Fresno County, California
Fresno County the County of Fresno, is a county located in the central portion of the U. S. state of California. As of January 1, 2018, the population was 1,007,229; the county seat is the fifth-largest city in California. Fresno County comprises the Fresno, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area, part of the Fresno-Madera, CA Combined Statistical Area, it is located in north of Bakersfield. The area now known as Fresno County was the traditional homeland of Yokuts and Mono peoples, was settled by Spaniards during a search for suitable mission sites. In 1846, this area became part of the United States as a result of the Mexican War. Fresno County was formed in 1856 from parts of Mariposa and Tulare counties. Fresno is Spanish for "ash tree" and it was in recognition of the abundance of the shrubby local Ash, Fraxinus dipetala, growing along the San Joaquin River that it received its name. Parts of Fresno County's territory were given to Mono County in 1861 and to Madera County in 1893; the original county seat was along the San Joaquin River in Millerton, but was moved to the growing town of Fresno on the newly built Southern Pacific Railroad line after a flood destroyed much of the town.
The settling of Fresno County was not without its conflicts, land disputes, other natural disasters. Floods caused immeasurable damage elsewhere and fires plagued the settlers of Fresno County. In 1882, the greatest of the early day fires wiped out an entire block of the city of Fresno, was followed by another devastating blaze in 1883. At the same time residents brought irrigation and extensive agriculture to the area. Moses Church developed the first canals, called "Church Ditches," for irrigation; these canals allowed extensive cultivation of wheat. Francis Eisen, leader of the wine industry in Fresno County began the raisin industry in 1875, when he accidentally let some of his grapes dry on the vine. A. Y. Easterby and Clovis Cole developed extensive grain and cattle ranches; these and other citizens laid the groundwork for the cultivation of Fresno County – now one of the nation's leading agricultural regions. In more recent times cotton became a major crop in Fresno and the southern San Joaquin Valley, but recent drought and lower demand have lessened cotton's importance to the local economy.
The discovery of oil in the western part of the county, near the town of Coalinga at the foot of the Coast Ranges, brought about an economic boom in the 1900s though the field itself was known at least as early as the 1860s. By 1910, Coalinga Oil Field, the largest field in Fresno County, was the most richly productive oil field in California; the Coalinga field continues to produce oil, is the eighth-largest field in the state. More than thirty structures in Fresno County are on the National Register of Historic Places, including the Fresno Water Tower, which once held over 250,000 US gallons of water for the city of Fresno, the Meux Home, Kearney Mansion Museum. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 6,011 square miles, of which 5,958 square miles is land and 53 square miles is water. Major watercourses are the San Joaquin River, Kings River, Delta-Mendota Canal, Big Creek, Friant Kern Canal, Helm Canal and Madera Canal, it is bordered on the west on the east by the Sierra Nevada.
It is the center of a large agricultural area, known as the most agriculturally rich county in the United States. The county withdrew 3.7 billion US gallons of fresh water per day in 2000, more than any other county in the United States. Fresno County is part of the Madera AVA wine region. Fresno was named after two particular ash trees that grew near the town of Minkler on the Kings River, one of, still alive and standing. Giant Sequoia National Monument Kings Canyon National Park Sequoia National Forest Sierra National Forest A number of minerals have been discovered in the county, including macdonaldite, walstromite, verplanckite, muirite and kampfite; the 2010 United States Census reported that Fresno County had a population of 930,450. The racial makeup of Fresno County was 515,145 White, 49,523 African American, 15,649 Native American, 89,357 Asian, 1,405 Pacific Islander, 217,085 from other races, 42,286 from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 468,070 persons. 46.0% of Fresno County's population is of Mexican descent.
