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Peter Barton Wilson (born August 23, 1933) is an American attorney and politician who served as governor of California from 1991 to 1999. A member of the Republican Party, Wilson previously served as a United States senator from California from 1983 to 1991, and as mayor of San Diego from 1971 to 1983.
Born in Lake Forest, Illinois, Wilson graduated from the UC Berkeley School of Law after serving in the United States Marine Corps. He established a legal practice in San Diego and campaigned for Republicans such as Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater. Wilson won election to the California State Assembly in 1966 and became the mayor of San Diego in 1971. He held that office until 1983, when he became a member of the United States Senate. In 1982, he defeated then-incumbent Governor Jerry Brown to become the United States senator from California. In the Senate, Wilson supported the Strategic Defense Initiative and the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, while he opposed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990.
Wilson resigned from the Senate after winning the 1990 California gubernatorial election. As governor, Wilson signed a three-strikes law and supported energy deregulation and term limits. He was also an advocate for California Proposition 187 established a state-run citizenship screening system with the intention of preventing illegal immigrants from using social services and was said to have contributed to the decline of the Republican party's power in California. Wilson won reelection in the 1994 gubernatorial election. He sought the Republican nomination in the 1996 United States presidential election but dropped out of the race before the primaries began.
Wilson retired from public office after serving two terms as governor. Since leaving office, he has worked for several businesses and has been affiliated with several other organizations. He is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. As of 2025, Wilson's 1988 re-election is the last time a Republican has won a U.S. Senate race in California.
After graduating from Yale, Wilson served for three years in the United States Marine Corps as an infantry officer, eventually becoming a platoon commander. Upon completion of his Marine Corps service, Wilson earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law in June 1962.
In 1962, while working as an Advance Man for the Republican gubernatorial candidate Richard M. Nixon, Wilson got to know Herb Klein, one of Nixon's top aides. Klein suggested that Wilson might do well in Southern California politics, so in 1963, Wilson moved to San Diego.
After passing the bar exam on his fourth attempt, Wilson began his practice as a criminal defense attorney in San Diego, but he found such work to be low-paying and personally repugnant. He later commented to the Los Angeles Times, "I realized I couldn't be a criminal defense lawyer – because most of the people who do come to you are guilty." Wilson switched to a more conventional law practice and continued his activity in local politics, working for Barry Goldwater's unsuccessful presidential campaign in 1964. Wilson's liking for politics and managing the day-to-day details of the political process was growing. He put in long hours for the Goldwater campaign, earning the friendship of local Republican boosters so necessary for a political career, and in 1966, at the age of thirty-three, he ran for, and won a seat in the California State Assembly, succeeding Clair Burgener.
Wilson was re-elected to the Assembly in 1968 and 1970, and in 1971 was elected mayor of San Diego.
The 1972 Republican National Convention had been scheduled to take place in San Diego in August 1972. However, in May 1972 the Republican National Committee voted to move the convention to Miami because of a scandal involving a donation to the event by ITT Corporation, as well as concerns about the proposed venue (the San Diego Sports Arena) and the adequacy of hotel space. Wilson proclaimed the week of the convention to be America's Finest City Week, which became an annual event and gave rise to San Diego's unofficial nickname.
In 1972, Wilson recruited Clarence M. Pendleton Jr. to head the Model Cities Program in San Diego. In 1981, President Ronald Reagan appointed Pendleton to chair the United States Commission on Civil Rights, a position that he held from 1981 until his death in San Diego in 1988.
On October 19, 1983, Wilson voted in favor of a bill establishing Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The legislation was signed into law by President Reagan the following month. In January 1988, Wilson voted in favor of the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987 (as well as to override Ronald Reagan's veto in March).
In June 1984, Wilson voted in favor of legislation restricting federal highway funds for states that did not raise the minimum age for drinking to 21.
