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| Affiliation | Democratic |
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| Name | Daniel E. Boatwright |
| Address |
Concord, California , United States |
| Email | None |
| Website | None |
| Born |
January 29, 1930
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| Died | April 27, 2012
(82 years)
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| Contributor | Barack O-blame-a |
| Last Modifed | David
Jan 29, 2021 07:11pm |
| Tags |
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| Info | Daniel Eugene Boatwright, Democrat, served in the California Legislature as a State Assembly Member from 1973-1980 and as a State Senator from 1981-1996. During Boatwright's twenty-four year career as a legislator, he represented the greater portion of Contra Costa County including the cities of Brentwood, Concord, Martinez, Pittsburg, and Walnut Creek. In 1972, Daniel Boatwright was elected to the 10th California State Assembly District. During his first legislative session in office, 1973-1974, the 10th Assembly District encompassed central and eastern Contra Costa County including the cities of Brentwood, Concord, and Walnut Creek. Boatwright served the 10th District during his entire tenure in the Assembly. Elected to the Senate in 1980, Boatwright entered office for the following legislative session, 1981-1982, representing the 7th Senate District, which represented practically the same region of Contra Costa County as his Assembly District. Senatorial redistricting in 1990 extended the 7th District to include a small portion of northeastern Alameda County, comprised of cities such as Livermore and Pleasanton. Throughout his career, Boatwright primarily represented Contra Costa County and the large housing tracts, office parks, and oil refineries along the south banks of the Suisun Bay and Sacramento River that operated within his district's limits (Who's Who in the California Legislature, 1991, p.20 and 1995, p.15).
Born in Harrison, Arkansas in 1930, Daniel Boatwright moved with his parents, four sisters, and one brother establishing residence in Vallejo, California in 1938. Boatwright attended public schools in Vallejo and shortly after graduating from high school; he joined the United States Army in 1948. In the Army, Boatwright served his country as a combat infantryman in the 7th Infantry Division in Korea from 1950 to 1951. Following his honorable discharge from the Army in 1952, Boatwright returned to Vallejo where he attended Vallejo Junior College. While at Vallejo Junior College, he received a true taste of governmental leadership as he earned appointment as President of the California Junior College Student Government Organization, an organization that represented over 60 California Junior Colleges in organizing student affairs on campus. Later, Boatwright moved on to the University of California, Berkeley where he received his Baccalaureate degree in Political Science in 1956. It only took him three more years to earn his Jurist Doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, accomplishing that feat in 1959 (Legislative Handbook: Members of the California Legislature, 1973, p.10).
Boatwright quickly began his career as an attorney going to work as a deputy district attorney in Contra Costa County, which he followed up by entering private law practice, eventually opening his own law firm in Concord in 1970. Boatwright was a member of the California, Contra Costa, and Mount Diablo Bar Associations. During this time, Boatwright met and married his first wife Gina Hilbert, a registered nurse, with whom he had three sons, Danny, David, and Donald. Boatwright is currently married to Teresa Boatwright. In 1966, Boatwright was elected to the Concord City Council and simultaneously elected mayor, the first freshman council member ever elected mayor in Concord. Boatwright served as mayor from 1966 to 1968 and remained on the city council until his election to the California State Assembly. Furthermore, Boatwright helped found the County Criminal Justice Agency, the Concord AAU Swim Club in Contra Costa County, and in 1974, he was the recipient of the Sierra Club's "Wildlife Conservationist of the Year" award (California Legislature at Sacramento, 1975, p.189).
In the 1972 General Election, Boatwright was first elected to the Assembly from the 10th Assembly District. The 1974 and 1976 elections demonstrate Boatwright's political popularity because, according to the California Legislature Handbook of 1977-1978, he was re-elected with the largest number of votes achieved statewide by any Democratic assembly member during those two elections. Boatwright chaired the top fiscal and budget-writing Assembly Committee on Ways and Means from 1976 to 1980. At the time of his appointment in 1976, he was the least tenured legislator ever named to head that powerful committee. In 1980, Boatwright decided to run for election to the state senate and in that general election, he was elected to the 7th Senate District by a substantial margin.
In the Senate, Boatwright's legislative interests fully honed in on fiscal activity and fiscal responsibility in state government. As the Chair of the Senate Select Committee on State Procurement and Expenditure Practices, Boatwright led investigations into allegations of fraud, corruption and monetary waste in state government programs. Furthermore, Boatwright chaired the Revenue and Taxation Committee as well as the top finance committee of the Senate, the Appropriations Committee in 1986. With that appointment, according to the California Legislature at Sacramento handbook of 1994, Boatwright became the only legislator to have chaired the top fiscal committees of both houses of legislature, the Ways and Means committee in the Assembly and the Appropriations Committee in the Senate. Throughout his legislative career, Boatwright continued to establish himself as a leader on issues that addressed property tax relief, closing tax loopholes for the wealthy, limits on government spending, promoting the use of alcohol fuels and other alternative energy sources in California, improving water quality and the environment, and providing funding for research of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Boatwright left office in 1996 because of term limits.
Following his distinguished twenty-four year career in office, Daniel Boatwright remained active and influential in politics and policy becoming a registered lobbyist in December 1996. According to his web-profile, Boatwright serves as general counsel to Sacramento Advocates, Inc., a prominent State Capitol lobbying firm established in 1990 by Boatwright's former committee consultant and chief of staff Barry S. Brokaw ([Link] accessed 18 July 2006). According to recent news articles, Boatwright still devotes a great deal of time to community sporting and charitable activities, especially towards continued research of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). In 1991, the California SIDS Conference established a Senator Daniel E. Boatwright Award for distinguished service in the fight against SIDS. The award acknowledges individuals in the California SIDS community who have performed extraordinary public service towards the treatment of SIDS. The Boatwright Award remains the most prestigious SIDS award given in California and is named for Boatwright because of his influential legislation regarding treatment of SIDS parents and standardizing examinations of SIDS cases.
According to the Assembly and Senate Final History books, 1973-1996, Boatwright served on the following committees, commissions, and boards during his legislative tenure:
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