Burton, Sala Galante, 1925-1987

<p>Sala Galante Burton (April 1, 1925 – February 1, 1987) was a Polish-born American politician who served as a United States Representative from California from 1983 until her death from colon cancer in Washington, D.C., in 1987.</p>

<p>She was born Sala Galante into a Jewish family in Białystok, Poland. The family immigrated in 1939 before the German invasion of Poland to the US, and she attended public schools in San Francisco and then the University of San Francisco.</p>

<p>She was the associate director of the California Public Affairs Institute from 1948 to 1950. She was the vice president of the California Democratic Council from 1951 to 1954. She served as president of the San Francisco Democratic Women's Forum from 1957 to 1959.</p>

<p>A Polish émigré who fled the Nazis and settled in America, Sala Galante Burton succeeded her husband, the powerful California Representative Phillip Burton, after he died suddenly in 1983. In the House, Congresswoman Burton championed many of the same interests she had worked on during her decades as a leading figure in the California Democratic Party: civil rights, women’s reproductive rights, the environment, and world peace.</p>

<p>Sala Galante was born in Bialystock, Poland, on April 1, 1925, daughter of Max Galante, a Polish textile manufacturer. With her Jewish parents she fled Poland in 1939 at the age of 14, just before the Nazi invasion and occupation. “I saw and felt what happened in Western Europe when the Nazis were moving,” Burton recalled years later. “You learn that politics is everybody’s business. The air you breathe is political—it isn’t just a game for certain people. We must all be vigilant in terms of whom we elect to office, vigilant in terms of our civil rights and liberties.” She retained those memories and a hint of her Old World accent for the remainder of her life. She attended public schools in San Francisco, and studied at San Francisco University. From 1949 to 1950, she was associate director of the California Public Affairs Institute. Galante also worked with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in its efforts to eliminate job and housing discrimination. Sala Galante met her husband, Phillip Burton, at a California Young Democrats convention in 1950. They married three years later and raised a daughter, Joy, whom Sala Burton had from a previous marriage that had ended in divorce.</p>

<p>In the 1950s, Sala Burton embarked on an active political career that paralleled her husband’s rise to influence in state and national politics. She had a lighter, more genial touch than her husband’s sometimes brusque approach to issues. Phil Burton, who lost a race to be House Majority Leader in 1976 by one vote and was regarded as the dean of California politics, often referred to her as his better political half, “the popular Burton.” He added, “I keep Sala busy repairing all the fences I’ve busted.” She was a founder of the California Democratic Council and served as its vice president from 1951 to 1954. Burton presided over the San Francisco Democratic Women’s Forum from 1957 to 1959 and was a member of both the San Francisco County and California State Democratic Central committees. She also was a delegate to the Democratic National Conventions in 1956, 1976, 1980, and 1984. In 1964, when Phillip Burton won the first of 10 consecutive terms to the U.S. House from a San Francisco district, the Burtons moved to Washington, DC. In Washington, Sala Burton served as president of the Democratic Wives of the House and Senate from 1972 to 1974.</p>