December 13, 2024 • 12 mins
In the final installment of the four-part series on "The Fourscore Project," former California Governor Pete Wilson shares his candid views on the current state of public employee unions, the decline of California's educational standards, and the broader implications of these issues for the state's future. Wilson discusses the impact of the Janus decision on public employee unions, the challenges facing California's public education system, and the influence of unions on state politics. He also reflects on the ongoing exodus of the middle class from California, attributing it to high taxes, regulatory excesses, and a political environment increasingly dominated by one party. This episode offers a sobering look at the challenges California faces and Wilson's thoughts on what needs to be done to address them.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:21):
Welcome to this episode of the Fourscore
and Seven Project, a productionof the New Majority Foundation.
My name is Roger Clark, your host.
This is part for the final episodeof our Governor Pete Wilson series,
a wide ranging and intimate conversationwith the former California governor
that explores a wide range of subjectsand issues
(00:41):
that are both topicaland timely to California and the nation.
Pete Wilson was a 36governor of California from 1991 to 1999,
a United States Senator from California,from 1983 to 1991,
and the 29th mayor of San Diegofrom 1971 to 1983.
He's a United States Marineserving on active duty from 1955 to 1958.
(01:06):
And a graduate of the UC BerkeleySchool of Law and Yale University.
Governor Wilson, through his lifeand lifetime of public service,
has given us a powerful exampleof what it means to be a leader
for all the American people.
A true American patriot.
A man who can teach and instruct us todayon the principles of statesmanship.
(01:27):
That all current politicaland business leaders should heed.
In our final episode of the series.
Governor Wilson discussespublic safety, drugs, gangs,
education and getting California.
On the right track.
Is there something
inherently unequalabout the bargaining process
when you have a public employee union
(01:49):
negotiating with elected individuals?
For sure?
Yes. Explain. Explain in detail.
Let's say it's an obviousconflict of interest, and I'll tell you
who thought so.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt,a pretty good Democrat,
but he said it's it's a conflict.
I'll tell you what else.
George Meany, the founding presidentof the AFL-CIO, he said, hell, let's not.
(02:16):
That's not right. And it isn't.
And what you should do is to provide
the opportunityfor good teachers to prosper.
And the same thing is true.
I never went along with even arbitrationfor police officers,
and I'm about as pro-policeas anybody that you're going to find.
(02:37):
Right. I had a grandfather
who was a police officerwho was killed in the line of duty.
My mother was 18 months old.
But here's the point they deserve.
If they are really good,they deserve good pay.
And there is competition.
(02:58):
I can tell you when I was mayorof San Diego that we were competing
all the time with other cities,
other counties for the best of our police.
And I said, you know, if
we're too cheap and don't valuethem, we're going to lose them.
That's the competitionthat you would need.
And it worked.
(03:20):
What what's the status of our Cal Stateand University of California Systems?
Are those institutionsdelivering solid educations or not?
Some are better than others.
I think some are reasonably good.
In the University of California,in the best of its graduate schools,
particularly in the sciences,is world famous.
(03:44):
But what we're talking about is the fact
that secondary schools that send kids
to freshmen at Berkeley frequently
get sent to the community colleges
to get the basics
that they didn't get all the way through
(04:05):
from third grade on upthrough high school.
Makes you wonder how they got admitted.
They got admitted in many cases
because people were trying to give
what they thought was an even break
rather than a high test score for entry.
And it's happening all over the country
(04:26):
in a lot of the Ivy League schools.
They are dismissing the S.A.T.
scores.
They don'tthey don't even give the test anymore.
I think Stanford, even Stanford,which, of course, private, did
they dispense with this I.D.or computer network?
Well, Stanford is is as woke as Yaleor Princeton or Harvard.
(04:47):
All right.
Well, I know the California Universitysystem has a storied past.
I was up at walking through the Berkeleycampus some months ago,
and I wandered on to a roadwhere they had all these parking stickers.
You had to be a Nobel laureate
and had a parking passthat said you were set to be in there.
And there were 15or 20 of these parking passes.
(05:08):
And yeah, a little hoots.
But but there's not many universitiesthat could get away with that.
But they probably filledthose parking spaces.
Look, but that's always retrospectivebecause of Nobel laureates
or based uponan education that happened decades ago.
It's based on accomplishment.
If in fact, that's a legitimate.
I've heard that,
(05:29):
but I think it is gay.
Is it a gag? So. So looking forward.
Because Nobels are retrospective prospectof the question would be 40 years hence,
will a Berkeley or,you know, a Stanford still be producing
what they claim to be Nobel laureatesor hiring Nobel laureates?
