[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 28 (Tuesday, February 11, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H1019-H1020]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 REMEMBERING AND CELEBRATING THE LIFE OF H.L. RICHARDSON OF CALIFORNIA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. McClintock) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, lost amidst the tumult of the last 
couple of weeks was the quiet passing of an outspoken leader of 
California, H.L. ``Bill'' Richardson. H.L., as he was known to his 
friends, arrived in the California State Senate with the freshman class 
of 1966, part of the Reagan landslide that year.
  For every one of the 22 years he served in the Senate, H.L. was a 
force to be reckoned with. He served for many years in the Republican 
leadership, but he was never ever a political insider. His enormous 
influence inside the senate stemmed from the fact that he never joined 
that club; he never lost sight of the people who elected him. And he 
not only worked tirelessly to serve them inside the capitol, he worked 
even harder to organize, inform, and mobilize them outside the capitol.
  He founded a multitude of advocacy groups to empower the millions of 
Californians who believed in individual liberty and economic freedom. 
He started the Free Market Political Action Committee to support free 
market principles and the candidates who embraced them, and it became 
the inspiration and prototype of groups like the Club for Growth and 
Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks today.
  In the 1970's, when Jerry Brown first came to power and appointed 
radical leftists to the California courts, H.L. founded the Law and 
Order Campaign Committee, which became the driving force between the 
historic recall of Chief Justice Rose Bird and two of her associates on 
the California Supreme Court. That organization went on for many years 
to restore common sense to the California courts and criminal justice 
system, including pressing the legislature to restore the death penalty 
over Jerry Brown's veto.
  His passion for the Second Amendment was his most defining cause. He 
founded Gun Owners of California to fight the growing movement in 
California to disarm law-abiding citizens, and its success not only 
beat back Proposition 15, a 1982 initiative to ban handguns in 
California, it generated so many new Second Amendment voters in that 
election to put George Deukmejian over the top by a tiny margin of 
victory over Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley in that Governor's race that 
year. Gun Owners of California continues its good work to this day, as 
does its spin-off, Gun Owners of America.
  H.L. had a wicked sense of humor, and it was keenest when bursting 
bubbles of political pomposity. One of his half dozen published books, 
still required reading in some college classes, is titled, ``What Makes 
You Think We Read the Bills?'' His book, ``Confrontational Politics,'' 
offers a civilized, but no less resolute, conservative response to Saul 
Alinsky's ``Rules for Radicals.''
  California, once called ``The Golden State,'' is today drawing more 
and more attention as a slow-moving train wreck. The radical left has 
now dominated the State's institutions for more than 20 years, and 
California is showing all of the political, social, and economic 
pathologies that accompany leftist governance: failing schools; rising 
crime; chronic traffic congestion; skyrocketing costs of housing, 
energy, and water; rampant homelessness; oppressive regulations; the 
highest effective poverty rate in the Nation; and a population now 
fleeing to other States.
  Senator H.L. Richardson held back that tide for nearly 30 years. He 
was a mighty seawall that protected California from the left, giving 
one final generation of Californians the joy of living in the most 
prosperous and beautiful State in the Nation.
  But, as age took its toll, his influence waned, the left steadily 
advanced, and none of us whom he inspired to follow him has been able 
to stop it.
  On January 13, H.L. Richardson passed away at the age of 92, and with 
him passed the golden California of freedom, opportunity, and 
prosperity that he fought so hard, so long, and so effectively to 
preserve. Perhaps the day will come when California will see a rebirth 
of freedom, and on that day, H.L.'s wisdom, courage, and leadership

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will show that generation the way back.
  We can hasten that day by remembering and celebrating his life, his 
lessons, and his achievements.

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