Game 37: George Deukmejian - Armenian Salad

I’m not an obituary writer hand-tied to detached objectivity, so I have no problem stating up top that former California Governor (1983-1991) George Deukmejian was a huge piece of shit who did immeasurable amounts of damage to California, mostly to black and brown communities. When we think of the disastrous legislation in the 1980s that led to overcrowded prisons and the social service spending cuts that created a nationwide homeless/mental health crisis, we tend to think only of Ronald Reagan. But Deukmejian, mostly forgotten to Californians, is just as deserving of the scorn heaped upon Reagan for codifying hatred into California Statute and drafting a budget that viewed the needy with contempt. Don’t tell that to obituary writers though. They lauded him as someone who “espoused law and order” values. But where did that philosophy come from and why was it held steadfast by Deukmejian as he went from 1st generation American to the most powerful man in Californian?

Deukmejian campaigning for Ronald Reagan.

Deukmejian was born in 1928 in Upstate New York where he was raised near the Hudson River by two refugees who fled the Armenian Genocide. Despite speaking Armenian, English, and Turkish, his parents only spoke English to the young George. Later as a politician, Deukmejian was vehemently opposed to bilingual education in California’s public schools, just one of the many stubborn positions that Deukmejian dug in and defended for the rest of his life. At 25, Deukmejian earned his law degree and then immediately joined the U.S. Army, assigned to a JAG Corp. What better place for a kid who grew up next to a police station to solidify his allegiance with Law and Order than law school and the military?

After being discharged from the Army, Deukmejian moved to Southern California, married fellow first generation Armenian-American Gloria Saatijian, and started a family in Long Beach. But after being frightened by “the trend toward socialism,” Deukmejian ran and won a seat in the California State Assembly in 1962. By the time he was an experienced State Senator during Governor Jerry Brown’s 1970s, Deukmejian had established himself as an obsessive “law and order” politician. He was obsessed with reinstating the death penalty, which was ruled unconstitutional by the State Supreme Court in 1972. His solutions to societal problems were extremely simple, short-sighted, and brutal: Use a gun in a crime and automatically go to prison. Commit murder and the state will kill you. But he couldn’t institute them as long as Brown and the liberal judges he appointed were in power.

So in 1978, Deukmejian ran for Attorney General and won, setting up his statewide notoriety for a future gubernatorial run. As a State Senator, Deukmejian opposed reducing penalties for marijuana possession. As California AG, Deukmejian donned a flak jacket and joined a police raid on marijuana fields in Northern California. Some might call that a publicity stunt, but you never know how much damage a stoned 19 year old Humboldt County weed trimmer could do with dull, resin-stained scissors. In 1982, Deukmejian won an extremely close election against Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley (this was the infamous election Bradley supposedly lost due to The Bradley Effect) to win the governorship. Finally, he was in the seat of power that would allow him to toss Californian in jail to appease his suburban and rural base’s concerns about not being able to leave their doors unlocked like they did in their fantasies about 1950s America.

When Deukmejian took office, the state hadn’t opened a new prison in 18 years. So he spent $3.3 billion to build eight new penitentiaries, tripling the state’s inmates by the time he left office. And how did he fill those prisons? By appointing “tough on crime” judges -- many of them former prosecutors - to ensure Californians who weren’t ensnared into a lifetime of prison and parole by federal drug and gun laws were done in by the state. By the end of his second term, he had appointed nearly 1,000 judges, almost half of the state judiciary. Most notably, five of the seven California Supreme Court Justices were his appointees. Five in eight years, huh? He must’ve gotten really lucky and gotten himself elected when the Supreme Court was filled with a bunch of geriatrics, right? Nope, he was able to because he personally led the removal of three justices, including Chief Justice Rose Bird.

Bird had previously made an enemy of Deukmejian by striking down the “use a gun, go to jail” law he authored in the State Senate. But when the first woman named to the state’s Supreme Court overturned every death penalty punishment put in front of her, the governor put her on his political hit list. He publicly backed a successful recall election that saw voters remove her and two other liberal colleagues. Deukmejian would finally have his precious death penalty back in California to deter criminals from comitting the most heinous of crimes. As of 2019, the death penalty has been used exactly 13 times in California, the last one taking place in 2006. Murder did not stop. It turns out that if people want to murder their boss/spouse/rival gang member/person who cut them off in traffic, the threat of the state maybe injecting them with poison when they’re in their late 80s isn’t much of a deterrent.

Deukmejian with fellow California Governors Gray Davis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jerry Brown, and Pete Wilson.

