is a limited amount of space, congested areas, highly conducive to crime and all of the things that reduce the effectiveness of a good democratic society. As a consequence, there is a natural tendency to break out of these areas and based upon the principle in America that an individual can go as far as his ability and economic condition will allow him, it would only be natural that the black man or the red man or whoever would want to seek his level in this economic situation and his attempt to do so would create a conflict.

That's the basis of much of our housing fight. It isn't that we want to live next door to a Caucasian. I see nothing uplifting or degrading, really, about living next door to one. They are people and if they are decent people, we like to live next door to a decent neighbor. We take that position. But that he happens to be of certain color has no bearing and should have no bearing upon the individual's selection. If he selects to live and reside in a certain neighborhood, he is interested in the neighborhood and of course the neighborhood is comprised of people—not necessarily black and white people.

So these are some of the fundamental questions, as I see them, that can foment disorder. More than that, we find today as a result of patterns of housing segregation the attendant effort to overcome some of these cultural deficiencies by busing people from one area to the other to the school! Now this would not be necessary if people were allowed to move freely and live where they would like to live based upon their own choice, as I see it.

With the passage of the Rumford Bill in 1963 the opposition had lost the battle but they refused to recognize that they'd lost the war, and so a movement began for the initiative which later became famous as Proposition 14 in 1964. If we assume that those in power take as positive approach toward civil rights legislation as they can, in many cases it hasn't proved effective. Why the great opposition to the action of the California government at that time? Why the attempt to undo what had been done?

Well, having spent considerable time in the California legislature dealing with the problem of civil rights and trying to rectify many of the wrongs that exist in the so-called legal process by the legislative method, I would like to think that the representatives who voted for the legislation expressed the opinion, the ideas, and concepts of the people they represented. But this is not wholly true. There is—and I don't think that we can avoid it—a basic racism in this country which exists and is contrary to some of our basic concepts as expressed in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and other documents. When we attempt to emphasize or to develop concepts or practices based upon the concepts in these documents you find that there is a contradiction. Some of those people who express a strong position on the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and other documents, will be some of those who are prone to express themselves forcefully on discrimination and to try to justify this by twisting the concepts of the Constitution.

Proposition 14 was an attempt to spell out in the Constitution of the state of California the right of an individual who owned property, who had control of property, who leased it out, rented it

out, or otherwise had control of it, to make a selection of the person who could rent or who could lease the property. The proposition stated that neither the state nor any subdivision nor agency thereof shall limit or abridge the right of any person to decline to sell, lease or rent his real property to such persons as he in his absolute discretion chooses.

Now Proposition 14, of course, was fought throughout the state from every corner, from every little nook in the state of California. Newspapers took positions on it. Some of our outstanding newspapers were in opposition to it. The California Federation of Labor came out against it. The churches throughout the state as a group came out against it. Prominent citizens throughout the state came out against Proposition 14 and yet when the final vote was taken, Proposition 14 passed almost 2 to 1. This was a sad day in the state of California, but the propaganda that was used up and down the state was, in effect, that a person could walk in and take your home, that the blacks were coming from all over the nation to occupy homes in the state of California. The whole proposition was built on fear and discrimination and racism; however, there were those who expressed themselves as being liberals and who felt that this proposition was necessary in order to protect their homes.

The question of educating the public had come up. Originally when Proposition 14 was to go on the ballot in the primary election, there was a successful fight to keep it off the ballot, out of the primary election, and to postpone it until the November election with the idea of educating the public to its true meaning. Evidently, the faith in the people was misplaced because the people even with this extended period still voted approximately 2 to 1 against it. Where do you think a breakdown occurred, or do you think there was a breakdown?

Let me answer your first question which dealt with the technicalities of whether Proposition 14 should have been put on the June ballot or on the November ballot.

There was considerable discussion in the legislature as to when this should be placed on the ballot. There were other propositions to be considered in the June election and there were those who felt that if we got it on there, there would be this terrible battle—which really took place—and the other propositions would be lost. That was one of the reasons it was placed on the November ballot. The other reason of course was the one that you mentioned, that there needed to be an awful lot of education as to what was going to take place if this proposition was adopted. It was the strong feeling on the part of those in opposition to Proposition 14 that the workers, the common people, and the minorities would necessarily need a really good education and it would take some time to do this. It would take at least, say, five or six months. So this is correct. They bided their time and they chose to put the proposition on the ballot in November because they thought that it would give sufficient time for educational purposes.

