George Moscone
Encyclopedia
George Richard Moscone was an American attorney and Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

 politic
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...

ian. He was the 37th mayor of San Francisco, California, US from January 1976 until his assassination
Moscone-Milk assassinations
The Moscone–Milk assassinations were the killings of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, who were shot and killed in San Francisco City Hall by former Supervisor Dan White on November 27, 1978...

 in November 1978. Moscone served in the California State Senate from 1967 until becoming Mayor. In the Senate, he served as Majority Leader
Majority leader
In U.S. politics, the majority floor leader is a partisan position in a legislative body.In the federal Congress, the role differs slightly in the two houses. In the House of Representatives, which chooses its own presiding officer, the leader of the majority party is elected the Speaker of the...

.

Early life

Moscone was born in San Francisco, California. His father was George Joseph Moscone, a prison guard, and his mother, Lena, was a homemaker
Homemaker
Homemaking is a mainly American term for the management of a home, otherwise known as housework, housekeeping or household management...

.

Moscone attended St. Brigid's, and then St. Ignatius College Preparatory
St. Ignatius College Preparatory
St. Ignatius College Preparatory is a preparatory school in the Jesuit tradition serving the San Francisco Bay Area since 1855. Located in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco, in the Sunset District of San Francisco, St. Ignatius is one of the oldest secondary schools in the U.S. state...

, where he was an all-city basketball star. He then attended University of the Pacific. While in college, Moscone befriended John L. Burton
John L. Burton
John Lowell Burton is the current Chairman of the California Democratic Party. He is an American politician who served as a Democratic California State Senator from 1996 until 2004, representing the 3rd district. From 1998 until he was forced out of office by term limits in 2004, he served as the...

, who would later become a member of the U.S. House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...

.

Moscone then studied at University of California, Hastings College of the Law
University of California, Hastings College of the Law
University of California, Hastings College of the Law is a public law school in San Francisco, California, located in the Civic Center neighborhood....

, where he received his law degree. He met and married Gina Bondanza, in 1954. The Moscones would go on to have four children. After serving in the United States Navy, Moscone started private practice in 1956.

Early politics

John Burton
John L. Burton
John Lowell Burton is the current Chairman of the California Democratic Party. He is an American politician who served as a Democratic California State Senator from 1996 until 2004, representing the 3rd district. From 1998 until he was forced out of office by term limits in 2004, he served as the...

's brother, Phillip
Phillip Burton
Phillip Burton was a United States Representative from California. A Democrat, he was instrumental in creating the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Burton was one of the first members of Congress to acknowledge the need for AIDS research and introduce an AIDS bill. He was the brother of...

, a member of the California State Assembly
California State Assembly
The California State Assembly is the lower house of the California State Legislature. There are 80 members in the Assembly, representing an approximately equal number of constituents, with each district having a population of at least 420,000...

, recruited Moscone to run for an Assembly seat in 1960 as a Democrat. Though he lost that race, Moscone would go on to win a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors
San Francisco Board of Supervisors
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is the legislative body within the government of the City and County of San Francisco, California, United States.-Government and politics:...

 in 1963. On the Board, Moscone was known for his defense of the poor, racial minorities and small business owners.

California State Senator

In 1966 Moscone ran for and won a seat in the California State Senate
California State Senate
The California State Senate is the upper house of the California State Legislature. There are 40 state senators. The state legislature meets in the California State Capitol in Sacramento. The Lieutenant Governor is the ex officio President of the Senate and may break a tied vote...

, representing the 10th District in San Francisco County. Moscone was quickly rising through the ranks of the California Democratic Party
California Democratic Party
The California Democratic Party is the state branch of the Democratic Party in the state of California, headquartered in Sacramento. It is chaired by veteran Democratic politician and former United States Representative John L. Burton, who succeeded Art Torres in April 2009. It is the majority...

 and became closely associated with a loose alliance of progressive
Progressivism
Progressivism is an umbrella term for a political ideology advocating or favoring social, political, and economic reform or changes. Progressivism is often viewed by some conservatives, constitutionalists, and libertarians to be in opposition to conservative or reactionary ideologies.The...

 politicians in San Francisco led by the Burton brothers. This alliance was known as the Burton Machine and included John Burton, Phillip Burton, and Assemblyman Willie Brown. Soon after his election to the State Senate, Moscone was elected by his party to serve as Majority Leader. He was reelected to the 10th District seat in 1970 and to the newly redistricted 6th District seat, representing parts of San Francisco and San Mateo Counties, in 1974. He successfully sponsored legislation to institute a school lunch program for California students. In 1974 Moscone briefly considered a run for governor of California, but dropped out after a short time in favor of Secretary of State of California Jerry Brown
Jerry Brown
Edmund Gerald "Jerry" Brown, Jr. is an American politician. Brown served as the 34th Governor of California , and is currently serving as the 39th California Governor...

