Authors love to make news when their books come out, but John Burton went to extremes. Three days after his autobiography was published in September, Burton died.
The grand old California politician slipped away at 92, silenced after six decades of wrangling votes, calling in favors and raising hell across a legislative landscape that stretched from Pat Brown to Gavin Newsom.
At least Burton lived long enough to hold hardcopies of his new book, “I Yell Because I Care.” His coauthor, Sacramento journalist Andy Furillo, helped arrange for a box of special editions from publisher Bloomsbury Academic.
“When he got those six free copies they send to authors, he was really happy,” Furillo says.
The confluence of Burton and Furillo is a story untold by the book.
The pair became perfect collaborators, proud and pugnacious, experts in their fields, wary of each other but determined to produce a manuscript that blazes a majestic trail through California politics.
“His ego was zero,” Furillo says. “He wasn’t interested in building himself up. He just wanted to get the history down in writing, so people would know what happened. The book is all about being accountable for what happened.”
What happened was an extraordinary Capitol career. Elected at 33 to the state Assembly in 1965, Burton was the classic San Francisco Democrat.
During 17 years in the Assembly, another eight as a state senator and a decade in Congress, Burton fought for civil rights, labor unions, homeless youth and the environment. He swore and enjoyed booze and cocaine. He settled a sexual harassment lawsuit at age 76.
Furillo met Burton several times when Andy covered politics for the Bee. The reporter left no impression: “He didn’t remember me.”
Another Capitol reporter reintroduced Burton and Furillo in 2021 and suggested they form a writing team. Burton knew nothing about Furillo’s talent. He liked how Andy shared a name with an old-time baseball player, Carl Furillo.
“We talked three or four times. I recorded everything and wrote two chapters and sent them to him,” Furillo says. “He liked it and that was that.”
Despite Burton’s image as liberal firebrand, Furillo found his coauthor benign when it came to partisan doctrine.
“He didn’t have an ideology,” Furillo says. “He never thought in terms of left wing vs. right wing. He just did what he thought was right for people who didn’t have anything.”
Much of Burton’s success took place in Downtown restaurants and barrooms during legislative sessions and his job as state Democratic Party chairman.
“He really liked Sacramento,” Furillo says. “He hung out in all the old joints. Frank Fat’s, David’s Brass Rail, the old Torch Club on L Street.”
The book took two years. Burton and Furillo became friends, but their personalities wouldn’t allow a seamless, low-volume collaboration.
Furillo says, “There was some yelling and screaming. I quit once. I said, ‘It’s been fun, I hope it all works out,’ and walked away. By time I got to the BART station near his house, he called and we patched it up.”
Fact-checking—fundamental to Furillo’s journalism—became a diplomatic dance. Start to finish, the story belonged to Burton. But the reporter didn’t want the politician to embarrass himself.
“Sometimes I found something that contradicted what he told me,” Furillo says. “He’d say, ‘No, you’re wrong, it was this way.’ I’d say, ‘No, the facts are facts.’ We’d go around and around. Then he’d say, ‘Yeah, maybe you’re right.’”
“I Yell Because I Care” offers no shocking revelations. Instead, it brings clarity to a sprawling 52-year California political career. The book transcends Burton’s famed four-letter vocabulary.
In fine newspaper style, Furillo joins me one morning at the Fox & Goose. He boils the story into four sentences:
“As a young man, John was a basketball player and bartender. He was an assemblyman, state Senate pro temp and congressman. He thinks everything that happened to him, all of his success, is an accident. His life is all serendipity.”
R.E. Graswich can be reached at regraswich@icloud.com. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram: @insidesacramento.