In May 1985, Wilson underwent surgery for a ruptured appendix at Bethesda Naval Hospital, concurrently as fellow Republican Senator Bob Dole hoped to gather enough votes for the Reagan administration's 1986 budget. The surgery was expected to keep Wilson hospitalized for days, but Wilson returned to Capitol Hill via an ambulance to cast a vote in favor of the budget on May 10. After voting, Wilson stated he made the decision to forgo further bed rest as he believed the vote was possibly the most important of his career.
Convinced by Japanese-American farmers in the Central Valley to support redress, Wilson co-sponsored the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. The bill was signed into law by President Reagan.
As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he called for early implementation of President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, a national missile defense.
Wilson also co-sponsored the Federal Intergovernmental Regulatory Relief Act requiring the federal government to reimburse states for the cost of new federal mandates. A fiscal conservative, he was named the Senate's "Watchdog of the Treasury" for each of his eight years in the nation's capital.
In 1988, Wilson won the race for the United States Senate against his Democratic opponent, Leo T. McCarthy. In that election, he became the first person to get more than 5 million votes in a single Senate race, and his 5.1 million votes was a record for the most won by a Republican candidate for Senator that wasn't broken until 2020, when John Cornyn of Texas topped it.
On January 20, 1989, he presided over the inauguration of George H. W. Bush as President of the United States. He voted against Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990, Bush's tax increase, thus remaining a fiscal conservative.
In the weeks following incumbent governor of California George Deukmejian announcing that he was not running for a third term, Wilson considered a gubernatorial bid; by late January 1989, Wilson admitted to the decision being agonizing for him amid his consulting with others on a possible run. At the beginning of his second six-year term in the Senate, Wilson announced plans to run for Governor of California.
On October 2, 1990, Wilson, away from Washington to campaign for California governor, became the only sitting senator from either party to not vote on the nomination of David Souter for Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court. He had previously endorsed Souter for confirmation. Wilson voted in favor of the Robert Bork Supreme Court nomination.
On January 7, 1991, he resigned from the Senate upon his inauguration as California's governor and appointed John Seymour as his successor.
As governor, Wilson oversaw economic recovery in California, just as the rest of the country was recovering from an economic slump. Inheriting the state's worst economy since the Great Depression, Wilson insisted on strict budget discipline and sought to rehabilitate the state's environment for investment and new job creation. During his term, market-based, unsubsidized health insurance was made available for employees of small businesses.
Despite his belief in fiscal conservatism, Wilson raised the sales tax to reduce the state deficit, including imposing a new sales tax on newspapers and a sales tax on "snack" foods. He also raised car license fees and college tuition; by 1991, tuition fees at the University of California rose by 40%, while they rose by 24% at California State University. Additionally, he raised the income tax in the top bracket temporarily. However, by 1993, the snack tax was repealed by the Democratic state legislature and the sales tax increase expired. On April 26, 1991, Wilson proposed an increase in sales tax by 1 1/4 cents and state taxes by $6.7 billion (equivalent to $ in ) as part of plan to reduce the state's budget deficit. The revenue gap had increased by $5 billion (equivalent to $ in ) in the four months of his governorship. In response to the April 1991 proposal, the Los Angeles Times wrote of Wilson,
In July 1991, the Senate voted 28 to 9 in favor of a bipartisan tax plan that would have increased taxes on the wealthiest Californians, boosted the corporate tax rate, and imposed a tax increase on telecommunication services by 2%. Wilson returned the budget bill to the legislature without his signature, revoking a prior commitment to vetoing the measure.
On July 12, 1991, Wilson signed a bill mandating that parents neglecting paying for child support could warrant stiff fines and potential suspensions of business and professional licenses. The legislation was intended to address a rising cause of poverty among children and women in the state at a time when Californians collectively owed $2 billion (equivalent to $ in ) per year in unpaid child support. On July 24, 1991, Wilson signed a bill requiring mass transit rail lines to be built underground in the event construction take place in the residential neighborhoods of North Hollywood and Van Nuys. The bill, requested by the residents of those neighborhoods, was aimed at easing "homeowners' fear of noise from ground-level trains running along a proposed rail route that parallels Chandler and Victory boulevards".