.

As a heterosexual, Moscone was considered ahead of his time as an early proponent of gay rights. In conjunction with his friend and ally in the Assembly, Willie Brown, Moscone managed to pass a bill repealing California's sodomy
Sodomy
Sodomy is an anal or other copulation-like act, especially between male persons or between a man and animal, and one who practices sodomy is a "sodomite"...

 law. The repeal was signed into law by California Governor Jerry Brown
Jerry Brown
Edmund Gerald "Jerry" Brown, Jr. is an American politician. Brown served as the 34th Governor of California , and is currently serving as the 39th California Governor...

.

Mayor of San Francisco

Moscone decided in 1975 to run for Mayor of San Francisco. In a close race in November of that year, Moscone placed first with conservative city supervisor John Barbagelata second and moderate supervisor Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein is the senior U.S. Senator from California. A member of the Democratic Party, she has served in the Senate since 1992. She also served as 38th Mayor of San Francisco from 1978 to 1988....

 coming in third. Moscone and Barbagelata thus both advanced to the mandated runoff election in December where Moscone narrowly defeated the conservative supervisor. Liberals also won the city's other top executive offices that year as Joseph Freitas was elected District attorney
District attorney
In many jurisdictions in the United States, a District Attorney is an elected or appointed government official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminal offenses. The district attorney is the highest officeholder in the jurisdiction's legal department and supervises a staff of...

 and Richard Hongisto
Richard Hongisto
Richard D. Hongisto was a businessman, politician, sheriff and police chief of San Francisco, California, and Cleveland, Ohio.-Early life and education:...

 was re-elected to his office of Sheriff
Sheriff
A sheriff is in principle a legal official with responsibility for a county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political, and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country....

. Members of the Peoples Temple
Peoples Temple
Peoples Temple was a religious organization founded in 1955 by Jim Jones that, by the mid-1970s, included over a dozen locations in California including its headquarters in San Francisco...

 saturated San Francisco neighborhoods, distributing slate cards for Moscone, Joseph Freitas and Hongisto.

The Peoples Temple also worked to get out the vote in precincts where Moscone received a 12 to 1 vote margin over Barbagelata. After Peoples Temple's work and votes by Temple members were instrumental in delivering a close victory for Moscone, Moscone appointed Temple leader Jim Jones
Jim Jones
James Warren "Jim" Jones was the founder and leader of the Peoples Temple, which is best known for the November 18, 1978 mass suicide of 909 Temple members in Jonestown, Guyana along with the killings of five other people at a nearby airstrip.Jones was born in Indiana and started the Temple in...

 as Chairman of the San Francisco Housing Commission.

Moscone's first year as Mayor was spent preventing the San Francisco Giants
San Francisco Giants
The San Francisco Giants are a Major League Baseball team based in San Francisco, California, playing in the National League West Division....

 professional baseball team from moving to Toronto and advocating a city-wide ballot initiative
Initiative
In political science, an initiative is a means by which a petition signed by a certain minimum number of registered voters can force a public vote...

 in favor of district election to the Board of Supervisors. Moscone was the first mayor to appoint large numbers of women, gays and lesbians and racial minorities to city commissions and advisory boards. Moscone also appointed liberal former Oakland
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...

 Police Chief Charles Gain
Charles Gain
Charles Gain is a retired police official, who served first as police chief for Oakland, Calif., then as chief in San Francisco in the 1970s.In 1975, Gain was appointed to run the San Francisco Police Department by Mayor George Moscone and served 1975 to 1980...

 to head the San Francisco Police Department. Gain (and by extension Moscone) became highly unpopular among rank and file San Francisco police officers for proposing a settlement to a lawsuit
Lawsuit
A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...

 brought by minorities claiming discriminatory recruiting practices by the police force.

In 1977 Moscone, Freitas and Hongisto all easily survived a recall election
Recall election
A recall election is a procedure by which voters can remove an elected official from office through a direct vote before his or her term has ended...

 pushed by defeated Moscone opponent John Barbagelata and business interests. That year also marked the passage of the district election system by San Francisco voters. The city's first district elections for Board of Supervisors took place in November 1977. Among those elected were the city's first openly gay Supervisor, Harvey Milk
Harvey Milk
Harvey Bernard Milk was an American politician who became the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors...

, single mother and attorney Carol Ruth Silver
Carol Ruth Silver
Carol Ruth Silver is an American lawyer and former politician. She was a Freedom Rider arrested and incarcerated for 40 days in Jackson, Mississippi,...

