Whether you sat across the table from him or across the aisle, Rob Reiner left no doubt about what he cared about and was willing to fight for.<\/p>\n
I had lunch with him once at Pete\u2019s Cafe in downtown L.A., where he was far less interested in what was on his plate than what was on his mind. He was advocating for local investments in early childhood development programs, using funds from the tobacco tax created by Proposition 10<\/a> in 1998, which he helped spearhead.<\/p>\n I remember thinking that although political activism among celebrities was nothing new, Reiner was well beyond the easier tasks of making endorsements and hosting fundraisers. He had an understanding of public policy failures and entrenched inequities, and he wanted to talk about the moral duty to address them and the financial benefits of doing so.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was deeply passionate,\u201d said Ben Austin, who was at that lunch and worked as an aide to Reiner at the time. \u201cHe was not just a Hollywood star \u2026 but a highly sophisticated political actor.\u201d<\/p>\n Reiner, who was found dead in his Brentwood home<\/a> over the weekend along with his wife, Michele, also was co-founder of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which was instrumental in the fight to legalize same-sex marriage in California in 2008.<\/p>\n Michele Singer Reiner was her husband\u2019s \u201cintellectual partner\u201d as an activist, Austin said, even though he was usually the one whose face we saw. But Michele made her voice heard too, as she did when emailing me about the inexcusable crisis of veterans living on the street, including on the West L.A. veterans administration campus at a time when it was loaded with empty buildings.<\/p>\n I\u2019d check on the progress and get back to her, and she\u2019d check back again when little had changed. At one point I told her I\u2019d been informed that beds in a new shelter would be filled by the end of the year.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd if you believe that,\u201d she wrote back, \u201cI\u2019ve got a bridge for you.\u201d<\/p>\n In choosing his causes, Austin said of Rob Reiner, the actor-director-producer \u201cwas not jumping on a train that was already moving.\u201d Universal preschool education was barely a fringe issue at the time, Austin said, but Reiner was more interested in social change than making political points.<\/p>\n Reiner\u2019s aggressive instincts, though, sometimes drew pushback. And not just from President Trump, who established a new low for himself Monday with his social media claim that Reiner\u2019s death was a result of his disdain for Trump.<\/p>\n Reiner resigned in 2006<\/a> as chairman of California\u2019s First 5 commission, an outgrowth of Proposition 10, after Times reporting raised questions about the use of tax dollars to promote Proposition 82<\/a>. That Reiner-backed ballot measure would have taxed the rich to plow money into preschool for 4-year-olds.<\/p>\n In 2014, Reiner was at the center of a bid to limit commercial development and chain stores in Malibu, and I co-moderated a debate that seemed more like a boxing match between him and developer Steve Soboroff.<\/p>\n As the Malibu Times<\/a> described it:<\/p>\n \u201cRob Reiner and Steve Soboroff came out with guns blazing Sunday night during a Measure R debate that\u2019s sure to be one of the most memorable \u2014 and entertaining \u2014 Malibu showdowns in recent town history.\u201d<\/p>\n Reiner threw an early jab, accusing Soboroff of a backroom deal to add an exemption to the measure. That\u2019s a lie, Soboroff shot back, claiming he was insulted by the low blow. Reiner, who owned houses in both Brentwood and Malibu, didn\u2019t care much for my question<\/a> about whether his slow-growth viewpoint smacked of NIMBY-ism.<\/p>\n \u201cI would say there\u2019s a lot of NIMBY-ism,\u201d Reiner snapped. \u201cYou bet. It\u2019s 100% NIMBY-ism. Everybody who lives here is concerned about their way of life.\u201d<\/p>\n But that\u2019s the way Reiner was. He let you know, without apology, where he stood, kind of like his \u201cMeathead\u201d character in Norman Lear\u2019s hit TV show \u201cAll in the Family,\u201d in which he butted heads with the bigoted Archie Bunker.<\/p>\n Getting back to President Trump, he too unapologetically lets you know where he stands.<\/p>\n But most people, in my experience, work with filters \u2014 they can self-censor when that\u2019s what the moment calls for. It\u2019s not a skill, it\u2019s an innate sense of decency and human consideration that exists in the hearts and souls of normal people.<\/p>\n