Former Rep. John Burton, a frequently foul-mouthed liberal lion from San Francisco who served four full terms in Congress before leaving because of an addiction to nitrous oxide and crack but later became a mentor to many of his state’s most prominent Democrats, died Sunday. He was 92.
Burton won a special election in 1974 to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Rep. William Mailliard. Along with his brother Philip, who also served Congress, and Phillip’s widow, Sala, who succeeded her husband after his death, he was part of a California political dynasty that helped boost the careers of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Vice President Kamala Harris.
“There was no greater champion for the poor, the bullied, the disabled, and forgotten Californians than John Burton,” Newsom wrote on X. “His legacy is not only written in the policies he helped enact, but in the countless lives he touched and uplifted, including my own.”
