{"id":107259,"date":"2026-04-29T10:32:44","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T10:32:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/2026\/04\/29\/anaheim-mayor-and-us-senator-john-seymour-dies-at-88\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T10:44:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T10:44:07","slug":"anaheim-mayor-and-us-senator-john-seymour-dies-at-88","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/2026\/04\/29\/anaheim-mayor-and-us-senator-john-seymour-dies-at-88\/","title":{"rendered":"Anaheim mayor and US senator John Seymour dies at 88"},"content":{"rendered":"

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John Seymour was the rare politician who didn’t mind risking his own career if it meant doing the right thing for his constituents.<\/p>\n

As newly elected mayor of Anaheim in 1978, he angered the city’s police department by suggesting the formation of a citizens’ oversight commission after residents complained that officers routinely harassed and beat them.<\/p>\n

The lifelong Republican upset his party’s conservative base as a state senator in the 1980s, when he announced his support for abortion rights and opposition to offshore drilling.<\/p>\n

Seymour told reporters in 1990, “I’m not always going to be right. So, to expect someone to never change their stance on an issue… is too much.”<\/p>\n

Appointed to the U.S. Senate in 1990 after Pete Wilson was elected governor, Seymour lost his seat to Dianne Feinstein two years later and never ran for public office again. He remains the last California Republican to serve in that role.<\/p>\n

Wilson, who was mayor of San Diego when he first met Seymour in the 1970s, said Monday, “John was a man who had a lot of courage, he had a lot of goodwill and a very good mind.” “Not only did he enjoy a little fighting, but he was also willing to put in the time required for it.”<\/p>\n

Seymour died at his home in Carlsbad on April 18. According to his son John, he was 88 and the cause was Alzheimer’s disease. <\/p>\n

As his party drifted to the right, the liberal Seymour had no problem becoming a political thinker. <\/p>\n

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Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, center, poses with senators on Capitol Hill in 1991. With Thomas, left to right, are Sens. John Seymour (R-Calif.), Larry Craig (R-Idaho), Bob Dole (R-Kan.), Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), Connie Mack (R-Fla.) and Dan Coats (R-Ind.), front right.<\/p>\n

(John Durica\/Associated Press)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

At the start of his Senate campaign in 1992 he told supporters, “If history should record my public service, in some footnote, I hope they will record me as a man who cares more about people than policy, a man who works hard for people who need help, but who does not hesitate to knock bureaucrats over the heads to get the job done.”<\/p>\n

Born in Chicago, Seymour settled in Southern California in the 1960s after a stint in the Marine Corps. The UCLA graduate started a real estate business in Orange County as the area transformed from farmland to suburbia. After four years on the Anaheim City Council, he became mayor in 1978. <\/p>\n

He quickly established his practical personality, which made his rise in California politics possible.<\/p>\n

Months after Seymour’s mayoral victory, Anaheim police officers invaded a Latino neighborhood and beat dozens of people, in what became known as the Little People’s Park riots. At community meetings, Seymour expressed surprise at learning of the poor relationship between the police and many residents.<\/p>\n

Mayer described his approach thus: “Don’t hide it under the carpet; don’t look the other way. Admit that we have a problem.”<\/p>\n

At the same time, Seymour was in talks with the Los Angeles Rams to relocate from the Coliseum to Orange County. While other OC officials proposed a new stadium, he convinced the Anaheim City Council to convert Angel Stadium into a multi-use venue, arguing that it would create “the greatest opportunity for Anaheim since Disneyland and the California Angels.”<\/p>\n

The Rams moved to the city in 1980. Two years later, Seymour moved to Sacramento as a state senator.<\/p>\n

He became head of the Republican Senate caucus in his first year and bucked the Orange County GOP firebrand stereotype by largely abandoning culture war issues in favor of issues like higher pay for teachers and government support for poor parents, which sometimes aligned him with Democrats. While this won him few friends in his own party, many were displeased by his personal ambitions \u2013 he once wrote a letter to the then Governor. George Deukmejian’s request that he be appointed state treasurer \u2013 and to distract Sacramento from getting more of its own people elected. <\/p>\n

Seymour made no apologies for selling himself as a public servant while demanding more power.<\/p>\n

Seymour told The Times in 1987, “I like to work. I’ve been a doer all my life. I don’t like sitting around sucking my thumb. I like solving problems.”<\/p>\n

That year, conservative opponents ousted him as caucus chair. Two years later he drew ridicule when he announced that he had personally opposed abortion, but now supported a woman’s right to choose.<\/p>\n

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\"Senator <\/picture>\n
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Senator John Seymour in 1991.<\/p>\n

(Don Boomer\/For The Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

The impetus was a decision by the US Supreme Court that gave states more leeway to regulate abortion. Since California had legalized the procedure decades ago, Seymour argued that they should respect women’s choices. Before making his change of heart public, he spoke to those who were both for and against abortion and to his family.<\/p>\n

Opponents accused the state senator of trying to pick off female voters as he campaigned for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor against fellow Orange County legislator Marion Bergeson, who opposed abortion. According to longtime Seymour campaign advisor Eileen Padberg, the allegation was fraudulent.<\/p>\n

