Category:California Republicans

Ronald Reagan moved to California in 1937 to begin a film career, served two terms as governor in Sacramento beginning in 1967, and from that base reshaped the American conservative movement. His trajectory illustrates much of what this category captures. California Republicans have governed the nation's most populous state, staffed Republican White Houses from Nixon through Trump, lost statewide races by wide margins in the twenty-first century, and at the same time held federal offices that made several of them figures of national consequence. The biographies grouped here span Cabinet secretaries, House leaders, governors, mayors, business executives turned candidates, and a handful of jurists.

Background

The California Republican Party traces its organized presence to the 1850s, but the modern party took shape in the postwar decades. From 1943 through 1967, every California governor was a Republican: Earl Warren, Goodwin Knight, and Reagan in succession. Warren, who later became Chief Justice of the United States, embodied a moderate, cross-filing strain that dominated the state in the 1940s and 1950s. Reagan's 1966 defeat of Pat Brown announced a different politics, more ideological and more national in ambition, and it incubated the personnel who would run the executive branch in Washington for much of the next quarter century.

The party's electoral position changed sharply after 1988, the last year a Republican presidential nominee carried California. Pete Wilson won two gubernatorial elections in the 1990s, and Arnold Schwarzenegger won the 2003 recall and reelection in 2006, but the party has not won a statewide constitutional office since. The result is a Republican bench concentrated in particular regions: the Central Valley, parts of Orange and San Diego counties, and inland Southern California. Many of the more recent figures in this category come from those areas, while the older figures rose during the era when California Republicans routinely won statewide.

Notable members

The category's most prominent member is Ronald Reagan, the only person represented here who became president. Around him sits an unusually dense cluster of senior federal officials drawn from his orbit. Caspar Weinberger, a San Francisco lawyer, served as Secretary of Defense for most of the Reagan presidency after earlier stints as Director of the Office of Management and Budget and Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare under Nixon and Ford. Edwin Meese, a Reagan adviser since Sacramento days, became Attorney General in 1985. William French Smith, Reagan's personal attorney, preceded Meese at the Justice Department. H. R. Haldeman, an advertising executive from Los Angeles, was White House Chief of Staff under Richard Nixon and a central figure in the Watergate scandal. Taken together, these biographies trace how California provided much of the staffing for Republican administrations from 1969 through 1989.

A second cluster consists of figures from the United States House of Representatives. Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield rose to Majority Leader and then to the Speakership in January 2023, a tenure that ended with his removal by his own conference in October of that year. Darrell Issa, a car-alarm entrepreneur turned congressman, chaired the House Oversight Committee and was a principal sponsor of the 2003 recall that brought Schwarzenegger to office. Ken Calvert has represented inland Riverside County since 1993 and chairs an Appropriations subcommittee. David Valadao and John Duarte hold Central Valley seats shaped by agriculture and water politics. Young Kim and Michelle Steel, both elected in 2020 from Southern California districts, were among the first Korean American women in Congress. Mark DeSaulnier appears in this category because of his earlier Republican affiliation; he later switched parties and now serves in the House as a Democrat, as did Leon Panetta before his long career in Democratic politics, White House service, and the Cabinet.

A third grouping involves candidates from business backgrounds who sought statewide office in the post-Schwarzenegger era. Carly Fiorina, former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, won the 2010 Republican Senate nomination and lost to Barbara Boxer; she later ran for the 2016 presidential nomination. Meg Whitman, former chief executive of eBay, was the 2010 gubernatorial nominee and spent a record sum in losing to Jerry Brown. Neel Kashkari, a former Treasury official who oversaw the Troubled Asset Relief Program, was the 2014 gubernatorial nominee and is now president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Steve Garvey, the former Dodgers and Padres first baseman, was the 2024 Senate nominee against Adam Schiff. These campaigns share a pattern: well-funded outsider candidacies that fell well short in general elections.

Local and municipal officials form a fourth strand. Ashley Swearengin served two terms as mayor of Fresno and was the 2014 Republican nominee for state controller. Lee Brand succeeded her as mayor. Jerry Dyer, a former Fresno police chief, is the current mayor. The repeated appearance of Fresno reflects the Central Valley's role as one of the few major urban areas in California where Republican mayoral candidates routinely win.

Finally, the category includes Joseph McKenna, an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court from 1898 to 1925. McKenna represented California in the House before serving as Attorney General under William McKinley and then being elevated to the Court. His presence is a reminder that California's contribution of Republicans to national office predates the New Deal realignment.

Regional and ideological patterns

The biographies here divide along recognizable lines. Northern Californians such as Weinberger, Fiorina, and Whitman tended toward a business-oriented, fiscally focused Republicanism with moderate positions on social issues. Southern Californians from the Reagan circle, including Meese and Smith, anchored the conservative legal and policy revolution of the 1980s. Central Valley figures, including Valadao, Duarte, McCarthy, and the Fresno mayors, are shaped by agricultural water policy, immigration enforcement debates in districts with large Latino populations, and the economic concerns of inland communities distant from the coastal economy.

Career paths into California Republican politics have shifted accordingly. The Warren and Reagan generations entered through law practice, prosecution, or, in Reagan's case, an unusual route through film and union leadership at the Screen Actors Guild. Later generations more often arrived through business, as Fiorina, Whitman, Kashkari, and Issa illustrate, or through local elected office in the inland regions where the party retained competitiveness. The two trajectories together account for most of the figures grouped under this heading.