Just a simple question about the way the proposition was written: "No on 14" or "Yes on 14." I talked to people, especially the minority element, who voted "yes" thinking they were supporting fair housing.

You see, it is very confusing. You are correct. The proposition was, "Shall a constitutional amendment be adopted?" This constitutional amendment of course, I'll state again, is the one which would freeze into the Constitution of the state of California the right to discriminate. And the question was, "Shall this be adopted?" A positive vote, as far as we were concerned, would have been a "no" vote, you see. But the people who misinterpreted this proposition, thinking they were supporting fair housing, voted "yes." "Yes, we want fair housing." But they were really voting "yes" to the opposite. So it was very confusing and propositions in themselves are very complex, particularly when you word them in such a way that it can be misinterpreted in one way or the other. There was an awful lot of confusion in this case. It is really not known how many people were actually against the proposition who, thinking they were voting for fair housing, voted "yes."

Numerous cases were prevalent in the lower courts and the municipal court judges did pass on these cases. However, they did not attempt to embrace the constitutional question. So the cases were carried to the Supreme Court of the state of California on the basis of their constitutional implications. In 1966, in May I believe it was, the California State Supreme Court issued a decision which declared Proposition 14 unconstitutional. Now this was appealed on the part of the sponsors of Proposition 14 and was taken to the United States Supreme Court.

It would seem that in these long series of court cases, they would have gone to the chief sponsor or the man who was supposed to know most about the act, to have him appear. Were you frequently called in on the discussions when these cases were before the court?

No, I wasn't—not particularly. Occasionally we would discuss it with lawyers but I would say as a general rule that we were not called in, the reason being, of course, that once a law is spelled out, it is on the books; it is there for anybody to read. The meaning is there, although the intent may be questioned. But Proposition 14 was not written by me. It was written by law firms which were against the Fair Housing Act. So consequently they wouldn't be interested in my point of view. My point of view would naturally be negative toward the proposition, and I had expressed such throughout the state of California.

Were these cases you speak of filed by citizens against real estate brokers?

Yes. I find it very difficult at this point to remember each and all of the cases; however, some are filed in Sacramento, some are filed in Southern California, and I think there's one in San Francisco. This will have to be researched. I regret I do not recall the specific names of the cases filed. In most cases, these were cases which were filed against real estate brokers for discriminating, and in some instances against apartment house owners.

I did confer with some of the lawyers who defended the Fair Housing Law before the Supreme Court, and unfortunately, here again, I do not remember their names. However, one very prominent lawyer lived in Los Angeles.

I think it important here, aside from the legal battle that ensued, to explain the difference in the approach in the initiative and the referendum, because many people are unaware that there is in the state of California the referendum procedure which would have nullified my act without this initiative business. Now. There are two methods whereby the people can react against legislation. They can do as they did with respect to Proposition 14. They can instigate an initiative measure which means they themselves are going to develop legislation, put it on the ballot, and submit it to the people for their consideration. This is what they did on Proposition 14. This proposition was a Constitutional amendment which in effect would have nullified all housing acts and which would have also spelled out in the Constitution the right of an individual to discriminate against anybody he so desires. The other approach of course is the referendum. Now the referendum is often submitted when people who have been subjected to laws passed by the legislature want to reject these laws and all they do then is get sufficient number of signatures to put on the ballot. They could vote down the law that was adopted by the legislature and they would simply say that this law was hereby repealed.

Now this is the approach that the California Real Estate Association and the Apartment House Owners Association did not want to take. They were fooling the people into believing that they were adopting a referendum, when in fact they were adopting an initiative. A referendum, had it been adopted, would have repealed my legislation and there would have been no other recourse. We could not have gone to the courts on that because the people have a right to undo anything the legislature does. So you see, the people were thinking that they were really repealing my law, when in fact they were establishing basic Constitutional law which would spell out the fact that you could discriminate legally. I wanted to make that clear

because an awful lot of people are totally unfamiliar with the initiative and referendum and they often say that, "Well, this Proposition 14 will repeal the Rumford Law"—which it would not! Because the court said that Proposition 14 was unconstitutional, the Rumford Act is still on the books today! This would not have been so if they had gone the shorter route and the more clearcut route of repealing the act rather than adopting an initiative. But the sponsors again—and I emphasize this—again the sponsors of Proposition 14 were determined to have a more vicious vehicle whereby they could discriminate against people and not necessarily repeal the Rumford Act.