As of the census of 2000, there were 799,407 people, 252,940 households, 186,669 families residing in the county. The population density was 134 people per square mile. There were 270,767 housing units at an average density of 45 per square mile; the racial makeup of the county was 54.3% White, 5.3% Black or African American, 1.6% Native American, 8.1% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 25.9% from other races, 4.7% from two or more races. 44.0% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. 7.5% were of German ancestry according to Census 2000. 59.3% spoke English, 31.5% Spanish and 3.1% Hmong as their first language. There were 252,940 households ou
TJ Cox
Terrance John Cox is an American engineer and politician serving as the U. S. Representative from California's 21st congressional district, he is a member of the Democratic Party. Cox was born in California, his father, who taught chemical engineering, immigrated from China and his mother is from the Philippines. He received a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from the Mackay School of Mines at the University of Nevada, Reno in 1986 and attained his MBA from Southern Methodist University, he started two businesses. He managed a community development enterprise. 2006 Cox ran for the United States House of Representatives in California's 19th congressional district in the 2006 elections. Cox lost to George Radanovich.2018 In the 2018 elections, Cox again ran for the United States House of Representatives, this time in California's 21st congressional district. Cox began this congressional bid in 2017, competing in California's 10th district primary race against several other Democratic candidates.
However, Democrat Emilio Huerta withdrew from the CA-21 race prior to the filing deadline to appear on the primary election ballot. Cox withdrew from the CA-10 race to instead run in CA-21 against incumbent Representative David Valadao, he and Valadao advanced from the June 5 top-two primary election to the November 6 general election. On election night, for several days after the election, Valadao's total vote count was the leading result, but Cox's vote count pulled into the lead on November 26. By November 28, major news sources called the race for Cox, with Valadao conceding the race the following week. Committee on Agriculture Subcommittee on Livestock and Foreign Agriculture Subcommittee on Biotechnology and Research Committee on Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee on Water and Wildlife Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus Cox has four children with his wife, pediatrician Kathleen Murphy. List of Asian Americans and Pacific Islands Americans in the United States Congress Congressman TJ Cox official U.
S. House website TJ Cox for CongressBiography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress Profile at Vote Smart Financial information at the Federal Election Commission Legislation sponsored at the Library of Congress
San Joaquin Valley
The San Joaquin Valley is the area of the Central Valley of the U. S. state of California that lies south of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and is drained by the San Joaquin River. It comprises seven counties of Northern and one of Southern California, including, in the north, all of San Joaquin and Kings counties, most of Stanislaus and Fresno counties, parts of Madera and Tulare counties, along with a majority of Kern County, in Southern California. Although a majority of the valley is rural, it does contain cities such as Fresno, Stockton, Turlock, Porterville, Visalia and Hanford. San Joaquin Valley was inhabited by the Yokuts and Miwok peoples; the first European to enter the valley was Pedro Fages in 1772. The San Joaquin Valley extends from the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta in the north to the Tehachapi Mountains in the south, from the various California coastal ranges in the west to the Sierra Nevada in the east. Unlike the Sacramento Valley, the river system for which the San Joaquin Valley is named does not extend far along the valley.
Most of the valley south of Fresno, drains into Tulare Lake, which no longer exists continuously due to diversion of its sources. The valley's primary river is the San Joaquin, which drains north through about half of the valley into the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta; the Kings and Kern Rivers are in the southern endorheic basin of the valley, all of which have been diverted for agricultural uses and are dry in their lower reaches. The San Joaquin Valley began to form about 66 million years ago during the early Paleocene era. Broad fluctuations in the sea level caused various areas of the valley to be flooded with ocean water for the next 60 million years. About 5 million years ago, the marine outlets began to close due to uplift of the coastal ranges and the deposition of sediment in the valley. Starting 2 million years ago, a series of glacial episodes periodically caused much of the valley to become a fresh water lake. Lake Corcoran was the last widespread lake to fill the valley about 700,000 years ago.
At the beginning of the Holocene there were three major lakes remaining in the southern part of the Valley, Tulare Lake, Buena Vista Lake and Kern Lake. In the late 19th and in the 20th century, agricultural diversion of the Kern River dried out these lakes. Today, only a fragment of Buena Vista Lake remains as two small lakes Lake Webb and Lake Evans in a portion of the former Buena Vista Lakebed The San Joaquin Valley has hot, dry summers and has enjoyed cool rainy winters characterized by dense tule fog, its rainy season runs from November through April, but since 2011 when a drought became evident it received minimal to no rain at all. The drought was still extant by mid-August 2014 with scientists saying it would continue indefinitely, for anywhere from several years to several decades to come; as of February 2017 the majority of the Valley experienced a reprieve from the drought. However, as of February 2018, much of the Valley appears to be headed back into drought along with much of the rest of the State.