Less than a year into his first term as governor, Wilson vetoed AB 101, a bill written to prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation in the state. Wilson feared that the bill would increase lawsuits and make California less competitive economically. The veto was met with protests in San Francisco that included demonstrations during Wilson's subsequent public appearances and speeches. Wilson was the driving force behind the 1996 legislation that deregulated the state's energy market, which was the first energy utilities deregulation in the U.S. and aggressively pushed by companies such as Enron.
Wilson also enacted education reforms aimed at creating statewide curriculum standards, reducing class size and replacing social promotion with early remedial education. Wilson promoted standardized testing of all students, increased teacher training, and a longer school year. However, it was Wilson's uncompromising stance on reducing education spending that led to the budget impasse of 1992,Lou Cannon, Education Funding at Center of California Budget Showdown. The Washington Post, September 1, 1992 leaving state workers without paychecks from July until September, when the California Supreme Court forced the Governor and the legislature to agree to terms that ended the sixty-three-day stand-off. On February 22, 1993, Wilson issued an executive order banning smoke in a majority of state buildings barring "buildings controlled by the courts, the Legislature or the state's two university systems". The order was set to take effect December 31. Wilson said secondhand smoke "threatens the health of non-smoking state employees" and charged workplace smoking with increasing the cost of cleaning, damaged furniture and carpets, and heightening the chances of starting fires.
Despite this, in a leaked Philip Morris memo, the company's chief executive, Hamish Maxwell, said, "You will be pleased to know that Pete is still 'pro-tobacco.'" His move to revoke Proposition 99, a $114 million dollar voter-approved bill to tax cigarette companies to research and educate on the effects of tobacco, as well as shut down a highly effective anti-tobacco ad with footage of tobacco executives testifying to Congress that nicotine was not addictive (which also a prompted defamation lawsuit against it), was claimed to be illegal and caused multiple lawsuits, and was criticized as being influenced by the tobacco lobby. While he claimed to take no funding personally in response to allegations of being pro-tobacco, he collected over $100,000 from a New York fund-raising dinner organized by Phillip Morris. While Phillip Morris didn't directly fund his campaign, they were major funders of the California Republican Party which he led. The leaked memo was in response to worries over Wilson's rejection of direct campaign donations. Maxwell claimed to have been told by Wilson over a phone call that this was to "protect Hamish and himself," assuring that it was not due to a lack of support.
In late 1993, Wilson traveled to Asia to endorse Californian goods and investment opportunities abroad. Wilson's six-day tour was also marked by his insistence on creating export-oriented jobs. Wilson was re-elected to a second gubernatorial term in 1994, gaining 55% of the vote in his race against Democratic State Treasurer Kathleen Brown, daughter of former California Governor Pat Brown. According to one study, Wilson exploited anti-immigrant sentiment to win re-election. Wilson spoke at the funeral services for former First Lady Pat Nixon in 1993 and former President Richard M. Nixon in 1994 at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California. Two years later, Wilson became, to date, the most recent governor to speak at a California gubernatorial funeral, that of former Governor Pat Brown.
For most of his time as governor, Wilson reduced per-capita infrastructure spending for California, much as he had done as the mayor of San Diego. Many construction projects – most notably highway expansion/improvement projects – were severely hindered or delayed, while other maintenance and construction projects were abandoned completely. Term limits passed by voters as Proposition 140, and championed by Wilson in 1990, prohibited Wilson from running for re-election to a third term. At the end of his time in office, Wilson left California with a $16 billion budget surplus (equivalent to $ in ). He was succeeded by then-lieutenant governor Gray Davis as governor. A September 1998 Los Angeles Times poll found 55% of registered voters in California favored Wilson's job performance.
By the end of his first term, Wilson allied with members of the state legislature that supported the continuation of recession-inspired cuts to welfare benefits. A bill imposing the continued reduction of benefits was passed by 2 committees of the Republican-majority assembly. H. D. Palmer maintained Wilson's priorities rested in other issues and though admitting to an improving in revenues, disclosed that "the governor does not believe that the first call on those revenues should go to double-digit cost-of-living increases for welfare recipients."
