Governorship
Deukmejian was elected in 1982 to his first term as Governor of California, defeating Lieutenant Governor Michael Curb, a recording company owner, in the Republican primary (1,165,266 or 51.1 percent to 1,020,935 or 44.8 percent). One of his early primary backers was former gubernatorial candidate Joe Shell of Bakersfield, California, a conservative who had opposed Richard M. Nixon in the 1962 primary.
In the general election, Deukmejian ran as a conservative supporter of public safety and balanced budgets. In addition, he was strongly critical of outgoing Governor Jerry Brown and promised to run a very different administration. He also strongly criticized the state Supreme Court, which was dominated by Brown appointees, notably controversial Chief Justice Rose Bird.
Deukmejian narrowly defeated Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley in the general election. Deukmejian won the election by about 100,000 votes, about 1.2 percent of the 7.5 million votes cast. The victory came despite opinion polls leading up to the election which consistently showed Bradley with a lead, and despite exit polling conducted after voting closed which led some news organizations on the night of the election to make early projections of a Bradley victory. The discrepancy between the polling numbers and the election's ultimate results would come to be termed the "Bradley effect", which refers to a hypothesized tendency of white voters to tell interviewers or pollsters that they are undecided or likely to vote for a black candidate, but then actually vote for his opponent.
Deukmejian's governorship was a departure from his predecessor, Jerry Brown. He vowed not to raise taxes, appealing to the business community by repealing some consumer and environmental requirements. He presented himself as law and order candidate proposing new efforts to fight crime. He faced a Democrat-dominated California State Legislature during his two terms as governor. He was the sole Republican statewide officeholder until Thomas W. Hayes was appointed California State Treasurer, following the death of Treasurer Jesse Unruh.
In 1983, Deukmejian abolished the Caltrans Office of Bicycle Facilities and reduced state spending for bicycle projects from 5 million to the statutory minimum of 360,000 per year. In 1984, he vetoed A.B. 1, the first bill to ban discrimination against gays and lesbians, which passed the Legislature. There were rallies and protests statewide.
During his first term, Deukmejian won the voters' approval. In 1986, Bradley sought a rematch and Deukmejian defeated him by a 61% to 37% percent margin, a record not broken until 1998. Deukmejian served as Governor from 1983 to 1991. He is generally regarded as a moderate-to-conservative Republican.
The Deukmejian administration entered office during a national economic recession. California had a $1.5 billion budget deficit with an unemployment rate of 11.2%. He first halted the hiring of new state employees and banned out of state travel for those in government. He rejected the legislature's demands for tax hikes, and pared $1.1 billion from its budget by selectively vetoing spending items. One year later, further cuts, along with a booming defense industry, created a billion dollar surplus for 1985. At one point his approval ratings had reached 76%. His 1985 budget increased spending in education, highway construction and environmental projects. However, health and welfare program spending was criticized.
Three years later, Deukmejian faced his own billion dollar deficit. He supported a raise in the state minimum wage in 1989. During Deukmejian's administration, the general fund budget grew by 98% without any increase in general tax rates. (California State general fund budget: 1982–1983 $21.7 billion; 1990–1991 $42.9 billion.)
Deukmejian largely made his career by being tough on crime. When he was in the legislature, he wrote California's capital punishment law. As a candidate for reelection, in 1986 he opposed the retention election of three Brown-appointed justices of the California Supreme Court 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). Deukmejian proceeded to elevate his friend and law partner, Malcolm M. Lucas, from Associate Justice to Chief Justice, and appointed three new associate justices. Under Deukmejian, the California prison population nearly tripled – as of December 31, 1982, the total prison population stood at 34,640 inmates. By the end of 1991 the population had reached 97,309. He increased spending for the building of new prisons.
In 1988, then-Vice President George H. W. Bush considered Governor Deukmejian as a possible running mate for the presidential election that year. During a trade mission to South Korea in August, Deukmejian sent a letter saying he could not be considered for nomination, refusing to leave the governorship to Democratic Lieutenant Governor Leo T. McCarthy. Deukmejian did not seek reelection to a third term as governor in the 1990 gubernatorial elections, and was succeeded by fellow Republican then-United States Senator Pete Wilson on January 7, 1991.
In 1991, in his last two hours in office, he vetoed the property tax exemption bill passed by both houses of 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 Solar Energy Generating Systems (SEGS) plants built by Luz International Limited (Luz) in the late 1980s.
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