California Republican Assembly - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The California Republican Assembly is a conservative

American conservatism

Conservatism in the United States has played an important role in American politics since the 1950s. Historian Gregory Schneider identifies several constants in American conservatism: respect for tradition, support of republicanism, preservation of "the rule of law and the Christian religion", and...

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

Republican

Republican Party (United States)

The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

activist group. It is the oldest and largest grassroots volunteer organization chartered by the California Republican Party.

The CRA can date its origin to the 1930s and was an early supporter of Governor

Governor of California

The Governor of California is the chief executive of the California state government, whose responsibilities include making annual State of the State addresses to the California State Legislature, submitting the budget, and ensuring that state laws are enforced...

Earl Warren

Earl Warren was the 14th Chief Justice of the United States.He is known for the sweeping decisions of the Warren Court, which ended school segregation and transformed many areas of American law, especially regarding the rights of the accused, ending public-school-sponsored prayer, and requiring...

but also an early opponent of Chief Justice

Chief Justice of the United States

The Chief Justice of the United States is the head of the United States federal court system and the chief judge of the Supreme Court of the United States. The Chief Justice is one of nine Supreme Court justices; the other eight are the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States...

Earl Warren

, whom it believed had moved left from his gubernatorial days to his time on the court and so was regarded as far too liberal

Liberalism

Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...

to merit support by conservatives. The CRA was largely supportive of the efforts of Barry Goldwater

Barry Goldwater

Barry Morris Goldwater was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. An articulate and charismatic figure during the first half of the 1960s, he was known as "Mr...

's Presidential

President of the United States

The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

bid and helped him finalize his nomination at the 1964 Republican National Convention

Republican National Convention

The Republican National Convention is the presidential nominating convention of the Republican Party of the United States. Convened by the Republican National Committee, the stated purpose of the convocation is to nominate an official candidate in an upcoming U.S...

held in San Francisco

San Francisco, California

San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

. Later that year it helped the cause of George Murphy

George Murphy

George Lloyd Murphy was an American dancer, actor, and politician.-Life and career:He was born in New Haven, Connecticut of Irish Catholic extraction, the son of Michael Charles "Mike" Murphy, athletic trainer and coach, and Nora Long. He was educated at Peddie School, Trinity-Pawling School, and...

, a former movie

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

and close friend of Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

in being elected to the United States Senate

United States Senate

The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

, and then helped Reagan himself to be elected Governor of California

Governor of California

in 1966.

The group claims to hold much of the responsibility for the "Reagan Revolution". Ronald Reagan often referred to CRA as the "Conscience of the Republican Party." Unlike some other conservative political

Politics

Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...

groups, it makes no pretense at being nonpartisan

Nonpartisan

In political science, nonpartisan denotes an election, event, organization or person in which there is no formally declared association with a political party affiliation....

; it is forbidden by its charter from supporting any candidates who are not Republicans. Its only goal is to influence the Republican Party to remain very conservative. It is pro-life

Pro-life

Opposition to the legalization of abortion is centered around the pro-life, or anti-abortion, movement, a social and political movement opposing elective abortion on moral grounds and supporting its legal prohibition or restriction...

and pro-"family values

Family values

Family values are political and social beliefs that hold the nuclear family to be the essential ethical and moral unit of society. Familialism is the ideology that promotes the family and its values as an institution....

" and it supports a limited-government agenda calling for lower tax

Tax

To tax is to impose a financial charge or other levy upon a taxpayer by a state or the functional equivalent of a state such that failure to pay is punishable by law. Taxes are also imposed by many subnational entities...

es, less governmental regulation, and more personal freedom. In the 1990s it spawned a national organization based on its own efforts, the National Federation of Republican Assemblies

National Federation of Republican Assemblies

The National Federation of Republican Assemblies is a grassroots political organization which promotes conservative principles and candidates within the Republican Party...

, which now has affiliates in approximately forty states

U.S. state

A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...

External links

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