Fifty years ago this month, I excitedly walked into the Los Angeles Times as a newly hired Capitol reporter.

I never thought I would still be here half a century later.

There’s a simple secret to hanging around for so long: don’t be put off and quit.

Another factor is luck: not being where the dismissal ax falls. Many talented colleagues have folded.

A lot has changed since 1974 at The Times, in the Capitol, in California politics. Some have been good, some bad.

I’ll come back to that. But first some background information.

I am a native Californian who loves the state despite all its problems rooted in the overcrowding of attractive places to live, especially the South Coast.

I grew up on a small orange farm in Ojai, which cost just $9,000 in 1942, and was raised by hard-working, barely middle-class parents who had emigrated from the South in search of the proverbial California Dream.

I was the first in my father’s family to attend high school, let alone graduate. This was possible because California at the time offered its residents tuition-free higher education. It has been that way for generations and it should still be that way. Govs Ronald Reagan and Jerry Brown ushered in education in the 1970s and 1980s, a cowardly act.

My newspaper career began at age 16 as a printer’s fiend cleaning presses, melting Linotype lead for the weekly Ojai Valley News. I also excelled at writing sports stories in high school for 10 cents an inch.

The big break was landing a job as assistant sports editor of the Ventura Star while attending community college. After graduating from San Jose State, I briefly covered local government for the then-Sunnyvale Standard, but was soon hired by United Press International in San Francisco as a low-budget sportswriter.

That’s how I ended up in Sacramento: I was motivated in the wrong way by the great pitcher Warren Spahn of the then Milwaukee Braves.

While covering the 1961 Major League All-Star game in San Francisco, the future Hall of Famer strolled up to me in the National League locker room, ogled my press credentials and remarked: That’s cool. I can give that to someone [woman]. He used an unprintable vulgarity. Then he ripped the souvenir from the lapel of my jacket and put it in his pocket.

That made me a political writer. The next day I requested a transfer to Sacramento.

There were assholes in politics too, I thought. But at least they were doing things that were actually important in people’s lives, beyond providing entertainment and escape.

I quickly discovered that there are many similarities between sports and politics. Arrogance and egos affect both, although politicians don’t tend to act like jerks. They have to win popularity contests to stay in work.

Anyway, after the 1961 baseball season, I arrived at the UPI office in Sacramento, a week before legendary Democrat Jesse (Big Daddy) Unruh of Inglewood was elected Speaker of the Assembly.

Then and now are like night and day.

In 1961, all forty members of the Senate were white men.

There was one female lawmaker to one of 80 Democrat Pauline Davis of Plumas County. You can thank her for rest stops on the highway.

There were two members of the Black Assembly: one was Byron Rumford (D-Berkeley), who wrote legislation in 1963 that ended racial discrimination in the sale and rental of housing. It was perhaps the largest and most bitter brawl ever at the California Capitol.

Even in 1974, there were only three female legislators. There were six black members, including Assemblyman Willie Brown (D-San Francisco), a brilliant political tactician who later became the longest-serving speaker. There were only five Latino and three Asian American lawmakers.

Today, there is a good mix of genders, races and ethnicities in the 120-member Legislature: 50 women, 39 Latinos, 13 Asian Americans and 12 Black

legislators

.

That’s because more opportunities have opened up for women and there are many more Latino and Asian American voters. California Latinos also became more politically active. And the demise of gerrymandering helped diversify the legislature.

Term limits introduced by voters in 1990 increased legislative turnover, making more room for women and people of color. That’s the positive side of term limits. The downside is the loss of many good, experienced legislators with policy and legislative expertise.

Even more dramatic changes have taken place at the Capitol.

Due to a Supreme Court ruling in the 1960s, the distribution of Senate seats is based on population, not geography. Previously it was collected after the US Senate. Senate representation in LA County increased from one to about fourteen. I don’t think this has resulted in a more productive legislature.

The Legislature went into full-time office in 1966, with results still in doubt.

Despite Democratic objections, voters were encouraged by the Republican administration. Arnold Schwarzenegger ended the legislature’s dirty practice of redrawing legislative and congressional districts for partisan advantage. A very healthy thing.

One bad thing: California’s Republican Party imploded, ignoring a warning from Schwarzenegger that we would die at the box office. We don’t fill the seats.

So now we have a one-party government in Sacramento. There is a loss of moderating influence and thoughtful compromise that is necessary in a republican democracy.

California went from a purple state to deep blue, mainly due to demographic changes. Latino and Asian American voters shifted left as many saw Republicans as anti-immigrant. And the Republican Party found itself trapped in opposition to abortion rights, gun control and environmental protections favored by voters.

The best governor I ever defeated? Simple. Pat Brown, the builder of college campuses, highways and the controversial state water project that he probably couldn’t sell today because of environmental concerns.

The most exciting: Ronald Reagan, an outspoken conservative who governed moderately and raised taxes when necessary, signed the nation’s most liberal abortion rights law and protected the environment.

However, he returned to his conservative instincts when I presented him as president.

Luckily, every news organization I’ve worked at, including the old Sacramento Union, was at its peak when I was there. They have since been compressed or collapsed.

The demise of newspapers and staff cuts mean less attention is paid to elected officials.

For me it was challenging, exciting and fun to be one of the eyeballs. I couldn’t ask for a better job than breaking the political bully.