Any thoughts on the future of educationat that higher level in California?
(05:50):
I should tell you,I've only been intimate, dated
by two audiences in my entire career.
One was a small group of Nobel laureatesat Berkeley
and the other
was the Medal of Honor recipientswhen they had their annual meeting.
I think that we make a mistakewhen we dispense
(06:14):
with testing of a kind
that is necessary to determinewhether or not people are, in fact,
properly trained, whether they have gottenwhat they deserve, which is an education
that allows them to read and understandthings.
Right. Right.
Not everyoneis going to be a Nobel laureate.
(06:35):
Not everybody is going to be a judge.
You know, not everyone is going to bea specialist in in medicine.
God, I hope there are moreand more doing basic research.
But the point is,the California Teachers Association
that sided with me and backed mebecause of my opposition
(06:58):
to a legal rightto strike for strikers in the classroom.
You've seen what happens when theyin effect, they're striking.
They're claiming that they're
staying home to avoid being contaminated.
Right.
And I just don't believe in it.
I don't think it's healthy.
I think we're doing a disserviceto a lot of these kids.
(07:23):
And particularly while I was governor
and talked with David Gardner,the president, I said, David,
aren't we doing a disservice to kids
who are sent from their high school
to become freshmen here at Berkeley
and find that they can'tdo the work that they did?
They're not even sufficient readers.
(07:45):
It's that they can't do basic math.
And he said, Yes,and we do our best to combat it.
But he said, I have to agreeit's not good enough.
You mentioned the Janisse decision,which is a decision
the United States Supreme Court,to paraphrase, roughly said that
an individual cannot be compelled to bea member of a public employee unions.
They have to give notice and electwhether or not to voluntarily contribute
(08:09):
their dues to that,to a more involved decision than that.
Well, that's that's the guts of it.
So what's been the status of public
employee unions in Californiain the wake of the Janice decision?
It's been good.
I'd say that something like
like a quarter of those who weremembers have gotten out
(08:30):
and now they can do itwithout paying $125,000 to a lawyer.
The thing that the California TeachersAssociation, as it exists
now, did was to hire very clever lawyers
who contacted members of the unionand said,
here, you need to sign this contract,this three year contract.
(08:52):
And a lot of them did, because, one,they didn't want to be ostracized
by other people in the union,specifically the stewards.
But they didn't want to fight it.
So a number of have, but a number haven't.
The interesting thing,if you're interested in
(09:12):
what their political activity is like,
is it all only to do with teacherspay with their hours,
with things that relateto their professional responsibilities?
Most of the political action that is
taken has nothing to do with that.
It's on the basis of completely different
(09:35):
political questions.
And they spend a fortune on it.
It will perform a little old math.
If there are 300,000 membersand they are required, as they were.
They're not now,but as they were to pay, on average,
$1,000 dues every year.
(09:58):
Then under the old math,that's 300,000 times a thousand.
A lot of money. It's a lot of money.
And when it's every year, it'sa hell of a lot of money.
And they relate to things like
lowering the penalty for criminal acts,
things that have nothing whatsoever to dowith their professional responsibility.
(10:21):
The unions contributeto political campaigns.
yes. Heavily, too.
Do they favor one party or the other?
Yes. Guess which one. Would it be?
The Democrats.
It is the Democrats and they do it.
And that's a fact.
Does that have any practical effect,do you think, in terms of California
now being a statewide level,a one party state?
(10:44):
Yes, it does.
Obviously, as a Republican,I can remember the days
before this occurred,it was very different.
And you're mentioning the factthat we've lost population.
We have, you know,a lot of them are Republicans
because they didn't likehaving to pay taxes that were too high
(11:06):
or if they were small business peopleto put up
with the very expensive requirements
for regulatory access.
I mean, that's a that's probably worse
even than the taxes every year
collection of political potential
(11:27):
for very leftist unions.
And the biggest one is that one.
With this hemorrhaging of people.
Are we talkingabout a hemorrhaging of people?
We would once upon a time classifyas as the American middle class,
the people who have jobs
and pay their taxes, go home on a night.
(11:50):
Are they the ones that are leavingCalifornia or is it other groups of people
that.
Are it's it is largelythose people who are small business owners
because it hurts them and they figure,
why do I have to go through this?
And another perfectly
pleasant place.
Without being held up andsupporting things that I don't agree with.
(12:13):
Anyway.
Thank you for joining usfor this fascinating and informative
discussion with former CaliforniaGovernor Pete Wilson.