In August 2015, the Director of the California Department of Water Resources stated, "Because of increased pumping, groundwater levels are reaching record lows—up to 100 feet lower than previous records." Research from NASA shows that parts of the San Joaquin Valley sank as much as 8 inches in a four-month period, land near Corcoran sank 13 inches in 8 months. The sinking has destroyed thousands of groundwater well casings and has the potential to damage aqueducts, roads and flood-control structures. In the long term, the subsidence caused by extracting groundwater could irreversibly reduce the underground aquifer's water storage capacity, although immediate and short term needs are given higher priority and sense of urgency than long term sustainability; the National Weather Service Forecast Office for the San Joaquin Valley is located in Hanford and includes a Doppler weather radar. Weather forecasts and climatological information for the San Joaquin Valley are available from its official website.
The total population of the eight counties comprising the San Joaquin Valley at the time of the 2011-2015 American Community Survey 5-year Estimates by United States Census Bureau reported a population of 4,080,509. The racial composition of San Joaquin Valley was 2,775,074 White, 193,694 Black or African American, 40,911 American Indian and Alaska Native, 310,557 Asian, 13,000 Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander, 2,048,280 Hispanic or Latino; the educational attainment of high school graduate or higher is 72.7%. By some estimates, federal restrictions on shallow well irrigation systems threaten the productivity of the San Joaquin Valley, which produces the majority of the 12.8% of the United States' agricultural production that comes from California. Grapes—table, to a lesser extent wine—are the valley's highest-profile product, but important are cotton, nuts and vegetables; the San Joaquin Valley has been called "The food basket of the world", for the diversity of its produce. Walnuts, peaches, tangerines, kiwis, hay and numerous other crops have been harvested with great success.
DeRuosi Nut, a large walnut processing plant in Escalon, has been in the valley since 1947. Certain places are identified quite with a given crop: Stockton produces the majority of the domestic asparagus consumed in the United States, Fresno is the largest produ
United States
The United States of America known as the United States or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U. S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D. C. and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico; the State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean; the U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The diverse geography and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.
Paleo-Indians migrated from Siberia to the North American mainland at least 12,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century; the United States emerged from the thirteen British colonies established along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the colonies following the French and Indian War led to the American Revolution, which began in 1775, the subsequent Declaration of Independence in 1776; the war ended in 1783 with the United States becoming the first country to gain independence from a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, with the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, being ratified in 1791 to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties; the United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century, acquiring new territories, displacing Native American tribes, admitting new states until it spanned the continent by 1848. During the second half of the 19th century, the Civil War led to the abolition of slavery.
By the end of the century, the United States had extended into the Pacific Ocean, its economy, driven in large part by the Industrial Revolution, began to soar. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the country's status as a global military power; the United States emerged from World War II as a global superpower, the first country to develop nuclear weapons, the only country to use them in warfare, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Sweeping civil rights legislation, notably the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, outlawed discrimination based on race or color. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union competed in the Space Race, culminating with the 1969 U. S. Moon landing; the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the world's sole superpower. The United States is the world's oldest surviving federation, it is a representative democracy.
The United States is a founding member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States, other international organizations. The United States is a developed country, with the world's largest economy by nominal GDP and second-largest economy by PPP, accounting for a quarter of global GDP; the U. S. economy is post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge-based activities, although the manufacturing sector remains the second-largest in the world. The United States is the world's largest importer and the second largest exporter of goods, by value. Although its population is only 4.3% of the world total, the U. S. holds 31% of the total wealth in the world, the largest share of global wealth concentrated in a single country. Despite wide income and wealth disparities, the United States continues to rank high in measures of socioeconomic performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP, worker productivity.
The United States is the foremost military power in the world, making up a third of global military spending, is a leading political and scientific force internationally. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a world map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America in honor of the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci; the first documentary evidence of the phrase "United States of America" is from a letter dated January 2, 1776, written by Stephen Moylan, Esq. to George Washington's aide-de-camp and Muster-Master General of the Continental Army, Lt. Col. Joseph Reed. Moylan expressed his wish to go "with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain" to seek assistance in the revolutionary war effort; the first known publication of the phrase "United States of America" was in an anonymous essay in The Virginia Gazette newspaper in Williamsburg, Virginia, on April 6, 1776. The second draft of the Articles of Confederation, prepared by John Dickinson and completed by June 17, 1776, at the latest, declared "The name of this Confederation shall be the'United States of America'".