On May the 29th, 1967, almost a year later, the United States Supreme Court on a five to four decision upheld the California State Supreme Court in declaring Proposition 14 unconstitutional.

In May, 1967. Now it is some four years later, Mr. Rumford. If you had to do it again, would you do it again?

Oh, sure! I think that there is no substitute for right. Either we have a Constitution which protects all of its citizens or we do not; and if we do not, then we do not have a democratic society in this nation. I think it is absolutely necessary that all people have the right to move about freely in this nation, to purchase and to sell. I do not think that there should be any restrictions whatsoever based upon race, color, creed, ancestry, or religion. I think our legislation attempted to do away with such restrictions.

Now the Supreme Court, in reviewing other cases that came before it, indicated that it was spelled out in the Civil Rights Act of 1866 that there should be no discrimination in the selling or buying of property—and it is spelled out! So it really wasn't new. I think we had just failed to look back through the corridors of some of our statutes and to indicate that this legislation was not new, that it was simply implementing what was already on the books. It was placed on there in 1866.

To answer the question whether I would do it again politically: I think I would. It didn't hurt me politically. There are some politicians who state today that they were injured by the housing legislation. Governor Brown has even made that statement. I disagree with Governor Brown, because in my election I was thoroughly satisfied. When I ran for the senate in 1966 I won by a large majority in the primary, in which the people had a chance to vote for an expressed racist who, in every one of the speeches that he made on a platform, had pointed out that I was the one that wrote the housing act. It didn't hurt me at all. Now, I am not going to get into what happened during the campaign because that's a long story which gave me an awful lot of misgivings about the political situation in Alameda County. I do not feel that I lost the election in the general election (and I have reasons to say that and I can offer proof).

But no, I would do the same thing. The Supreme Court has upheld me in both positions—the state and the federal. I do not think, however, that putting a law on the books is the ultimate solution to solving some of the grave problems which face us as a social group here in this country. But I would say that if people were allowed to move freely, to live as they so choose in this state of ours and in the nation, there would be no need for busing, which is only a method whereby an intercultural exposition can take place.

So denying one the simple right to buy property and the right to live where he so chooses has created problems by those who attempt to foment and to continue a system of discrimination against people for what they look like, for what they are, or for what their religion happens to be.

It has been stated by some that the Rumford Fair Housing Act aided primarily those blacks who had credit, who had money, in brief, the black middleclass, if you will; but that it had done nothing or very little for the great masses of the people.

I don't know if anything was ever done just for the masses of the people. I think that everything that is done is done for people in general. If something is wrong, it should be righted. Now

whether this is going to affect a certain group of people, based on their economic position, is a relative thing. If a person who has a limited amount of money is seeking accommodations, he would seek accommodations which he could pay for. If they say that this bill does not affect the masses, they would have to show me that these people are not discriminated against at that level and I don't think that they could do that. I don't think you're telling me that because a guy makes $50 a week and he wants to get a room for $100 a month, he doesn't face this kind of discrimination. He does.

Now this law doesn't say that only some economic groups will benefit from it. It simply says, "There shall be no discrimination based upon race, religion or color or ancestry." It doesn't say that an economic group within certain restrictive limits shall benefit.

It is always interesting when those who want to make light of what has been developed twist their thinking in order to support their side of the issue. Now you have to think a little deeper than that. If these individuals say that it does not affect the low economic group, then of course it does not affect those white people down there.

And I refuse to believe that. I think there is just as much discrimination on the low plane as there is on the high plane; and I think if we benefit at all, we benefit in the so-called middle-class areas, whatever this happens to be. I haven't been able to define what is middle-class in America. Everybody is striving to be middle-class. We are taking the so-called poor and we're raising them. That is why we have a poverty program—to raise them to a higher economic level.

