Pauline Davis; Assemblywoman for 24 Years

Pauline Davis, the former “Lady of the Lakes” who as an assemblywoman for 24 years guided some of California’s most significant water development proposals through the Legislature, is dead at 78.

Her family said Davis died Thursday at her Sacramento home. She had been under treatment for asbestos-caused lung cancer the last three months.

Her Assembly career was the longest of any woman in either house of the California Legislature. Based in Portola, she represented all or part of 12 rural Northern California counties from the Pacific Ocean to the Nevada border.

In her 12 terms, she served under five governors and eight Assembly speakers and was described by former Speaker Leo T. McCarthy as “the most effective legislator in representing her district that I have ever seen.”

She first sought an Assembly seat in 1952 after the death of her husband, Assemblyman Lester T. Davis, who had served since 1947. She operated a Sacramento gift shop for several years after her retirement in 1976.

Davis was born in a Czech-American community in Nebraska and did not begin learning English until elementary school.

A former railroad dispatcher and telephone operator, Davis was known as the “Lady of the Lakes” for her advocacy of recreational and water development projects in the state’s rural areas.

She coauthored the $130 million Davis-Grunsky Act for local water development in the 1960s. She also wrote laws adding recreation and natural resource protection to the State Water Project and creating a system of roadside rest areas for motorists.

In her first year in the Legislature, she authored a bill requiring equal pay for equal work by women. It never got out of committee.

From 1960 to 1966, Davis was the sole woman in the 120-member Legislature.

“Chauvinism?” she answered when a reporter asked her in 1974 about life in the male-dominated institution. “I don’t give them a chance. I’m so accustomed to being on my own, I just don’t give them a chance.”

She is survived by her son, State Appeals Court Justice Rodney Davis of Carmichael; two daughters, Karen Mier of Sacramento and Marlene Wagner of Citrus Heights; seven grandchildren and four great grandchildren.

An exhibit highlighting her legislative career is scheduled next month in the rotunda of the state Capitol.