, Chinese-American Gordon Lau
Gordon Lau
Gordon J. Lau was the first Chinese American elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in San Francisco, California. He was elected to the city board of supervisors under Mayor George Moscone in 1977. Other notable supervisors at the time included Dianne Feinstein, Carol Ruth Silver,...

 and fireman and former police officer Dan White
Dan White
Daniel James "Dan" White was a San Francisco supervisor who assassinated San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, on Monday, November 27, 1978, at City Hall...

. Milk, Silver, and Lau along with John Molinari and Robert Gonzales made up Moscone's allies on the Board, while Dan White
Dan White
Daniel James "Dan" White was a San Francisco supervisor who assassinated San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, on Monday, November 27, 1978, at City Hall...

, Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein is the senior U.S. Senator from California. A member of the Democratic Party, she has served in the Senate since 1992. She also served as 38th Mayor of San Francisco from 1978 to 1988....

, Quentin Kopp, Ella Hill Hutch
Ella Hill Hutch
Ella Hill Hutch was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in San Francisco, California, in 1977 and reelected in 1980. She was the second African American elected to the Board , and the first African American woman.-External links:* * *...

, Lee Dolson, and Ron Pelosi
Ron Pelosi
Ronald Pelosi is an American businessman and public figure in San Francisco, California. He is the brother-in-law of House Minority Leader and former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi and is the uncle of California Lt...

 formed a loosely organized coalition to oppose Moscone and his initiatives. Feinstein was elected President of the Board of Supervisors on a 6–5 vote, with Moscone's supporters backing Lau. It was generally believed that Feinstein, having twice lost election to the office of mayor would support Kopp against Moscone in the 1979 election and retire rather than run for the Board again.

Peoples Temple investigation

In August 1977, after Housing Commission Chairman Jim Jones
Jim Jones
James Warren "Jim" Jones was the founder and leader of the Peoples Temple, which is best known for the November 18, 1978 mass suicide of 909 Temple members in Jonestown, Guyana along with the killings of five other people at a nearby airstrip.Jones was born in Indiana and started the Temple in...

 fled to Jonestown
Jonestown
Jonestown was the informal name for the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, an intentional community in northwestern Guyana formed by the Peoples Temple led by Jim Jones. It became internationally notorious when, on November 18, 1978, 918 people died in the settlement as well as in a nearby...

 following media scrutiny alleging criminal wrongdoing, Moscone announced his office would not investigate Jones and the Peoples Temple
Peoples Temple
Peoples Temple was a religious organization founded in 1955 by Jim Jones that, by the mid-1970s, included over a dozen locations in California including its headquarters in San Francisco...

. The later tragedy at Jonestown was, after the sinking of the PS General Slocum off of New York earlier in the century, the next greatest single loss of American civilian life in a non-natural disaster (until the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001) and dominated national headlines at the time of Moscone's death. After the tragedy, Temple members revealed to The New York Times that the Temple arranged for "busloads" of members to be bussed from Redwood Valley to San Francisco to vote in the election. A former Temple member stated that many of those members were not registered to vote in San Francisco, while another former member said "Jones swayed elections."

Assassination

Late in 1978, Dan White
Dan White
Daniel James "Dan" White was a San Francisco supervisor who assassinated San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, on Monday, November 27, 1978, at City Hall...

 resigned from the Board of Supervisors. His resignation meant that Moscone would choose White's successor, and thus could tip the Board's balance of power in Moscone's favor. Recognizing this, those who supported a more conservative agenda talked White into changing his mind. White then hastily requested that Moscone appoint him to his former seat.

Moscone originally indicated a willingness to reconsider, but more liberal city leaders, including Harvey Milk
Harvey Milk
Harvey Bernard Milk was an American politician who became the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors...

, lobbied him against the idea, and Moscone ultimately decided not to appoint White. On November 27, 1978, White went to San Francisco City Hall to meet with Moscone and make a final plea for appointment. When Moscone declined to reconsider his decision, White pulled a gun out of his suit jacket and shot and killed Moscone. White then went to Milk's office and shot Milk, killing him as well.

Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein is the senior U.S. Senator from California. A member of the Democratic Party, she has served in the Senate since 1992. She also served as 38th Mayor of San Francisco from 1978 to 1988....

, President of the Board of Supervisors, was sworn in as the city's new mayor and in the following years would emerge as one of California's most prominent politicians.

White later turned himself in at the police station where he was formerly an officer. The term "Twinkie defense
Twinkie defense
"Twinkie defense" is a derisive label for an improbable legal defense. It is not a recognized legal defense in jurisprudence, but a catchall term coined by reporters during their coverage of the trial of defendant Dan White for the murders of San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk and mayor...

" has its origins in the murder trial that followed, in which Dan White was convicted of the lesser crime of manslaughter. White would commit suicide in 1985, shortly after his release from prison.

