Meade, Kenneth A., 1938-

The California State Assembly was locked down by order of Speaker Bob Moretti. Republicans and Democrats held caucuses and all-night meetings, food and drinks delivered from the outside as they haggled and made deals in an effort to meet a June deadline to approve a state budget.

Serving the second of three terms in the Assembly representing the 16th District (Albany, Berkeley and Oakland), Meade made a personal plea to Moretti: “I told Bobby, ‘My marriage is coming apart and I can’t just sit around here, I’ve got to go home.’” Meade recollected. “Bobby said, ‘All right but on the condition that you be by the phone at all times. If anything comes up, I’m going to have the CHP pick you up and bring you here. Your vote on the budget is crucial.’

“My wife, Sharon, her major complaint—and it was a legitimate one—was that I was never there. So I’m down there with Sharon, we’re talking about the nuts-and-bolts of us staying together. We had two beautiful children and a beautiful home in the Oakland hills. Sharon was a wonderful, supportive wife. Then the phone rings. It’s Moretti. ‘You’ve got to come up here, I’ve got the CHP on the way.’ I looked at Sharon, she looks at me and at that instant the highway patrol was outside. So we sort of both knew, right there, that that was it…”

“AT AN EARLY AGE my father instilled in me a belief that American democracy was being highjacked by the growing power of the corporate state,” Meade said, pausing to snuff a Marlboro out on a saucer piled high with cigarette butts, thick with ashes and nicotine. “I think my father was a socialist, possibly a communist, though he didn’t belong to any organizations or get politically involved. But he felt that the concentrations of wealth and power in America were lording it over the people.”