The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon.
Richard “Dick” Ackerman was interviewed in 2018 by Abby Waldrop for the CSUF Oral History Program “Orange County Politics Project.” Here is a summary of what I learned from this interview.
Ackerman was born in Long Beach in 1942, his parents having moved out west from Iowa. His father got a good-paying job at Douglas Aircraft, at a time when aerospace was booming in California. He grew up with “very traditional values.” When he was in elementary school, his parents moved to Lakewood, one of the first post-war master planned communities in the United States. For an excellent (and poetic) reflection on the origin and meaning of Lakewood, I recommend D.J. Waldie’s book Holy Land: a Suburban Memoir.
He attended Bellflower High School, then Long Beach State for two years, graduated from UC Berkeley in 1964, and then law school at Hastings. He found that his political views did not align with the liberal students and activists of the Berkeley area.
It was in law school that he started to develop some political feelings. His best friend Bill was active in the Republican party, so after he graduated he helped to work on some Republican campaigns.
The first campaign he worked on was for “a controversial person named John Schmitz, who ran for Congress.” Schmitz was a far-right politician who was kicked out of the far-right John Birch Society for “extremist rhetoric.”
Ackerman and his friend were in charge of Schmitz’s sign crew. “Our job was to go and take down the other person’s signs and put up his sign,” an act which is illegal.
Schmitz lost that election, but was subsequently elected to the state legislature.
“He’s had a checkered past (laughs) since then,” Ackerman said.
In law school Dick met his wife, Linda. They had three children.
After law school, he got a job at a law firm in Fullerton, where he would spend the next several decades of his life.
In Fullerton, he became president of the Chamber of Commerce.
“Back at that time, our opinion was City Council was sort of anti-business. They were making it harder for business to survive,” he said. “So we decided to start up a PAC (political action committee)…we ran a couple of candidates…got them both elected. Then we were hurting for a candidate the next time, and somebody said, ‘Why don’t you do it?’ And I said, ‘Okay.’ So I did it.”
He was elected to City Council in 1980, and served for 12 years, including two years as mayor.
“I wanted to make the city more business friendly,” he said. “City budgets are always lean because they depend on the state for a lot of their money. The only place you can really control some of your destiny is sales tax. So my goal was to bring in more sales tax.”
He was on council when the city brought in Price Club (later called Costco), which brought in a lot of sales tax revenue, while (arguably) pushing out smaller businesses.
“Some people don’t like the retail stores,” he admitted. “It does put more of an impact on the smaller shops, the mom and pop shops. But the trend was sort of toward the big box even back then.”
Back in the 1980s, Republicans were the majority on city council.
While he was on council the City partnered with CSUF to bring the Marriot Hotel on the CSUF campus.
Using redevelopment money, the city paid all the cost for the football stadium, the baseball stadium, the softball stadium, and the tennis courts in exchange for the city getting use of the university fields when they weren’t using them. The college then used the revenue from the hotel to eventually repay the city what they put in for the investment.
“The only funny thing back then—and I took a little heat—was right after we put the football stadium up, they [CSUF] dropped football a couple of years after that,” he said.
He served on the President’s Advisory Committee under several CSUF presidents, including Donald Shields, Jewel Plummer Cobb, Milton Gordon, and Millie [Garcia].
When the State Assembly instituted term limits, long time Republican incumbent Ross Johnson termed out, opening the way for Ackerman to run for the seat, and win, 1995.
His goals in the state legislature were similar to those when he served on city council: “Most of my stuff was business oriented. California, as you may or may not know, is still very bad for business.”
However, unlike on city council, where he was always in the majority, Republicans had become the minority in the state legislature. The change of California from a red to a blue state in the 1990s is a fascinating subject.
“With the exception of one year, I was always in the minority party, but you still do the fight, try and do things, and you have some success,” he said.
For some of the years, however, California had a Republican governor, with Pete Wilson in the 1990s, and Arnold Schwartznegger in the 00s.
He remembers meeting with Schwarzenegger in his smoking tent. “I think he was very strong on business issues. He was more liberal than the Republicans on a lot of other issues.”
In 2000, Ackerman elected to the State Senate, and eventually became the Senate Minority Leader, the highest ranking Republican in the legislature.
California faced a couple recessions in the early to mid 2000s. When Gray Davis was recalled, the budget was “a mess” and the state was 25 billion in debt, so both Republicans and Democrats passed a bond issue to cover the debt.
“The most important vote you’re going to have every year is the budget vote, all of the policy things, and what gets funded, and what doesn’t is in the budget,” he said.
Ackerman termed out of the state legislature in 2008. Regarding term limits, he said, “I think it’s a very bad idea…you’ve got first term people behind the head of Appropriations or head of Budget and they have no background whatsoever.”
He spoke of the importance of reaching across the aisle and working with Democrats.
“I’m a very friendly type person,” he said. “I can get along with people, and some people are more fire brands. They are always attacking people. If you attack people, you’re not going to get anything done. You have to talk to them. I always had good relations with the Democrats, so it wasn’t a problem.”
Although the state at large was turning more blue, back when he was in the state legislature, his districts were still considered safe Republican districts.
After leaving the state legislature, Ackerman went to work in government relations, aka lobbying.
“A lot of it just has to do with relationships and knowing people—and knowing people both Republicans and Democrats,” he said. “I could call up the Speaker, call up the Pro Tem and they take my call…It helps me help clients when they need to talk to somebody about an issue.”
When asked what sort of advice he would give someone who wants to get involved in politics, he said, “First probably work in somebody’s campaign to see if you like it…pick somebody you agree with philosophically…And then run for a local office. Run for school board, or run for city council because those are smaller versions of what you’re going to get at the next level, and see if you like it.”
Ackerman spoke of his philosophy of government, which informed his positions on bills that came up in the legislature.
“Is this going to expand government or constrict government?…Generally, I’m for smaller government. Is it going to be anti-freedom or pro-freedom? Is it going to give people more opportunities or less opportunities? I don’t want to be telling people what to do on everything…I’m against Big Brother. We’ve got too much Big Brotherism going around.”
He spoke of the importance of a baseline of shared facts when making important decisions, either as a legislator or a voter.
“Generally, if you give people the facts and they get the issues and it’s not fake news or altered news on one side or the other…people make the right decisions,” he said. “Verify your source. Find out what the source of your information is, because I think a lot of times they’re making decisions in which they may not have the right facts.”
He said that, currently, the Republican Party in California is not in a good position. He attributes this decline, among other things, to a loss of good middle class jobs.
“My conclusion is we’ve lost the middle class,” he said. “Back in the seventies and eighties we had a gigantic middle class, with manufacturing, engineering, aerospace. Most of those type of companies have gone and those people in that middle are also gone.”
Nationally, he thought, the situation is brighter for Republicans.
“If you take away New York and California, the rest of the nation is pretty normal,” he said. “So I think nationally the Republican Party is okay. Statewide, I think unless something really severe happens, I don’t think we’re going to be gaining much power in California.”
Fullerton History 