Wilson's second inaugural address featured a proclamation that the administration would usher in welfare reform:
In his 1997 State of the State address, Wilson criticized welfare recipients and charged the program with creating conditions producing out-of-wedlock births, the lack of paternal involvement in the lives of children, and the lifelong ramifications to children caused by the father not being of presence. Under Wilson's welfare overhaul package, mothers would have to go to work after two years and a year would pass before they could return to welfare, which would only have a five-year lifetime. Paternity for each child would also have to be established for the mother to begin receiving benefits.
Passage of Proposition 187 reflected state residents' concerns about illegal immigration into the United States. Opponents believed the proposition was discriminatory and unfairly targeted children, while turning tens of thousands of adults into government informants; supporters generally insisted that their concerns were economic: that the state could not afford to provide social services for so many who entered the state illegally or overstayed their visas. Wilson himself would state that the policy was "about supporting the people who came here the right way".
Opponents of Proposition 187 cited its passage as the cause of long-term negative effects for the California Republican Party statewide. Noting a rapid increase in the Latino participation in California elections, some analysts cite Wilson and the Republican Party's embrace of Proposition 187 as a cause of the failure of the party to win statewide elections. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is the only Republican to win a California gubernatorial, senatorial, or presidential election since 1994, in a unique 2003 recall election and then a re-election in 2006.
Since 1995 the following states have had similar ballot initiatives or laws passed: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma and Texas.
Historians have suggested that Wilson's willingness to deregulate and commoditize California energy was also a major cause of the subsequent 2000–2001 California electricity crisis.
A September 6, 1995, UC Irvine poll showed equal support for Wilson and incumbent President Bill Clinton among Orange County voters. The same poll indicated Wilson as trailing his former Senate colleague Bob Dole by a 20-point margin. Dole would become the Republican nominee in the general election. Later that month, a Los Angeles Times poll found 23% of Californians believed Wilson should seek the presidency, including 30% of state voters identifying as Republican. On September 29, 1995, Wilson told supporters in Sacramento that he was dropping out of the Republican primary, citing he lacked the "necessary campaign funds to take this message to the people who need to hear it". He became the first candidate to exit the Republican primary.
Wilson is currently a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank located on the campus of Stanford University; the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation; the Richard Nixon Foundation; and the Donald Bren Foundation. He is the founding director of the California Mentor Foundation and is the chairman of the board of trustees of the National World War II Museum. Wilson sits on two prestigious Federal advisory committees: the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee. He previously worked as a consultant at the Los Angeles office of Bingham McCutchen LLP, a large, national law firm, and is currently Of Counsel with boutique law firm Ellis George Cipollone. He is also a Principal at Wilson Walsh Consulting.
In 1999, Wilson was awarded the prestigious Patriot Award by the Congressional Medal of Honor Society at its national convention in Riverside, California. In 2003, Wilson was co-chair of Arnold Schwarzenegger's successful campaign to Recall election and replace Governor Gray Davis.
In 2007, a statue of Wilson joined Ernest Hahn and Alonzo Horton on the San Diego Walk of Fame. Two hundred sponsors donated $200,000 to build the statue. On May 23, 2009, Wilson gave the commencement speech and received an honorary degree from San Diego State University's College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts. In 2009, Wilson chaired the unsuccessful campaign of Meg Whitman for governor.
On April 30, 2016, Wilson endorsed U.S. Senator Ted Cruz for the Republican nomination in the 2016 presidential election. On April 4, 2019, Wilson donated $5,000 to the reelection campaign of President Donald Trump. Wilson was among the signatories of a letter released on October 1, 2020, endorsing President Trump for reelection in the 2020 presidential election and argued in an interview that the president "has very good judgment, and very good people around him making honest calls." He served as a campaign advisor for Larry Elder's unsuccessful 2021 campaign to recall and replace Governor Gavin Newsom.
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