Legacy

Moscone is interred at Holy Cross Cemetery
Holy Cross Cemetery, Colma
Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery in Colma, California is an American Roman Catholic cemetery operated by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. Established in 1887 on of a former potato farm, it is the oldest and largest cemetery established in Colma to serve the needs of San Francisco...

 in Colma, California
Colma, California
Colma is a small incorporated town in San Mateo County, California, at the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area. The population was 1,792 at the 2010 census. The town was founded as a necropolis in 1924....

 alongside his mother Lena. His grave often has a Rainbow flag
Rainbow flag
A rainbow flag is a multi-colored flag consisting of stripes in the colors of the rainbow. The actual colors shown differ, but many of the designs are based on the traditional scheme of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet, or some more modern division of the rainbow spectrum .The...

 present, and new flags are placed there every November 27.

Today, both he and Milk are mourned as martyr
Martyr
A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...

s of the gay rights movement, but Milk has received far more attention in popular media, despite the fact that Moscone outranked him. In the LGBT
LGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...

 community, Moscone is revered as a gay icon.

Moscone Center
Moscone Center
Moscone Center is the largest convention and exhibition complex in San Francisco, California. It comprises three main halls: Two underground halls underneath Yerba Buena Gardens, known as Moscone North and Moscone South, and a three-level Moscone West exhibition hall across 4th Street...

, San Francisco's largest convention center and exhibition hall, and Moscone Recreation Center
Moscone Recreation Center
Moscone Recreation Center is a park located between Chestnut Street and Bay Street, Laguna Street and Webster Street in San Francisco's Marina District....

 are named in his honor. Moscone and Milk also have schools named after them: George Moscone Elementary, Harvey Milk Elementary and Harvey Milk High School
Harvey Milk High School
Harvey Milk High School is a public high school in the East Village of New York City designed for, though not limited to, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender young people, as well as those questioning their sexuality...

.

In 1980, sculptor Robert Arneson
Robert Arneson
Robert Carston Arneson was an American sculptor and professor of ceramics in the Art department at UC Davis for four decades.- Career :...

 was commissioned to create a monument to Moscone to be installed in the new Moscone Convention Center. The bust
Bust (sculpture)
A bust is a sculpted or cast representation of the upper part of the human figure, depicting a person's head and neck, as well as a variable portion of the chest and shoulders. The piece is normally supported by a plinth. These forms recreate the likeness of an individual...

 portraying Moscone was done in Arneson's expressionistic
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...

 style and was considered acceptable by San Francisco's Art Commission. However, the pedestal which the former Mayor's head rested on was deemed inappropriate and Arneson was asked to change it. At issue were references to Harvey Milk
Harvey Milk
Harvey Bernard Milk was an American politician who became the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors...

, the assassinations, the "Twinkie Defense
Twinkie defense
"Twinkie defense" is a derisive label for an improbable legal defense. It is not a recognized legal defense in jurisprudence, but a catchall term coined by reporters during their coverage of the trial of defendant Dan White for the murders of San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk and mayor...

," the White Night Riots
White Night Riots
The White Night riots were a series of violent events sparked by an announcement of the lenient sentencing of Dan White, for the assassinations of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk. The events took place on the night of May 21, 1979 in San Francisco...

, and Dianne Feinstein's
Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein is the senior U.S. Senator from California. A member of the Democratic Party, she has served in the Senate since 1992. She also served as 38th Mayor of San Francisco from 1978 to 1988....

 mayoral succession that Arneson had included on the surface of the pedestal. Arneson refused to make alterations to the work, returned the commission, and later resold the sculpture.

In popular culture

  • The Dead Kennedys' version of "I Fought the Law" contains numerous references to Moscone's murder.
  • Moscone was played by Victor Garber
    Victor Garber
    Victor Joseph Garber is a Canadian film, stage and television actor and singer. Garber is known for playing Jesus in Godspell, Jack Bristow in the television series Alias, Max in Lend Me a Tenor, and Thomas Andrews in James Cameron's Titanic.-Early life:Born in London, Ontario, Canada, Garber is...

     in Gus Van Sant
    Gus Van Sant
    Gus Green Van Sant, Jr. is an American director, screenwriter, painter, photographer, musician, and author. He is a two time nominee of the Academy Award for Best Director for his 1997 film Good Will Hunting and his 2008 film Milk, both of which were also nominated for Best Picture, and won the...

    's Milk
    Milk (film)
    Milk is a 2008 American biographical film on the life of gay rights activist and politician Harvey Milk, who was the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors...

    .
  • "Ghost Light," a play written by son Jonathan Moscone and Tony Taccone about the effects of the assassination on his then-14-year-old son, was commissioned as part of "American Revolutions. the United States History Cycle" by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Ashland, Oregon. The World Premier, co-produced with Berkeley Repertory Theater, was staged at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2011.

See also



External links

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