SACRAMENTO
Jim Mills was the type of legislator whom voters would want to represent them in the state Capitol, regardless of party or era.
A studious policy wonk but a realist skilled at backroom legislating. Intense internally but laid-back outwardly. Tenacious but not overbearing. Basically ethical.
The Democrat delivered for his district a popular trolly system and the Old Town San Diego State Historic Park.
He delivered for environmentalists and preservationists across the state, promoting bicycle paths, helping create the Coastal Commission and authoring legislation that saved thousands of historic buildings by providing property tax breaks for owners.
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One building Mills preserved as Senate leader was the state Capitol. In the early 1970s, there was an obscene plan with powerful supporters to replace it with a twin-towers monstrosity. Mills nixed the idea and opted instead to restore the historic old Capitol.
Part of a storied era in California politics, James Mills helped preserve California and its history msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
CBS News veteran Roger Mudd, who derailed a Kennedy with one question, dies at 93
Reuters/Virginia
Photo:Reuters
Mudd died on Tuesday of complications from kidney failure at his home in Virginia.
Roger Mudd, the longtime CBS News political correspondent who famously helped sink Edward Kennedy’s White House ambitions by asking in an interview why the senator wanted to be president, leaving the candidate flustered, died on Tuesday at age 93.
Mudd, who covered politics and national affairs at CBS for two decades before working at NBC News, PBS and the History Channel, died at his home in McLean, Virginia, of complications from kidney failure, according to a CBS News statement.
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“With one simple question ‘Why do you want to be President?’ He derailed Ted Kennedy’s 1980 campaign. These are important times we are living in. We need to follow his example now more than ever.”
Mudd, who was born in Washington, D.C., began his career in the 1950s as a newspaper and radio reporter in Richmond, Virginia.
Joining CBS News as a congressional correspondent in 1961, he went on to report some of the biggest stories in Washington over the next two decades, including passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, extravagant Pentagon spending during the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal and the resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974.