“He wasn’t talked to about it \u2013 he was an impressive Marine,” he said. “He had to be convinced of anything before making a decision. Representing hundreds of candidates in my career, John was one of the very few people who consistently said about his stance, ‘It’s going to kill me, but I have to do it.'”<\/p>\n

Seymour lost the primary to Bergeson. Six months later, he was once again one of the most powerful Republicans in the state when he took the Senate seat that Wilson had vacated to become governor. <\/p>\n

Seymour’s son John remembered that his father received a call from Wilson while the family was vacationing in Shasta.<\/p>\n

John said, “Dad knew it was a heavy, burdensome responsibility and that it would have an impact on the family.” “But we kids said, ‘You should do it if it makes you happy.'”<\/p>\n

Seymour became the second Anaheim Republican to serve in this position, following Thomas Kuchel in the 1950s and 1960s.<\/p>\n

Wilson told The Times that he originally wanted to keep his friend in Sacramento to help advance his agenda. But the governor felt he needed a credible voice in Washington even more.<\/p>\n

“You’re looking for people who are not only friends but who are capable and experienced and understand what’s required,” Wilson said. “And I don’t think I was doing him any great favors, because it was a tough time for the state.”<\/p>\n

California was facing its worst recession in decades and a severe drought. The state’s prestigious defense industry was losing thousands of jobs as military bases closed after the end of the Cold War. <\/p>\n

This difficult task did not deter Seymour.<\/p>\n

“I mean, to be successful in the private sector you have to be good,” he told The Times in 1992. “But if you want to be successful working in the public sector, you have to be better than that! That’s the challenge!”<\/p>\n

Seymour spent most of his short time in the Senate in triage mode. He lobbied particularly hard for California’s real estate industry and called himself the “Senator of Realtors.” But the younger man’s outspoken demeanor failed to gain traction among California voters \u2013 a 1991 Times profile deemed him an “unknown senator.” And his one moment in the national spotlight became fodder for opponents.<\/p>\n

In the spring of 1992, deadly riots broke out in Los Angeles after a jury acquitted four police officers who beat Rodney King. As he once did in Anaheim, Seymour accompanied President George H.W. Bush on a listening tour of affected areas.<\/p>\n

This time, Seymour was accused of being indifferent to the root causes of the riot by soliciting photo opportunities a month before his primary election and airing television advertisements stating, “We can’t be tough enough on those who break the law.” White House aides derided him in the press as the “Velcro Senator.” His Republican opponent, Orange County Representative William Dannemeyer, dubbed him “Senator Flip Flop”.<\/p>\n

Seymour easily defeated Dannemeyer, then faced Democrat Dianne Feinstein, the former mayor of San Francisco, whose narrow defeat to Wilson in the governor’s race had brought her widespread name recognition. She received only 38% of the vote as Feinstein rode the Democratic wave that swept Bill Clinton into the White House and a record number of women into the U.S. Senate, including Barbara Boxer of California. <\/p>\n

California Department of Finance spokesman HD Palmer worked for Seymour at the time and witnessed his “regular guy” boss give “one of the kindest and most gracious concession speeches I have ever heard.” <\/p>\n

“He then went to OC to be with his supporters,” Palmer said. “He was true to his roots.”<\/p>\n

Wilson soon appointed Seymour to head the California Housing Finance Agency, which helps first-time homebuyers obtain low-rate loans. He remained in that role for two years before becoming chief executive of the Southern California Housing Development Corp. The Inland Empire nonprofit, which managed and built affordable housing complexes, is now known as National Community Renaissance or National CORE.<\/p>\n

John, who is the nonprofit’s vice president of acquisitions, said his father had no regrets about leaving politics because “housing was his passion. He saw it as a platform for people to develop. He used to say, ‘Once you get into a home, you have a big, beautiful horizon to do anything.'”<\/p>\n

Seymour drew on his past to urge skeptical cities and counties to allow affordable housing projects, and challenged them to be like him: do the right thing regardless of the political cost.<\/p>\n

At a housing conference in Cathedral City in 2002, he said, “If you’re really going to try to change an environment in which the mayor or the city council will do what they know is right in their heart, then you need to compensate for the political blowback.” “I challenge you to form an alliance.”<\/p>\n

Seymour is survived by his wife of 54 years, Judy; children John, Shad, Jeffrey, Barrett, Lisa Houser and Serena Talbert; nine grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Seymour was the rare politician who didn’t mind risking his own career if it meant doing the right thing for his constituents. As newly elected mayor of Anaheim in 1978, he angered the city’s police department by suggesting the formation of a citizens’ oversight commission after residents complained that officers routinely harassed and beat<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":107335,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[9217,1499,186,1764,124,26687],"class_list":{"0":"post-107259","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bible-verse","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-dies","10":"tag-john","11":"tag-mayor","12":"tag-senator","13":"tag-seymour"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107259"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107336,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107259\/revisions\/107336"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}