The final version of the Articles sent to the states for ratification in late 1777 contains the sentence "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be'The United States of America'". In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote the phrase "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" in all capitalized letters in the headline of his "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence; this draft of the document did not surface unti
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. Tracing its heritage back to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison's Democratic-Republican Party, the modern-day Democratic Party was founded around 1828 by supporters of Andrew Jackson, making it the world's oldest active political party; the Democrats' dominant worldview was once social conservatism and economic liberalism, while populism was its leading characteristic in the rural South. In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt ran as a third-party candidate in the Progressive Party, beginning a switch of political platforms between the Democratic and Republican Party over the coming decades, leading to Woodrow Wilson being elected as the first fiscally progressive Democrat. Since Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal coalition in the 1930s, the Democratic Party has promoted a social liberal platform, supporting social justice. Well into the 20th century, the party had conservative pro-business and Southern conservative-populist anti-business wings.
The New Deal Coalition of 1932–1964 attracted strong support from voters of recent European extraction—many of whom were Catholics based in the cities. After Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal of the 1930s, the pro-business wing withered outside the South. After the racial turmoil of the 1960s, most Southern whites and many Northern Catholics moved into the Republican Party at the presidential level; the once-powerful labor union element became less supportive after the 1970s. White Evangelicals and Southerners became Republican at the state and local level since the 1990s. People living in metropolitan areas, women and gender minorities, college graduates, racial and ethnic minorities in the United States, such as Jewish Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, Arab Americans and African Americans, tend to support the Democratic Party much more than they support the rival Republican Party; the Democratic Party's philosophy of modern liberalism advocates social and economic equality, along with the welfare state.
It seeks to provide government regulation in the economy. These interventions, such as the introduction of social programs, support for labor unions, affordable college tuitions, moves toward universal health care and equal opportunity, consumer protection and environmental protection form the core of the party's economic policy. Fifteen Democrats have served as President of the United States; the first was President Andrew Jackson, the seventh president and served from 1829 to 1837. The most recent was President Barack Obama, the 44th president and held office from 2009 to 2017. Following the 2018 midterm elections, the Democrats held a majority in the House of Representatives, "trifectas" in 14 states, the mayoralty of numerous major American cities, such as Boston, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Portland and Washington, D. C. Twenty-three state governors were Democrats, the Party was the minority party in the Senate and in most state legislatures; as of March 2019, four of the nine Justices of the Supreme Court had been appointed by Democratic presidents.
Democratic Party officials trace its origins to the inspiration of the Democratic-Republican Party, founded by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and other influential opponents of the Federalists in 1792. That party inspired the Whigs and modern Republicans. Organizationally, the modern Democratic Party arose in the 1830s with the election of Andrew Jackson. Since the nomination of William Jennings Bryan in 1896, the party has positioned itself to the left of the Republican Party on economic issues, they have been more liberal on civil rights issues since 1948. On foreign policy, both parties have changed position several times; the Democratic Party evolved from the Jeffersonian Republican or Democratic-Republican Party organized by Jefferson and Madison in opposition to the Federalist Party of Alexander Hamilton and John Adams. The party favored republicanism; the Democratic-Republican Party came to power in the election of 1800. After the War of 1812, the Federalists disappeared and the only national political party left was the Democratic-Republicans.
The era of one-party rule in the United States, known as the Era of Good Feelings, lasted from 1816 until the early 1830s, when the Whig Party became a national political group to rival the Democratic-Republicans. However, the Democratic-Republican Party still had its own internal factions, they split over the choice of a successor to President James Monroe and the party faction that supported many of the old Jeffersonian principles, led by Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, became the modern Democratic Party. As Norton explains the transformation in 1828: Jacksonians believed the people's will had prevailed. Through a lavishly financed coalition of state parties, political leaders, newspaper editors, a popular movement had elected the president; the Democrats became the nation's first well-organized national party and tight party organization became the hallmark of nineteenth-century American politics. Opposing factions led by Henry Clay helped form the Whig Party; the Democratic Party had a small yet decisive advantage over the Whigs until the 1850s, when the Whigs fell apart over the issue of slavery.
