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Famous Like Me > Actor > W > Pete Wilson

Profile of Pete Wilson on Famous Like Me

 
Name: Pete Wilson  
   
Also Know As:
   
Date of Birth: 23rd August 1933
   
Place of Birth: Lake Forest, Illinois, USA
   
Profession: Actor
 
 
From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia

Pete Wilson
Pete Wilson

Order: 36th Governor of California
Term of Office: 1991 – 1999
Predecessor: George Deukmejian
Successor: Gray Davis
Date of Birth: August 23rd, 1933
Place of Birth: Lake Forest, Illinois
Profession: Politician
Political Party: Republican
Lieutenant Governor: Gray Davis

Peter Barton Wilson (born August 23, 1933) is an American Republican politician from California.

Pete Wilson served as the thirty-sixth governor of California (1991-1999), the culmination of more than three decades in the public arena that included eight years as a United States Senator (1983-1991), eleven years as mayor of San Diego (1971-1983), and five years as a California state assemblyman (1967-1971).

As mayor of San Diego, Wilson led the transformation of that city from a quiet navy town to an international trade hub, amending the city charter to make public safety the first and foremost responsibility of city government and leading a successful effort to manage San Diego's dynamic growth and to revitalize the city's downtown area. He substantially cut the property-tax rate and imposed a limit on the growth of the city budget that became a model for California's subsequently adopted Proposition 4.

As a United States senator, Wilson was a leading voice for a stronger defense and U.S. foreign policy. As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he called for early implementation of President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, a national ballistic missile defense system.

Wilson also cosponsored the federal Intergovernmental Regulatory Relief Act requiring the federal government to reimburse states for the cost of new federal mandates. And his fiscal conservatism in the Senate earned him "Watchdog of the Treasury" honors for each of his eight years in the nation's capital.

Wilson's eight years as governor saw California emerge from the depths of depression to a resounding economic recovery. Inheriting the state's worst economy since the Great Depression, Wilson insisted on strict budget discipline and rehabilitation of the state's then hostile environment for investment and job creation. Among the many pro-business accomplishments of his administration, he provided for market-based unsubsidized health coverage for employees of small businesses, and obtained anti-fraud meansures that drove down workers' compensation premiums by 40 percent.

Governor Wilson enacted historic education reforms that have been called California's "education renaissance" -- reforms based on results, accountability, and fiscally sound investments.

Wilson demanded and got rigorous curricular standards, implemented class-size reduction, and ended social promotion, replacing it with early, effective remedial education. He also began new programs of individualized testing of all students, teacher-competency and training, a lengthier instructional year, and a return to phonics and early mastery of early reading, writing, and mathematical skills.

Wilson led efforts to enact tougher crime measures and signed into law "Three Strikes," (25 years to life for repeat felons) and "One Strike," (25 years to life upon the first conviction of aggravated rape or child molestation).

He left office with a public approval rating identical to that received by Ronald Reagan at the conclusion of his service as governor.

In Wilson's 1994 campaign for re-election against Kathleen Brown, he siezed upon two political issues that appealed to a winning majority but also fired up the conservative Republican base and put it solidly behind his campaign. These issues were his opposition to illegal immigration (Prop 187) and to racial preferences (Prop 209). What was particularly impressive about Wilson's support for these propositions was how unapologetically and forcefully he got behind them. Unlike other centrist Republican politicians Wilson understood and articulated the moral imperatives of what had been considered (erroneously as it turned out) solely conservative issues. Because of his own conviction and political courage Wilson was able to turn around a race that he was losing by a wide margin and surge to a landslide victory.

Born on August 23, 1933, in Lake Forest, Illinois, and raised in Missouri, Wilson attended Yale University (B.A. 1955), where he was admitted to the Zeta Psi fraternity, and proceeded to serve three years as a United States Marine Corps infantry officer. Upon completion of his military obligation, Wilson earned a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley.

After leaving office, Governor Wilson spent two years as a managing director of Pacific Capital Group, a merchant bank based in Los Angeles, California. He serves as a director of the Irvine Company, U.S. Telepacific Corporation, Inc., National Information Consortium Inc., and IDT Entertainment. He is a member of the Board of Advisors of Thomas Weisel Partners, a San Francisco merchant bank. He also served as chairman of the Japan Task Force of the Pacific Council on International Policy, which produced an analysis of Japanese economic and national security prospects over the next decade entitled “Can Japan Come Back?” Wilson is currently a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution and is on the governing boards of the National D-Day Museum, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, the Richard M. Nixon Library and Birthplace Foundation, the Donald Bren Foundation, and is the founding director of the California Mentor Foundation.

Most recently, he was co-chair of the campaign of Arnold Schwarzenegger to replace Gray Davis as governor of California.

Preceded by:
George Deukmejian
Governor of California
1991–1999
Succeeded by:
Gray Davis
Preceded by:
Samuel I. Hayakawa
U.S. Senator from California
1983–1991
Succeeded by:
John F. Seymour
Preceded by:
Frank E. Curran
Mayor of San Diego, California
1971—1983
Succeeded by:
William E. Cleator, Sr.
Governors of California Seal of the Governor of California
Burnett | McDougall | Bigler | J Johnson | Weller | Latham | Downey | Stanford | Low | Haight | Booth | Pacheco | Irwin | Perkins | Stoneman | Bartlett | Waterman | Markham | Budd | Gage | Pardee | Gillett | H Johnson | Stephens | Richardson | Young | Rolph | Merriam | Olson | Warren | Knight | P Brown | Reagan | J Brown | Deukmejian | Wilson | Davis | Schwarzenegger

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Pete Wilson