My name is Roger Clark, your host,The Fourscore and Seven Project,
a production of the New MajorityFoundation.
Please share and like us with your friends
and I hope you've enjoyed our four partseries on Governor Pete Wilson,
(12:34):
his lessons on leadership and government,how to fix what's broken,
and the importance ofhonesty in public leadership.
Welcome to this episode of the Fourscore
and Seven Project, a productionof the New Majority Foundation.
My name is Roger Clark, your host.
This is part for the final episodeof our Governor Pete Wilson series,
a wide ranging and intimate conversationwith the former California governor
that explores a wide range of subjectsand issues
(00:41):
that are both topicaland timely to California and the nation.
Pete Wilson was a 36governor of California from 1991 to 1999,
a United States Senator from California,from 1983 to 1991,
and the 29th mayor of San Diegofrom 1971 to 1983.
He's a United States Marineserving on active duty from 1955 to 1958.
(01:06):
And a graduate of the UC BerkeleySchool of Law and Yale University.
Governor Wilson, through his lifeand lifetime of public service,
has given us a powerful exampleof what it means to be a leader
for all the American people.
A true American patriot.
A man who can teach and instruct us todayon the principles of statesmanship.
(01:27):
That all current politicaland business leaders should heed.
In our final episode of the series.
Governor Wilson discussespublic safety, drugs, gangs,
education and getting California.
On the right track.
Is there something
inherently unequalabout the bargaining process
when you have a public employee union
(01:49):
negotiating with elected individuals?
For sure?
Yes. Explain. Explain in detail.
Let's say it's an obviousconflict of interest, and I'll tell you
who thought so.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt,a pretty good Democrat,
but he said it's it's a conflict.
I'll tell you what else.
George Meany, the founding presidentof the AFL-CIO, he said, hell, let's not.
(02:16):
That's not right. And it isn't.
And what you should do is to provide
the opportunityfor good teachers to prosper.
And the same thing is true.
I never went along with even arbitrationfor police officers,
and I'm about as pro-policeas anybody that you're going to find.
(02:37):
Right. I had a grandfather
who was a police officerwho was killed in the line of duty.
My mother was 18 months old.
But here's the point they deserve.
If they are really good,they deserve good pay.
And there is competition.
(02:58):
I can tell you when I was mayorof San Diego that we were competing
all the time with other cities,
other counties for the best of our police.
And I said, you know, if
we're too cheap and don't valuethem, we're going to lose them.
That's the competitionthat you would need.
And it worked.
(03:20):
What what's the status of our Cal Stateand University of California Systems?
Are those institutionsdelivering solid educations or not?
Some are better than others.
I think some are reasonably good.
In the University of California,in the best of its graduate schools,
particularly in the sciences,is world famous.
(03:44):
But what we're talking about is the fact
that secondary schools that send kids
to freshmen at Berkeley frequently
get sent to the community colleges
to get the basics
that they didn't get all the way through
(04:05):
from third grade on upthrough high school.
Makes you wonder how they got admitted.
They got admitted in many cases
because people were trying to give
what they thought was an even break
rather than a high test score for entry.
And it's happening all over the country
(04:26):
in a lot of the Ivy League schools.
They are dismissing the S.A.T.
scores.
They don'tthey don't even give the test anymore.
I think Stanford, even Stanford,which, of course, private, did
they dispense with this I.D.or computer network?
Well, Stanford is is as woke as Yaleor Princeton or Harvard.
(04:47):
All right.
Well, I know the California Universitysystem has a storied past.
I was up at walking through the Berkeleycampus some months ago,
and I wandered on to a roadwhere they had all these parking stickers.
You had to be a Nobel laureate
and had a parking passthat said you were set to be in there.
And there were 15or 20 of these parking passes.
(05:08):
And yeah, a little hoots.
But but there's not many universitiesthat could get away with that.
But they probably filledthose parking spaces.
Look, but that's always retrospectivebecause of Nobel laureates
or based uponan education that happened decades ago.
It's based on accomplishment.
If in fact, that's a legitimate.
I've heard that,
(05:29):
but I think it is gay.
Is it a gag? So. So looking forward.
Because Nobels are retrospective prospectof the question would be 40 years hence,
will a Berkeley or,you know, a Stanford still be producing
what they claim to be Nobel laureatesor hiring Nobel laureates?
Any thoughts on the future of educationat that higher level in California?
(05:50):
I should tell you,I've only been intimate, dated
by two audiences in my entire career.
One was a small group of Nobel laureatesat Berkeley
and the other
was the Medal of Honor recipientswhen they had their annual meeting.