In 1854, angry with the Kansas–Nebraska Act, anti-slavery Dem
Ford Model T
The Ford Model T is an automobile produced by Ford Motor Company from October 1, 1908, to May 26, 1927. It is regarded as the first affordable automobile, the car that opened travel to the common middle-class American; the Ford Model T was named the most influential car of the 20th century in the 1999 Car of the Century competition, ahead of the BMC Mini, Citroën DS, Volkswagen Type 1. Ford's Model T was successful not only because it provided inexpensive transportation on a massive scale, but because the car signified innovation for the rising middle class and became a powerful symbol of America's age of modernization. With 16.5 million sold it stands eighth on the top ten list of most sold cars of all time as of 2012. Although automobiles had existed for decades, they were still scarce and unreliable at the Model T's introduction in 1908. Positioned as reliable maintained, mass-market transportation, it was a runaway success. In a matter of days after the release, 15,000 orders were placed.
The first production Model T was produced on August 12, 1908 and left the factory on September 27, 1908, at the Ford Piquette Avenue Plant in Detroit, Michigan. On May 26, 1927, Henry Ford watched the 15 millionth Model T Ford roll off the assembly line at his factory in Highland Park, Michigan. Henry Ford conceived a series of cars between the founding of the company in 1903 and the introduction the Model T. Ford named his first car the Model A and proceeded through the alphabet up through the Model T, twenty models in all. Not all the models went into production; the production model before the Model T was the Model S, an upgraded version of the company's largest success to that point, the Model N. The follow-up was the Ford Model A; the company publicity said this was because the new car was such a departure from the old that Henry wanted to start all over again with the letter A. The Model T was Ford's first automobile mass-produced on moving assembly lines with interchangeable parts, marketed to the middle class.
Henry Ford said of the vehicle: I will build a motor car for the great multitude. It will be small enough for the individual to run and care for, it will be constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise. But it will be so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one – and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God's great open spaces. Although credit for the development of the assembly line belongs to Ransom E. Olds, with the first mass-produced automobile, the Oldsmobile Curved Dash, having begun in 1901, the tremendous advancements in the efficiency of the system over the life of the Model T can be credited entirely to the vision of Ford and his engineers; the Model T was designed by Childe Harold Wills, Hungarian immigrants Joseph A. Galamb and Eugene Farkas. Henry Love, C. J. Smith, Gus Degner and Peter E. Martin were part of the team. Production of the Model T began in the third quarter of 1908.
Collectors today sometimes classify Model Ts by build years and refer to these as "model years", thus labeling the first Model Ts as 1909 models. This is a retroactive classification scheme; the nominal model designation was "Model T", although design revisions did occur during the car's two decades of production. The Model T had a front-mounted 177-cubic-inch inline four-cylinder engine, producing 20 hp, for a top speed of 40–45 mph. According to Ford Motor Company, the Model T had fuel economy on the order of 13–21 mpg‑US; the engine was capable of running on gasoline, kerosene, or ethanol, although the decreasing cost of gasoline and the introduction of Prohibition made ethanol an impractical fuel for most users. The engines of the first 2,447 units were cooled with water pumps; the ignition system used in the Model T was an unusual one, with a low-voltage magneto incorporated in the flywheel, supplying alternating current to trembler coils to drive the spark plugs. This was closer to that used for stationary gas engines than the expensive high-voltage ignition magnetos that were used on some other cars.
This ignition made the Model T more flexible as to the quality or type of fuel it used. The system did not need a starting battery, since proper hand-cranking would generate enough current for starting. Electric lighting powered by the magneto was adopted in 1915, replacing acetylene and oil lamps, but electric starting was not offered until 1919; the Model T engine was produced for replacement needs, as well as stationary and marine applications until 1941, well after production of the Model T had ended. The Fordson Model F tractor engine, designed about a decade was similar to, but larger than, the Model T engine; the Model T was a rear-wheel drive vehicle. Its transmission was a planetary gear type billed as "three speed". In today's terms it would be considered a two-speed; the Model T's transmission was controlled with three floor-mounted pedals and a lever mounted to the road side of the driver's seat. The throttle was controlled with a lever on the steering wheel; the left pedal was used to engage the transmission.
