Courken George Deukmejian (6 June 1928 – 8 May 2018) was Governor of California (R) from 3 January 1983 to 7 January 1991, succeeding Jerry Brown and preceding Pete Wilson.
Biography[]
Courken George Deukmejian was born in Menands, New York on 6 June 1928 to a family of Armenian immigrants, and he graduated from Siena College and St. John's University. In 1955, he moved to California, and he worked as a lawyer in Long Beach before entering politics. In 1962, he was elected to the State Assembly from the 39th district, serving from 1963 to 1967; he served as a Republican. From 1967 to 1979, he served in the State Senate, and then as Attorney General of California from 8 January 1979 to 3 January 1983, succeeding Evelle J. Younger and preceding John Van de Kamp. He led a high-profile campaign against marijuana in northern California, and he became known as a conservative supporter of public safety and balanced budgets.
In 1982, Deukmejian won the gubernatorial election, and he appealed to the business community by vowing not to raise taxes and by repealing some consumer and environmental requirements. He also proposed new efforts to fight crime, cut state spending for bicycle projects, and vetoed a bill to ban discrimination against the LGBT community. However, he won voters' approval during his first term in office, and he won re-election in 1986. His cuts created a billion-dollar surplus in 1985, and he made cuts in education, health, welfare, and environmental budgets to fund highway construction. However, he soon faced his own billion-dollar deficit, and the budget grew without any tax increases. Deukmejian was considered as a vice-presidential candidate for George H.W. Bush in 1988, but he refused to leave the governorship to Democratic Party member Leo T. McCarthy. He decided not to seek re-election in 1990, and fellow Republican Pete Wilson succeeded him. He died in Long Beach in 2018 at the age of 89.