Jesse M. Unruh

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Signed photo of Jesse Unruh. Inscription reads: To Jesse with my love and regards. Jess

Jesse Marvin Unruh (September 30, 1922 – August 4, 1987), also known as Big Daddy Unruh, was a U.S. Democratic politician and California State Treasurer.

Born in Newton, Kansas, he served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. According to one apocryphal tale, he was nicknamed "Big Daddy" by Raquel Welch, when the two were allegedly involved with one another. Raquel Welch denies this claim; it is more likely that the nickname was a reference to the character in the Tennessee Williams' play, "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof."

His political career began as a candidate for Presidential Elector for California in 1956; he was a member of California State Assembly, and Speaker of the California State Assembly, 1961–1969; delegate to Democratic National Convention from California, 1960 and 1968. In 1959, he authored the Unruh Civil Rights Act, a far-reaching law that outlawed discrimination in the areas of housing and employment, and was a template for later reforms that were enacted nationally in the 1960s and 1970s.

He became a national figure in Democratic Party politics, often feuding with fellow Democrat Pat Brown, who was Governor of California from 1958 to 1966, and was a case-study in the James Q. Wilson treatise on machine politics, The Amateur Democrat.

As an early supporter of the Presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, Unruh emerged as a pivotal figure in the run-up to the Democratic Convention. He helped Kennedy capture the California Primary in June of that year, but an assassin's bullet that night ended the campaign. In the melee that ensued, Unruh assisted in keeping suspect Sirhan Sirhan from the reach of angry Kennedy supporters. After an unsuccessful effort, led by Unruh and Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago, to draft Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, he endorsed Eugene McCarthy at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago.

He left the legislature to run for Governor against Ronald Reagan in 1970, then was a candidate for Mayor of Los Angeles in 1973. He lost both elections, but was elected State Treasurer in 1974, and served from 1975 until he died in office of prostate cancer on August 4, 1987.

The University of Southern California Department of Political Science includes an institute named the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics.

His religion was described as Protestant, and he was a member of the American Legion. He married twice, and had five children. He was buried in Santa Monica, California.

[edit] Famous quotations

• Campaign finance: Money is the mother's milk of politics.
• Lobbyists at the legislature: If you can't take their money, drink their booze, eat their food, screw their women, and still look them in the eye and vote against them in the morning, you don't belong here. [1]
• Winning: Winning isn't everything but losing is nothing. (said losing the gubernatorial election in 1970)
• God: Anyone who thinks all this is an accident, has got to be some kind of stupid. (about creation and the universe)
• Disillusionment: Who knows, who cares, why bother? (On his death bed)
• Principles: Sometimes we must rise above principles. (quoted by Herb Caen)

[edit] Further reading

• Cannon, Lou (1969) Ronnie and Jesse;: A political Odyssey. New York: Doubleday. ISBN: B0006D5M5E.
• Putnam, Jackson K (2005) Jess: The Political Career of Jesse Marvin Unruh. New York: University Press of America. ISBN: 978-0761830672.

[edit] External links

• Information about Jesse Unruh by his grandson of same name at jesseunruh.com
• The USC Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics biography on Jesse M. Unruh