It is always interesting to see how these issues can be manipulated to fit the thinking of those who want to discredit anything that is accomplished. And even if the middle-class did benefit, I see nothing wrong with that. I see nothing wrong with anything that benefits anybody in this society.

We have a poverty program in the United States, as I mentioned before; it is designed to help the poor. It isn't designed to help the middle-class, and I could use the same logic by saying, "It doesn't do anything for the middle-class, so there-fore I am not interested in it." I am interested in it because it will do something for the poor. Generally these kind of propositions are put forth by those people who want to utilize some of our problems for their own causes. If we think it through seriously, we can discredit their propositions.

Most of this happened essentially before the one-man, one-vote theory by the Supreme Court concerning representation. How much support did you get in counties such as Yuba and Modoc?

Well, as you know, California, I think, has some 52 counties. Prior to the one-man, one-vote concept, the Democrats had large representation in the senate. We had 40 senators. One or two of the senators represented more than one county, by and large, and this was acceptable.

Prior to the 1958 election we had some very conservative senators in the senate and we could hardly get anything through. Although I had been successful in getting quite a number of civil rights acts into law, it was very difficult because they would shove any such legislation into the Committee on Governmental Efficiency and Economy and we couldn't get anywhere. But in 1958 we elected a great group of young Democratic senators in these counties. These young people were objective in their thinking and dedicated to the civil rights programs. It was during this Brown period that we were able to get quite a number of bills enacted in the civil rights area. The housing bill was, of course, one of them. We had some excellent representatives from these smaller counties. Unfortunately we had to lose these fellows under the one-man, one-vote proposition. Today, the senate, I imagine, is just about evenly balanced. But California's last great group of senators were certainly liberal ones and I for one secured a great deal of help from these young fellows.

These "young Turks" elected in 1958, would you care to name a few of them?

Oh yes. I can remember O'Sullivan. He came from one of the northern counties. Rattigan, who came out of Santa Rosa. Senator Rattigan was the one who made the motion to set it as a special order of business before the senate at 11 o'clock. There was Senator Cobey from Merced, Senator Short from Stockton. Senator Begovich assisted us, and also Senator Rodda from Sacramento. They were a great group of young people who came along with a different point of view and who expressed a sincere effort to right some of the wrongs that had been perpetrated on citizens of this state.

You would have had a similar support in the assembly. Ordinarily these bills, for a number of years, had to pass in the assembly. So up until 1958, at least, would you say that the senate then was your chief stumbling block?

Yes. In 1961 Mr. [Augustus] Hawkins was able to get his bill, AB801 through, which dealt primarily with publicly assisted housing and, if you remember, he had sponsored the FEPC any number of times, and of course I handled it also. We handled the bills alternately, and I was able to get the Fair Employment Practice Act through in '59. Later on, it was the housing act. Although I wouldn't say it was easy and simple to get these bills passed, my work was made much easier by the fact that they had been handled by Mr. Hawkins previously.

Did Mr. Hawkins' bill, AB801, have a difficult time in the senate?

Yes, it did. It did. It had a battle all the way, but nevertheless it was passed. It confined itself, as I said before, to publicly assisted housing and it was very difficult for the senate to fail to act on a bill which actually was utilizing tax-supported monies for its purposes.

Speaking of public assisted housing, there was a powerful minority person as director of the Housing Authority in Washington named Dr. Robert Weaver. Did he have any influence on the things that happened here in California?

[Laughs] That is a good question. There were all kinds of rumors up in Sacramento that there was an awful lot of pressure being put on Senator Gibson because he was from Vallejo and he had Mare Island in his district, which of course is a ship-building and repair installation. The rumor had it that the White House was putting the heat on Gibson to put that bill out because if he didn't they'd cut off his money in his ship-building area. I don't think this was true.

What did happen, however, was that the minute Proposition 14 was passed, the federal government cut off all of the public monies for housing to be built in the state of California, saying that they wouldn't go for any discrimination, and of course California had sensed that this would happen. The federal government just cut off all funds to California. These monies were not given back until Proposition 14 was nullified.

Yes, there was an awful lot of pressure coming from several different ends, as I understand it, and it seemed to work.

Transcriber: Arlene Weber

Final Typist: Keiko Sugimoto

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