The recent political farewell of Nancy Pelosi and speculation over who will succeed her in Congress focused fresh attention on San Francisco Democratic politics and its inarguably left-of-center brand.
At one point, the families of former House Speaker Pelosi and California Gov. Gavin Newsom were related (Newsom's aunt was married to a brother of Nancy's husband Paul Pelosi) and multi-millionaire Gordon Getty was a major financial backer of both Newsom and Pelosi as well as former California Gov. Jerry Brown and his father, former Gov. Pat Brown.
But providing the foot soldiers and the ideological furor behind Newsom, Pelosi and the Browns was the "Burton Machine" — the grass-roots organization established and guided by John Burton, former congressman, state senate president and Democratic state chairman, and before him his older brother Phil, congressman and power broker in Washington, D.C., as well as in the Golden State.
The death of John Burton at age 92 on Sept. 7 and subsequent outpouring of tributes from Democrats in California and nationwide was a reminder of just how far to the left the party has moved.
Whether the issue was abortion, gay rights, benefits for illegal immigrants, higher taxes to fund government programs or support for campus causes such as opposition to the Vietnam War, the Burton brothers and their organization were there with foot soldiers and other resources.
The genesis of the Burton brothers rise to power was in 1964, when Phil Burton won a special election for a U.S. House seat and John subsequently won Phil's Assembly seat.
"The Burton 'machine,' as it soon came to be called finally came together in 1966," wrote the late John Jacobs, top political correspondent for the Sacramento Bee and author of the critically-acclaimed biography of Phil Burton entitled "A Rage For Justice."
"John Burton and [Assembly Speaker-to-be] Willie Brown became leading figures on the Democratic left in the Bay Area as the free speech movement dawned in Berkeley and the antiwar movement and counterculture took root in San Francisco. ... [L]ongtime Burton confidant Agar Jacks was elected chairman of the [Democratic] County Committee. His election meant [Phil] Burton now controlled nearly all of the key offices and the local committee that had repeatedly sought to destroy him."
John Burton enjoyed the Assembly and would go on to be a spirited foe of Republican Gov. Ronald Reagan's conservative agenda. The San Francisco lawmaker was in the forefront of opposition to Reagan's "tough love" welfare reform.
Burton's handlebar mustache, perpetually uncut hair, and signature foul language made him an easily recognized politician.
In 1974, thanks to an opening in the U.S. House district next to Phil Burton's, John was elected and joined his brother in Congress.
But these would be hard times for John, completely overshadowed in Washington by his brother, the ultimate dealmaker and chairman of the House Democratic Conference.
It was Phil's mastery of the House rules that permitted the increasingly liberal House Democrats to dilute the traditional rules of seniority and thus permit them to depose senior and more conservative committee chairmen.
It was Phil's uncanny ability to draw district lines that led in 1981 to the so-called "Burton Plan," which sculpted California's U.S. House districts to give Democrats a 2-to-1 advantage.
"Phillip was the consummate strategist and power broker, John the idealist and cut-up," wrote Jacobs. "Phillip was from the hard-drinking old school. John, always a free spirit, was only six years younger. But it was an important six years.
"John had been touched by the drug-tolerant 1960's counterculture. Philip's habit was legal. He knew nothing about smoking dope, doing lines, or buying drugs on the street at midnight from disreputable people."
John did, and in 1980, his increasingly-discussed drug problem — including cocaine use —resulted in an embarrassingly close (51%-45%) reelection in a supposedly-safe district.
A year later, Phillip redrew the lines in John's district to make it more Democratic at the peril of making his own neighboring district more competitive. An intervention of friends finally led to John retiring from Congress and seeking treatment for his addiction.
Phil Burton died at age 56 in 1983. His widow Sala filled his House seat and, on her death bed in 1987, she handpicked Nancy Pelosi as her successor.
Clean of addictions and after a few years in private law practice, John Burton returned to his beloved state Assembly in 1988 and took up liberal causes at one volume: loud.
He moved to the state senate in 1996, eventually was elected senate president, and was termed out in 2008. A year later, Burton was elected state Democratic chairman and, before his retirement in 2017, the party's headquarters in Sacramento was named for him.
In his twilight years, the normally combative Burton began to offer praise for Republicans.
He said he admired old foe Reagan for signing a liberal abortion law in 1967 (something Reagan later said he regretted). He praised former GOP Gov. Pete Wilson for passing a tax increase in 1991, saying "We got the taxes through and then got the state right. Pete deserves a great amount of credit for that."
Former GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was criticized by Burton when he was initially elected with a conservative agenda but later reached out to the senate president when his statewide budget initiatives were defeated in 2004.
In a statement on X, Schwarzenegger wrote of Burton: "I always respected his honesty, his passion, his colorful language, and his larger-than-life personality."
But there are other opinions.
Jon Fleischmann, editor of the much-read Flash Report on California politics, told Newsmax: that "California today is a state where government bureaucracy thrives while ordinary families struggle under the weight of high taxes, stifling regulations, and the crushing influence of special interests. John Burton's fingerprints are all over that outcome. That is his real legacy."
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Click Here Now.
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