John Burton, a towering figure in California politics for six decades and an influential advocate for foster youth, died at a hospice facility in San Francisco on Sunday at age 92.
“John was totally committed to improving the state’s foster care system,” former state Sen. Jim Beall said in an interview. “He helped create consistent, persistent advocacy that continues today, and better services and programs have really made a huge difference for foster youth in California.”
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, a longtime advocate for foster youth, called Burton “an unwavering force in California politics, always standing up for the most vulnerable among us.”
In a statement emailed to The Imprint on Sunday, she recalled her work with him in Sacramento, where he helped pass a housing bond for current and former foster youth. In Washington, D.C., she recalled his help creating the Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth.
“My thoughts are with his family today and all who were lucky enough to know him,” Bass said. “California and our nation are better because of all he accomplished.”
Burton began his political career as an activist in San Francisco before he moved on to state and national politics. Throughout, Burton — who was known for his acerbic personality and notoriously profane tongue — became well-known for championing liberal causes while forging alliances across the aisle.
After he retired from elected office in 2004, Burton founded the Bay Area-based nonprofit that bears his name, John Burton Advocates for Youth, or JBAY. Since then, the influential organization has lobbied successfully for 55 legislative reforms resulting in more than $3.6 billion in new funding for foster and homeless youth in the state. Behind the scenes, he was said to have remained influential in the statehouse, and played a key role in the passage of a 2010 law that extended eligibility for foster care from age 18 to 21.
“He was brilliant, and he never quit,” said Sarah Pauter, executive director of John Burton Advocates for Youth. “There was no door that closed that he couldn’t figure out how to go around, knock down or climb through the window in order to make it happen.”
Pauter, who grew up in California’s foster care system and took over JBAY earlier this year, counts a personal letter from Burton as among her most treasured possessions.
“It was the biggest confidence boost I think anyone could ever have in their career,” she said. “He gave me a launching pad to do great things, and I feel very lucky to continue his legacy.”
In a remembrance published on her group’s website, Pauter recalled Burton’s outrage over foster youth “emancipating” from government custody at age 18.
“Emancipated from what? And into what?” he asked. “Into not being able to have a roof over their heads? Into being frozen out of a chance at higher education? Into unemployment? Into a life on the welfare rolls? Into homelessness? Into jail?”
“California is a stronger, fairer place because of John Burton, and his courage, his conviction, and his heart will continue to guide us for generations to come.”
— California Gov. Gavin Newsom
Burton grew up in San Francisco in a stable, middle-class home. He watched his father, a doctor, make house visits and sometimes offer his services free of charge to poor families. Burton’s dad dispensed a key piece of advice that he later shared with his own family.
“He repeated the same thing his father told him to us so many times,” Juan, John’s grandson, said in a statement released by the family. “We’d roll our eyes and repeat it along with him: ‘Never pass a blind man without putting a penny in his cup.’”
Family members remember his advocacy against the Vietnam War in the early 1960s and how he marched for the United Farmworkers with his young daughter Kimiko perched on his shoulders. In 1964, Burton followed his brother Phillip into politics by winning a race for a seat in the California Assembly. After about a decade, Burton went to Washington, D.C., to serve in the House of Representatives.
His career was upended by a cocaine addiction in the early 1980s that forced him to give up the seat representing San Francisco. But the famously foul-mouthed politician had a surprising second act, returning to the California Legislature in 1988 and later becoming the most powerful state legislator as Senate Pro Tem in 1998.
“Over 40 years ago, Dad overcame his addictions and made an incredible political comeback that led to him becoming one of the most powerful and effective elected leaders in California,” said Kimiko Burton in a statement released by his family. “Ever since his recovery, he always made time to help others dealing with the struggle of addiction.”
During his second stint in the Legislature, Burton worked on legislation to aid poor and disabled Californians, workers’ rights, justice for child sexual abuse victims and health care reform. He also forged partnerships with Republican politicians at a time when Democrats did not enjoy their legislative advantages of today.
Burton had a knack for political theater. In the mid-1990s, he introduced a pair of bills that would make poverty a crime and establish state orphanages for the children of poor people, who would be served only gruel at meal times. Introduced in response to federal welfare laws and the policies of then-Gov. Pete Wilson, the bills were facetious, but his commitment to vulnerable Californians was not, supporters say.
“His legacy is not only written in the policies he helped enact, but in the countless lives he touched and uplifted, including my own,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement Sunday. “California is a stronger, fairer place because of John Burton, and his courage, his conviction, and his heart will continue to guide us for generations to come.”
When Burton was termed out of the Legislature in 2004, he set his sights on helping another group with great needs: foster youth.
In an interview last year, Amy Lemley, JBAY’s first policy director and former longtime executive director described Burton as a “political mastermind.” She credited him with helping achieve some of the organization’s early legislative victories — such as the first public funding to house former foster youth.
Mark Courtney — a leading national child welfare researcher focused on “transition-age” foster youth — recalled how Burton personally appealed to former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state Legislature to invest resources in young people who often end up homeless and impoverished. That helped the 2010 passage of extended foster care in California that provides housing benefits and other support through age 21.
“At that time, it was definitely not a done deal,” Courtney said. “Facing austerity and budget cuts, it wasn’t clear whether the administration was going to go along with it.”
Oakland Mayor and former U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee said Burton was determined to attend her public inauguration in June despite his failing health.
“For more than five decades, John fought for those without a voice — from foster children to farmworkers, from union members to the elderly. His mentorship shaped generations of Democratic leaders, and his legacy is alive in every progressive victory in California,” Lee wrote in a social media post. “Let us honor him by recommitting to the values he embodied: courage, compassion, and the belief that government must serve all people — not just the privileged few.”
Burton’s legacy will live on.
On Sept. 4, Bloomsbury Publishing released “I Yell Because I Care: The Passion and Politics of John Burton, California’s Liberal Warrior,” a book he co-authored with Andy Furillo, a former Sacramento Bee reporter. U.S. Sen. Nancy Pelosi wrote the forward.
And on Tuesday at California State University, Sacramento, Pauter will announce the creation of the John Burton Fellowship, providing young people with lived experience of foster care and homelessness a two-year, full-time paid internship program in the state capital. As part of the Capital Fellows Program, interns will learn how the Legislature functions and help ensure their issues are taken seriously by state lawmakers.
“I can’t think of a better way to honor John’s legacy,” Pauter said.
