Remarks by Governor Pete Wilson on Primary Night
LAX Westin Hotel
Tuesday June 7, 1994
In the last few years, together we've faced catastrophes more plentiful than any
time since the Bible.
I've heard of trial by fire, but we had trial by fire, by flood, by drought, by earthquake,
by recession and by defense cuts.
But Californians are tough. As I said after the Northridge quake: They can shake
us, but they can't break us.
Through all the crises, we've kept focused on making the change California needs
to be all that it can be.
Even in the harshest of times, we've made education a priority. We've pushed for
parents to have the right to be involved in their child's education, to choose their
child's school and their child's
teacher. We've insisted on safe classrooms and insisted on expulsion for kids who
bring guns or drugs to school, or disrupt learning by violence.
We've broken gridlock in Sacramento to produce the jobs climate California deserves.
We've repealed job-killing red tape that had been on the books for decades and even
rebuilt the broken bridges of the world's busiest freeway in just 62 days.
We reformed workers' comp and enacted tax incentives to keep jobs in California.
In short, we're turning California from a job-killing machine into a job-creating
machine. Just ask the folks at companies like Intel and the auto company NUMMI, who
are creating thousands of new
jobs in California.
We're enacting the tougher laws we need to make California streets safe. I was the
first governor in America to sign into law "Three Strikes You're Out" to
turn career criminals into career inmates.
But for some crimes that's not tough enough. For brutal rapists and child molesters,
it shouldn't be three strikes. It shouldn't even be two strikes. For those animals,
their first strike should be their
last. The law should be one-strike and you're in . . . for life.
And that's what we're fighting for now.
We've sent the National Guard to back up the Border Patrol. And we're suing to compel
the federal government to secure the border against illegal immigration and to fully
reimburse California taxpayers for the costs we've endured.
All of these reforms are aimed at building a California for our children of still
greater freedom and opportunity than the one we inherited.
But freedom isn't free. It has been repurchased in every generation by the bloodshed
and sacrifice of young Americans who fought and died to defend California as did
so many in the liberation of Europe, which began on Omaha Beach 50 years ago last
night.
Freedom isn't license. It's the responsible pursuit of opportunity.
To our children, we must say we are going to leave you a changed and better California
-- a California of unparalleled opportunity -- in return for you taking personal
responsibility for your actions.
As parents, we say to our children: We want you to learn more and earn more than
we have. We want you to have every chance -- and we want you to seize every opportunity
-- to create more for your children.
And we want you to raise your children to respect you, themselves, the rights of
others, the value of hard work and the duty to use at least some of this opportunity
to help California be even better
than it is today.
I'm running for re-election as Governor of California, because I want California
to be all it can be. And with your help, we'll win in November and we'll win for
California.
Thank you very much.
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