Pop quiz: Who was the last Republican to represent California in the U.S. Senate?<\/p>\n
The answer is John Seymour, the longtime Orange County political force who was appointed to the Senate<\/a> by then-incoming Gov. Pete Wilson in 1991 and left after losing an election for the full-time job, in 1992, to former San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein.<\/p>\n But all that\u2019s just political trivia. And Seymour, who died April 18 in Carlsbad \u2014 after a long stint living in the Riverside County desert \u2014 at the age of 88, was a lot more than that.<\/p>\n He spent much of the 1970s embroiled in the politics of Anaheim, first as a planning commissioner and later as a member of the City Council and then as mayor<\/a>. He spent much of the 1980s embroiled in the politics of Sacramento, representing north Orange County in the state Senate.<\/p>\n Then, after his two-year stint in Washington, D.C., Seymour spent much of the 1990s and early 2000s in a decidedly nonpolitical job in Rancho Cucamonga \u2014 carving out a second career running a fledgling nonprofit that still helps very low-income people get housing.<\/p>\n None of it was trivial.<\/p>\n If his professional life had a theme, and the record suggests it did, it was housing and real estate. Owning a home was, in Seymour\u2019s view, the ticket from just scraping by, or even living on the streets, to financial stability. He spent much of his life, initially in business and, later, in politics and in decades of nonprofit management, trying to make sure anybody could get that ticket.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter he lost the Senate, he took a break and was asked to serve as executive director of the California Housing Finance Agency. Then, a couple years after that, he became the first chief executive of the Southern California Housing Development Corp, and that was a nonprofit,\u201d said Seymour\u2019s oldest son, John Seymour Jr., 63.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s when you could tell he was really back to high octane,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was in the office at 6 a.m. and didn\u2019t leave until 6 p.m. He was creating real housing: sticks and bricks. It was for people who really needed it, people who couldn\u2019t necessarily get it from somebody else.\u201d<\/p>\n The nonprofit initially served lower-income people and veterans and first-time homebuyers in San Bernardino and Riverside counties before spreading to Orange and San Diego counties. Today, the nonprofit runs under a different name that reflects its new scope, National Community Renaissance.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen he started with them, the focus was primarily on lower-income families, very low-income seniors and veterans. Then it slowly started to evolve into solutions for homelessness,\u201d said Seymour Jr., who has worked for the nonprofit since the mid-1990s.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that\u2019s what the focus is today, helping the homeless; along with the transformation of the communities; bettering them with infrastructure and sidewalks and parks. It\u2019s the complete development of the neighborhood, along with wraparound services for people who need them.\u201d<\/p>\n Seymour, who was born in Chicago and raised in Pennsylvania, moved to Southern California after leaving the Marine Corps. He studied finance at UCLA and moved to Orange County in the 1960s to start a company that eventually operated as Seymour Realty and Investments, a do-it-all operation that bought, sold, fixed up and resold all types of properties.<\/p>\n Initially, Seymour\u2019s focus was on Anaheim at a time when tens of thousands of union jobs in the building trades and aerospace were paying enough to finance homeownership in Anaheim and other inland Orange County communities. Later, Seymour Realty helped develop higher-priced Anaheim Hills, and, eventually, his company had offices throughout the county.<\/p>\n His transition into politics was so familiar it\u2019s almost clich\u00e9. He wanted something from the city, in 1970, and was urged to join the Planning Commission. Four years later, he was elected to City Council and, in 1978, he won the election for mayor, a job that meant stepping away from his real estate business.<\/p>\n During this period, Seymour was also president of the California Association of Realtors, leading roughly 120,000 licensed home sellers.<\/p>\n As mayor, he also helped woo the Rams away from the Coliseum to play in what was then known as Anaheim Stadium. Later, when he was out of politics and the team was contemplating another move, to St. Louis, Seymour was part of the unsuccessful effort to keep the Rams in Southern California.<\/p>\n At the time, Seymour even said it would be OK with him if the Rams moved back to Los Angeles if it meant keeping the team in Southern California. It was a huge concession given his role in connecting the team to Anaheim in the first place.<\/p>\n \u201cThe revenue that came with the Rams was important for the city and the small businesses. But he always said the real importance of the Rams deal, for the city, was the pride of having an NFL team in Anaheim,\u201d Seymour Jr. said. \u201cIt was the prestige.\u201d<\/p>\n But beyond politics and real estate and nonprofit work, Seymour Jr. said his father claimed to love a bigger job in his life \u2014 father of six.<\/p>\n Seymour and his first wife, Fran, had three children, including Seymour Jr. After that marriage ended, when Seymour Sr. was 34, he married Judy Seymour, who came to their marriage with a son, and the couple went on to have two more children, bringing the kid count to six.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was sort of the real-life version of \u2018Brady Bunch\u2019 but in real life,\u201d Seymour Jr. said. \u201cOur family was, and is, very close.\u201d<\/p>\n When his father was a state senator, and spending work-week time in Sacramento, the family home was on a cul-de-sac in Anaheim. When Seymour Sr. was back in town, the street became a makeshift field for a full range of sporting events: football, baseball, soccer \u2014 they played anything.<\/p>\n And the elder Seymour, a slight man, did not sit on the sidelines.<\/p>\n \u201cNot only did he play, he was the most competitive of all of us,\u201d Seymour Jr. said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt almost got out of control,\u201d he added, laughing. \u201cHe\u2019s a poor loser. We had to put him in his place a few times.\u201d<\/p>\n Later, when Seymour Jr. asked his father what role in life he liked most, being a Marine or running a business or in elected office, his father, apparently still working his political muscles, said \u201cfamily.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe had this thing, at dinner, where he\u2019d ask us the question of the day. It would be some question like, \u2018What do you think of the prison system?\u2019 or \u201cShould marijuana be legalized?\u2019 And we were all told to let everybody at the table answer the question completely. We weren\u2019t allowed to interrupt.<\/p>\n \u201cIt taught us a lot about listening,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it also taught us about making a coherent argument.\u201d<\/p>\n Throughout his political life, Seymour was a Republican. And though it\u2019s easy today to view past eras as less combative than the current version of American politics, Seymour\u2019s political style wasn\u2019t soft. During the 1992 campaign for Senate<\/a>, for example, he bashed Democrat Feinstein\u2019s ethics, noting that the Fair Political Practices Commission had sued her over violations related to campaign reporting and spending. He also suggested that votes she had cast during parole board hearings in the 1960s meant the former San Francisco Mayor was \u201csoft on crime.\u201d<\/p>\n But after she beat him soundly in that year\u2019s election, Seymour called Feinstein to say he\u2019d do everything he could to help her as a representative of California.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was a big supporter of hers. They had differences, of course, but he was a big supporter of many of her policies. And they were alike in terms of style,\u201d Seymour Jr. said. \u201cThey were both interested in finding a consensus.\u201d<\/p>\n Seymour Jr. demurred when asked if his father would be a Republican today. Seymour\u2019s focus on helping lower-income people doesn\u2019t align with the GOP\u2019s spending priorities, particularly in the wake of last year\u2019s \u201cbig, beautiful\u201d bill that calls for pulling more than $1 trillion out of social safety net programs related to food, health care and housing.<\/p>\n But Seymour Jr. said if his father did run for office, as a Republican or otherwise, he would win.<\/p>\n \u201cIf he could get in front of people, he\u2019d convince them.\u201d<\/p>\n Seymour died at home in Carlsbad, surrounded by family. He leaves his wife, Judy, and children Seymour Jr., Lisa, Shad (deceased), Jeffrey, Sarena and Barrett, as well as nine grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.<\/p>\n