With the floor lever in either the mid position or forward an
California Democratic Party
The California Democratic Party is the state branch of the United States Democratic Party in the state of California. The party is headquartered in Sacramento, is led by acting-Chair Alex Gallardo-Rooker. With 43.5% of the state's registered voters as of 2018, the Democratic Party has the highest number of registrants of any political party in California. Democrats enjoy supermajorities in both houses of the California State Legislature, holding 61 out of 80 seats in the California State Assembly and 29 out of 40 in the California State Senate. Democrats hold all 8 statewide executive branch offices, 46 of the state's 53 seats in the House of Representatives, both of California's seats in the United States Senate. Since the beginning of the 1850s, issues regarding slavery had split the California Democratic Party. By the 1853 general election campaign, large majorities of pro-slavery Democrats from Southern California, calling themselves the Chivalry, threatened to divide the state in half, should the state not accept slavery.
John Bigler, along with former State Senator and Lieutenant Governor David C. Broderick from the previous McDougall Administration, formed the Free Soil Democratic faction, modeled after the federal Free Soil Party that argued against the spread of slavery; the Democrats split into two camps, with both the Chivalry and Free Soilers nominating their own candidates for the 1853 election. By 1857, the party had split into the Anti-Lecompton factions. Lecompton members supported the Kansas Lecompton Constitution, a document explicitly allowing slavery into the territory, while Anti-Lecompton faction members were in opposition to slavery's expansion; the violence between supporting and opposition forces led to the period known as Bleeding Kansas. Splits in the Democratic Party, as well as the power vacuum created by the collapse of the Whig Party, helped facilitate the rise of the American Party both in state and federal politics. In particular, state voters voted Know-Nothings into the California State Legislature, elected J. Neely Johnson as governor in the 1855 general elections.
During the 1859 general elections, Lecompton Democrats voted for Milton Latham, who had lived in the American South, as their nominee for Governor. Anti-Lecomptons in turn selected John Currey as their nominee; the infant Republican Party, running in its first gubernatorial election, selected businessman Leland Stanford as its nominee. To make matters more complicated, during the campaign, Senator David C. Broderick, an Anti-Lecompton Democrat, was killed in a duel by slavery supporter and former state Supreme Court Justice David Terry on September 13; until the early 1880s the Republican Party held the state through the power and influence of railroad men. The Democratic Party responded by taking an anti freedom of attainment position. In 1894, Democrat James Budd was elected to the governorship, the Democratic Party attempted to make good on their promises to reform the booming railroad industry; the party began working with the state's railroad commission to create fair rates for passengers and to eliminate monopolies the railroad companies held over the state.
The main effort focused on making railroads public avenues of transportation similar to streets and roads. This measure passed and was a great victory for the Democrats. Budd was to be the last Democratic governor for thirty years; the struggle between the anti-monopolists and the railroad companies was, however, a key and defining issue for the Democratic Party for some time. Despite their relative lack of power during this period, the Democrats in California were still active in pursuing reform; the party crusaded for tariff reform. The party supported the large scale railroad strikes that sprung up statewide; the corruption of the time in both the railroad companies and the government led to a change in political dynamic. The people of the state moved away from both of the main parties and the Progressive Movement began. While the Progressives were successful in creating positive reform and chasing out corruption, the movement drained away many of the Democratic Party's members; as their movement ended, the Republicans won the governorship, but the Democratic Party had a distinct voter advantage.
In 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president and the Power balance between the Republicans and the Democrats in California equalized. However, as Roosevelt's New Deal policies began to raise the nation out of the depression, Democratic strength mounted. Culbert Olson was elected to the governorship, but his term was rocky and both parties organized against him. Shortly thereafter, Earl Warren and the Republicans seized power again; the California Democratic Party needed a new strategy to regain power in the state. A strategy of reorganization and popular mobilization emerged and resulted in the creation of the California Democratic Council; the CDC as it became known was a way for members of the party from all levels of government to come together and as such the party became more unified. A new network of politically minded civilians and elected officials emerged and the party was stronger for it. Despite the fact that the council struggled in the cold war era, due to Republican strength and issues such as the Vietnam War, it still exists today.
By 1992, California was hurting more than most states from a national recession which had started in 1990, causing incumbent Republican President George H. W. Bush's approval rating to tank within the state, giving an opening for the Democratic party to break through and become the largest party. Starting with the double digit victory of Bill Clinton, this became the f
United States
California