Despite spending $3.3 billion to build these new prisons, Deukmejian was your classic Republican who ardently opposed raising taxes. He cut funding on toxic waste clean-up, AIDS research and treatment funding, and social services for the poor and mentally ill. It got so bad for that latter one that the conservative bastion of San Diego had to sue the state three times for not adequately providing enough funding to care for those in need. Thanks to his refusal to raise taxes and his support for the revenue-draining Prop 13 that still affects California today, one county courthouse had so much asbestos that janitors had to wear “protective space suit-type clothing” just to change a light bulb.” Deukmejian bragged about eliminating his liberal enemy Jerry Brown’s $1.5 billion deficit, but by the time he handed the reins to his Republican successor Pete Wilson, he left a parting gift of a $13 billion deficit.

That last act as governor, handing a big pile of shit for someone else to clean up, is a perfect distillation of his legacy as a legislator and governor. 30 years later, the state’s social services are handcuffed by budget deficits created by Prop 13. Minority communities have been ravaged by young men tossed into the prison/post-prison industrial complex for selling drugs that are now legal. The mental health and homeless crisis (which if you grew up in LA, you’ve always seen exist in pockets like DTLA, ) has exploded into a disaster that state, county, and local departments are not equipped to deal with due to decades of funding cuts.

Deukmejian with 1988 Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis.

One thing that is telling to me is how he’s remembered in the Armenian communities of L.A. Politically, Armenian-Americans are a mixed demographic. Older Armenians tend to trend conservative because of Ronald Reagan’s anti-Soviet policies. But all of my 30ish Armenian-American friends hold liberal, anti-Republican views. I’ve lived my entire life in neighborhoods bordering Little Armenia and Glendale and have been innundanted with murals about the Armenian Genocide and storefronts featuring Armenian celebrieis, like the ever-present wedding singer/70s pop superstar/Tim & Eric guest star Harout Pamboukjian. But never a mural about Deukmejian, who should be butting giant mountainous heads with with Cher, Andre Agassi, Kim Kardashian, and Serj Tankian for placement on the Armenian-American Mount Rushmore. Where are the framed photos of the beloved Armenian governor in Armenian-owned markets? Maybe they speak glowingly about him in classes taught at the Alex and Rose Pilibos School and my outsider perspective is completely wrong. That’s very possible.

But in all of Greater Los Angeles, I only found two things named after a man devoted to Law and Order: A courthouse in his former hometown of Long Beach and a park in the most northern foothills of Glendale. Clearly, the former fits with his steadfast devotion to laws, no matter how badly written and implemented. But the late governor, who eschewed the funding needed to ensure California’s natural beauty remained unsullied, likely never understood the park’s role -- any park’s role, really -- in instilling order in our communities. Fear, represented by the death penalty or mandatory prison sentences or unconstrained police departments, was how he thought Californians could be forcefully made into good citizens. But I never feel more proud to be a tax-paying, mostly law-abiding Californian than when I briefly escape the crowded city for a nearby mountain. It’s order restoring. That, and a pinner joint. Sorry, George, it’s legal now.

Deukmejian Wildnerness Park in the Glendale neighborhood of Crescenta Highlands.

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Armenian Salad

4 cups tomatoes

½ cup parsley

½ cup scallions

¼ cup lemon juice

⅔ to 1 cup green pepper

2 sliced cucumbers

2 teaspoons salt

Mix together in salad bowl, toss, and serve immediately.

I am what creepy dudes trying to hit on non-white women call “ethnically ambigious.” Until you learn my first and last name, people aren’t really sure where my grandparents came from. I’ve been mistaken for ethnicities like Egyptian, Argentine, Italian, Brazilian, Armenian, and broadly Middle Eastern, most of these during that weird period of L.A. middle school life where everybody is interested in asking “what ARE you?”, not for racist reasons but just because everybody is taking stock for jokes. OK, so it’s kind of a racist reason, but a mild racism.

I grew up in the Virgil Village part of East Hollywood, not far off from Little Armenian and Glendale. My high school had a heavy Armenian population where 99% of the guys eschewed backpacks for one single three ring binder (I never got a clear answer on it, maybe it just looks cool). And I now live in Thai Town, a stone’s throw from those two epicenters of the Armenian diaspora and their amazing food. It tastes incredible, it smells intoxicating, and it looks beautiful. What more could you ask for? Zankou, Sasoun Bakery, Carousel, Mini Kabob, Falafel-Arax. Forced to leave their homeland by genocide, Armenian immigrants fused their cuisine with that of the Greeks, Lebanese, and Persians and created something beautiful out of their suffering. I love Armenians. I wish all customer service was Armenian. “The customer is always right” is bullshit and they know it.

This salad by the Deukmejians is very light and colorful, just the thing you need during a heavy Armenian meal that consists mostly of different shades of brown and tan. Armenian salad is basically tabbouleh without the finely chopped parsley and bulgur. I hate dicing tomatoes, so I bought two containers of cherry tomatoes and sliced them in half. For anyone wanting to make this, I might recommend slicing the tomatoes in quarter pieces instead of halves. And make sure the green peppers are finely diced. This salad is cheap and easy to whip up, perfect for a picnic or a dinner party.