I think that we make a mistakewhen we dispense
(06:14):
with testing of a kind
that is necessary to determinewhether or not people are, in fact,
properly trained, whether they have gottenwhat they deserve, which is an education
that allows them to read and understandthings.
Right. Right.
Not everyoneis going to be a Nobel laureate.
(06:35):
Not everybody is going to be a judge.
You know, not everyone is going to bea specialist in in medicine.
God, I hope there are moreand more doing basic research.
But the point is,the California Teachers Association
that sided with me and backed mebecause of my opposition
(06:58):
to a legal rightto strike for strikers in the classroom.
You've seen what happens when theyin effect, they're striking.
They're claiming that they're
staying home to avoid being contaminated.
Right.
And I just don't believe in it.
I don't think it's healthy.
I think we're doing a disserviceto a lot of these kids.
(07:23):
And particularly while I was governor
and talked with David Gardner,the president, I said, David,
aren't we doing a disservice to kids
who are sent from their high school
to become freshmen here at Berkeley
and find that they can'tdo the work that they did?
They're not even sufficient readers.
(07:45):
It's that they can't do basic math.
And he said, Yes,and we do our best to combat it.
But he said, I have to agreeit's not good enough.
You mentioned the Janisse decision,which is a decision
the United States Supreme Court,to paraphrase, roughly said that
an individual cannot be compelled to bea member of a public employee unions.
They have to give notice and electwhether or not to voluntarily contribute
(08:09):
their dues to that,to a more involved decision than that.
Well, that's that's the guts of it.
So what's been the status of public
employee unions in Californiain the wake of the Janice decision?
It's been good.
I'd say that something like
like a quarter of those who weremembers have gotten out
(08:30):
and now they can do itwithout paying $125,000 to a lawyer.
The thing that the California TeachersAssociation, as it exists
now, did was to hire very clever lawyers
who contacted members of the unionand said,
here, you need to sign this contract,this three year contract.
(08:52):
And a lot of them did, because, one,they didn't want to be ostracized
by other people in the union,specifically the stewards.
But they didn't want to fight it.
So a number of have, but a number haven't.
The interesting thing,if you're interested in
(09:12):
what their political activity is like,
is it all only to do with teacherspay with their hours,
with things that relateto their professional responsibilities?
Most of the political action that is
taken has nothing to do with that.
It's on the basis of completely different
(09:35):
political questions.
And they spend a fortune on it.
It will perform a little old math.
If there are 300,000 membersand they are required, as they were.
They're not now,but as they were to pay, on average,
$1,000 dues every year.
(09:58):
Then under the old math,that's 300,000 times a thousand.
A lot of money. It's a lot of money.
And when it's every year, it'sa hell of a lot of money.
And they relate to things like
lowering the penalty for criminal acts,
things that have nothing whatsoever to dowith their professional responsibility.
(10:21):
The unions contributeto political campaigns.
yes. Heavily, too.
Do they favor one party or the other?
Yes. Guess which one. Would it be?
The Democrats.
It is the Democrats and they do it.
And that's a fact.
Does that have any practical effect,do you think, in terms of California
now being a statewide level,a one party state?
(10:44):
Yes, it does.
Obviously, as a Republican,I can remember the days
before this occurred,it was very different.
And you're mentioning the factthat we've lost population.
We have, you know,a lot of them are Republicans
because they didn't likehaving to pay taxes that were too high
(11:06):
or if they were small business peopleto put up
with the very expensive requirements
for regulatory access.
I mean, that's a that's probably worse
even than the taxes every year
collection of political potential
(11:27):
for very leftist unions.
And the biggest one is that one.
With this hemorrhaging of people.
Are we talkingabout a hemorrhaging of people?
We would once upon a time classifyas as the American middle class,
the people who have jobs
and pay their taxes, go home on a night.
(11:50):
Are they the ones that are leavingCalifornia or is it other groups of people
that.
Are it's it is largelythose people who are small business owners
because it hurts them and they figure,
why do I have to go through this?
And another perfectly
pleasant place.
Without being held up andsupporting things that I don't agree with.
(12:13):
Anyway.
Thank you for joining usfor this fascinating and informative
discussion with former CaliforniaGovernor Pete Wilson.
My name is Roger Clark, your host,The Fourscore and Seven Project,
a production of the New MajorityFoundation.
Please share and like us with your friends
and I hope you've enjoyed our four partseries on Governor Pete Wilson,
(12:34):
his lessons on leadership and government,how to fix what's broken,
and the importance ofhonesty in public leadership.
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